The Republican comeback starts in Michigan.
Everyone knows it's coming next year. Two of the domestic automakers synonymous with the state have filed bankruptcy on President Obama's watch. Unemployment has hit 14.1 percent. The state budget has sunk at least $1.7 billion in the red despite his precious stimulus package.
Michiganders are already peeved at Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm about our state resembling some of the finer third world countries. Naturally, that will wound Lt. Gov. John Cherry in his gubernatorial quest and the president's coming unpopularity will bludgeon him.
Besides, any student of history knows that first-term midterm elections are death for the party of the incumbent president (except when they aren't, like in 1934 and 2002). The Obama backlash is inevitable, hence the canny GOP strategy to wage war against gay adoption and legal, life-saving embryonic stem cell research, instead of focusing on real problems.
And lo, one of the six -- er, five -- barely discernible Republican candidates will ride to the governor's mansion.
Except that the president isn't a political rube, despite fruitless attempts by right-wing commentators to paint him as such. (But hey, college dropouts/circus clowns Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are given platforms to question the intellectual heft of a Supreme Court nominee who's a summa cum laude Princeton graduate, so why not).
Obama orchestrated the best-organized presidential campaign Michigan has seen in decades, slathering the state with paid staff even after John McCain had fumblingly pulled out. A Midwesterner himself, the president realizes how critical the Rust Belt is for Democrats, who were ridiculed as the party of coastal hybrid-driving, latte-sipping elites just four short years ago.
There's a lot of spin that the GOP will take back Congress next year, but the Dems' lopsided majorities make that almost statistically impossible. So the focus will be on how the GOP fares in key states.
And on Election Night 2010, all eyes will be on Michigan, complete with Anderson Cooper's cliches about how it's all playing with Macomb County Reagan Democrats, Oakland County soccer moms and autoworkers chain-smoking in bowling alleys.
If the Republicans win the governorship here, the national media will trumpet that as an Important Trend. And a sign of the president's impending doom in 2012.
That's why barely a week goes by without some Obama cabinet official dropping by to shower the Mitten State with money for worker retraining, green energy and unemployment benefits. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke have practically moved in.
So is the prez trying to buy our love? You betcha. And so far, it seems to be working.
One of the most foolish political calculations Republicans have made is that Americans hate government spending. They rail endlessly against pork-barrel projects as the rule and not the exception, though they're only 1 percent of the federal budget. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford even trotted out a piggy at a press conference (before confessing to being one this week).
Still, most citizens are a-OK with cash from Uncle Sam, as long as they see the benefit. (Note those colorful Recovery Act signs popping up everywhere). Obama is counting on targeted spending to immunize the public against the GOP's tax-hiking charges. But just in case, he's cut taxes for most Americans, too.
And whenever the Obama gang's in town, they always make sure to show the love to the state's Democratic leaders. This month, Vice President Biden celebrated the 2000th infrastructure project in Kalamazoo, where he absolved Gov. Granholm of any wrongdoing in the state's financial collapse and lauded her "sense of optimism."
Even U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican (!), offered this syrupy sonnet: "I know people with hard jobs. I know the president and vice president. And nobody has a harder job than Jennifer Granholm."
They might want to start pumping up Cherry, the most underutilized member of the governor's administration who's under daily assault from the Michigan GOP for single-handedly steering Michigan into meltdown. (Of the lieutenant guv, Biden could only muster, "I don't know John as well, but I've heard nothing but wonderful things.")
Everyone agrees Cherry is a dead duck next year. The reason for that mostly lies in partisan psychology: Democrats always think the sky is falling (even when they're winning) and ever-confident Republicans never regard landslide defeats to be a repudiation of their policies. It's just an inexplicable quirk, like the popularity of plaid pants.
But while conservative spinmeisters keep bleating that the number of GOP gubernatorial contenders is a sign of strength and Cherry's poll numbers are abysmal, they have an inherent problem: They're still Republicans, and nobody besides the true believers like that label right now.
The GOP is home to only about one in five voters. In Michigan, Democrats hold a 14-point advantage, despite considerable Granholm fatigue. As Republican consultant Dennis Darnoi's research shows, demographics have shifted dramatically against the GOP. And Republicans' hamhanded reaction to his white paper shows just how staggeringly disorganized they are.
Nobody knows John Cherry outside of Lansing yet. He has time to cut the cord from Granholm and position himself as the steady hand Michigan needs in these turbulent times. Most of all, he can make sure everyone knows he's Not A Republican, but his opponent sure is.
One thing that's telling: Besides the online Kool-Aid drinkers, I've yet to find a Republican who thinks he'd do a bad job as governor.
That's not to say that Cherry will win in a walk. The situation in the Mitten State is far from stable and we're more than a year out. But as of now, rumors of Republican recovery appear to be greatly exaggerated.
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Hasn't Michigan been suffering under Democratic leadership for the last decade? So you want to continue this myopic assault on prosperity
BTW: How has that Obama thing been working out for you?