Michigan Caught Media Glare During Primary, Some Buzz Good, A Lot Bad

McCain's Bus Taking Gas for His Comment: Those Jobs Gone, Retrain Instead

January 17, 2008
By: Dave Rogers

John McCain's Straight Talk Express got a flat tire when he said Michigan industrial jobs aren't coming back.

The senator from Arizona may believe that, but it wasn't what Michigan folks, from workers to executives, wanted to hear.

So McCain took a bath in Michigan and native son Mitt Romney not only was the big winner in the vote column but also in the idea category.

Several pundits theorized that Romney's pledge to bring back the automotive jobs to Michigan should he become President revitalized his lagging campaign.

"The circus is over," radio commentator Mitch Albom commented.

The show included a laughable mistake when the Michigan Republican Party erroneously announced a McCain victory, ala the Chicago Tribune "Dewey Beats Truman" headline of 1948.


The risky strategy by state political leaders to stage an early primary against opposition by national political organizations probably paid off in the end.

Candidates like Hillary Clinton who was on the ballot but found other places to campaign, took notice of Michigan and promised to pay attention to the job situation here.

What it did more than anything is to let the nation know that Michigan voters haven't given up on manufacturing and aren't ready to settle for McCain's idea "those jobs are gone" and to shift the focus on retraining.

"Retraining for what?" shouted Lou Dobbs, CNN's peripatetic cheerleader for the middle class.

Dobbs of course makes an incisive point: even computer-related jobs have gone offshore so in what sector of the economy are workers going to be placed?

The whole early primary exercise Republican and Democratic leaders put Michigan through brought a lot of criticism, even outright scorn, down on the state.

Some commentators like Newt Gingrich made outrageous comments like "How could the governor of Michigan raise taxes when it's in a one state recession?"

Hogwash! Gov. Jennifer Granholm didn't raise taxes, both parties agreed on a package to replace the Single Business Tax and keep the ship of state afloat for awhile. As it was, a state shutdown was barely averted and there is a lot of financial ground to make up.

One state recession? Wrong again, pundits. There are at least 13 states in dire straits because of the so-called subprime mortgage crash. And more are likely to join the list.

Apparently Gingrich and company haven't been to California where it's not so sunny right now. The land of fruits and nuts, as we used to call it when I lived there in the 1950s, has a deficit estimated at from $4 billion to $14 billion.

Maybe he hasn't visited the Big Apple either, where the budget deficit is projected at $4.3 billion, Florida, expecting to be $1.2 to $2.4 billion in the hole.

Virginia, Arizona, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Rhode Island and South Carolina all are in fiscal trouble too, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C.

The main point made to the influential media and governmental types is that Washington needs to at long last get its act together to level the playing field on trade before there are no jobs left that pay a living wage.###