Redstate

By RightMichigan.com Posted in Archived | Barack | Fred Thompson | Hillary | John Edwards | John McCai | Michigan | POTUS | Primary | Romney | Ron Paul — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

Today is the day... did you vote yet?  Then what are you sitting around reading a blog for?  Go.  Vote.  Forthwith.  Then come back.  I'll wait...

~twiddling thumbs~

~whistling~

~pacing room~

~looking at wrist pretending there's a watch there~

Back?  Awesome.  You may have been one of the first to vote today but you certainly won't be the last.  Early projections vary but all expect the primary election to draw around 1.5 million people.  That's about a 20% voter turnout when you do the math.  In 2000, the last time the State had a presidential primary we drew about 1.4 million so you can do the math on that one.  Of course back then there was only a GOP contest.  And as a group of lawmakers from metro-Detroit continue to point out in the press and via advertising and a grassroots ground game, there is very much a Democrat contest this year as well.

Recent polls show the "Uncommitted" option drawing about 30% of the statewide vote.  That would be... devastating for Hillary Clinton, the only top tier candidate with her name on the ballot.  But an examination of the actual delegate assignment rules indicates that even half that total could be just as destructive to her delegate count.  The Detroit News reports:

Supporters of Obama and Edwards urged voters to vote "uncommitted."

If 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district is uncommitted, its delegates will be free to represent any candidate...

Last week, Rep. John Conyers Jr., a Detroit Democrat who supports Obama, began running radio commercials imploring party members to vote uncommitted.

A newly formed group, Detroiters for Uncommitted Voters, which also supports Obama, has campaigned door to door and on the phone asking people not to commit to any of the candidates listed on the ballot.

Fifteen percent in a district puts every single delegate up for grabs.  We'll do the math tonight once the votes are cast and counted but my initial reaction is YIKES!  It's conceivable that Clinton could pull off an 80-20 win in the State and walk away with ZERO delegates from the Congressional Districts.  That's a serious blow to her momentum on the leaderboard but won't necessarily do anything to her juice in the MSM.  For that I think we'll need to see something more on the order of 70-30.  If she can't pull more than 70% of the vote in a State where she's the only candidate then the Hussein-Train picks up one incredible shot in the arm.  And the way the MSM is fawning all over the guy like he's some sort of mythical hero, come to slay the dragon?  Good times in the press for Obama would be certain to follow.

Of course, that's all still a guessing game until tonight which means the candidates who actually care about our votes and the future of the State of Michigan have work to do yet today after another busy day criss-crossing the State yesterday.  And as the Associated Press reports, candidates are taking Michigan's  workers and lost jobs seriously.  At least the Republican candidates are.  

As they toured the State yesterday and made their way to the big auto show in Detroit the news service caught up with the candidates and as you can see, they've got Michigan on the mind:

John Edwards (who couldn't be bothered to visit): ~silence~

Mike Huckabee:  "It isn't real sensible to me that the toughest reason to keep jobs is not that somebody across the world is competing against your business, but it's that your own government won't get off your back," he told about 200 Demmer employees (in Lansing before touring the auto show).

Hillary Clinton (who couldn't be bothered to visit): ~crickets chirping~

Mitt Romney: "I'm convinced that the future of this (Michigan auto) industry is bright. It's gone through some tough times but the idea that the American automobile industry is in trouble or is declining is simply wrong," Romney said in front of a Chevy Equinox hydrogen fuel cell.

Barack Obama (who couldn't be bothered to visit): ~whistling wind~

John McCain: McCain, touring the Detroit auto show late in the day, praised auto industry workers for building "green technology" and credited Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Dearborn for helping to mold a recent agreement on fuel economy standards.

OK, so maybe there was one liberal in the State yesterday and leave it to the left's token member of the GOP field to start harping on the positive side of a CAFE spike that will add a $5,000 tax to the cost of every vehicle manufactured by an American company without touching foreign cars, without actually impacting fuel consumption or curbing the global warming "epidemic."  Still, McCain was in the State asking for our votes and telling us to our faces that he wants to help cripple our biggest industry and I'll give him credit for that.

And I'm not the only one.  The Ivory Tower might not have the intestinal fortitude to take their Dem party bosses to the woodshed over blacklisting their home State but they did the next best thing by at least highlighting the need for national attention:

It was important that on the day before the Michigan presidential primary, the leading Republican candidates all wandered through the North American International Auto Show -- the marquee event for the state's marquee industry, a chance to see how Detroit steel and ingenuity can still shine.

It'll be even more important for the winner of November's election to remember to come back to see us next year.

The auto show visits Monday actually were effective at bringing Michigan's peculiar issues to national attention one more time before today's balloting...

Michigan needs a president who'll take real action against the currency manipulation, unfair labor standards and protectionist trade policies that give foreign companies a ridiculous and largely unearned advantage over their American counterparts. And it needs someone to push back against Washington's worst instincts, the ones that seek to move the automakers by punishing them rather than working with them.

I guess the FREEP doesn't like John McCain either.  Except, wait... didn't they just endorse him?