I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
In the wake of the controversy surrounding Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s appearances in Michigan last weekend, some prominent national political analysts are talking about whether the Republican governor, or any moderate or pragmatist, can lead the GOP into the next election. Marc Ambinder writes at The Atlantic:
Most recently, Huntsman spent some time in Michigan, where his stance on civil unions — he’s for ‘em — drew lots of attention, and some ire. Because so many Republican primary voters don’t care for gay people, and because these Republicans are more important to the make-up of the GOP primary electorate than, say, activist liberals are to the Democratic electorate, the political gadfly’s first instinct is to dismiss the Huntsman case outright.
How in the heck can he possibly compete in Iowa? That’s always the first instinct. It’s a bad instinct, because Republican presidential nominees often do not win Iowa — McCain and Dole and Bush (Sr.) and Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon (and Ike, Dewey and Wendell Willkie.)
Armbinder notes that Huntsman is clearly laying the groundwork for a presidential run, lining up key fundraisers and reaching out to power brokers in key states. And I think he’s right that the value of Iowa in playing kingmaker in the Republican primaries is overstated.
George W. Bush in 2000 was the first non-incumbent Republican in the last 35 years to win the Iowa caucuses and go on to win the nomination. John McCain finished in a distant tie for third with Fred Thompson last year, getting only 13% of the vote and trailing Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney by wide margins. Winning Iowa simply isn’t the key to winning the presidential nomination, in either party (Bill Clinton got only 3 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses in 1992).
So, can Huntsman win the Iowa caucuses? Not likely. Moderates do not tend to do well in Iowa, where the GOP tends to list hard to the religious right. But this really has little to do with whether he can win the nomination.
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