McCain conceding nothing in Michigan

Apparently determined to let no visit by his opponent go unchallenged, Sen. John McCain descended on Michigan today just one day after Sen. Barack Obama visited the state’s capital.

McCain’s Tuesday afternoon visit to the Fermi II nuclear plant in Republican-leaning Monroe County to support nuclear energy, where he was joined by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was closed to the public and the press.

“Solving our national energy crisis requires an ‘all of the above’ approach,” read McCain’s prepared remarks, released to the media. “That will require aggressive development of alternative energies like wind, solar, tidal and bio-fuels. It also requires expanding traditional sources of energy like off shore drilling, clean coal, and nuclear power like the power produced at this plant here in Michigan.”

McCain’s visit was the latest in a recent string of Michigan appearances by the presumed Republican nominee.

“I’d be willing to guess — and this is strictly a guess — that his appearance has to do with the Obama appearance yesterday,” said University of Michigan political research scientist William Jacoby. “They believe this is a state open to competition. It’s tit for tat. I think that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

Gauging from the steady drumbeat of campaign appearances by both candidates over the last two months, Michigan is clearly viewed as a contested state. Voters here have supported the Democratic candidate for president in every election since 1992. Yet McCain won the state’s Republican presidential primary in 2000, and Leah Yoon, McCain’s regional communications director, said last month that “Michigan is a state which we believe is within striking distance of winning in November.”

Both campaigns have been flooding the state with costly television ads. According to the nonprofit organization Michigan Campaign Finance Network, by July 20 McCain had spent $3.2 million on TV advertising in the state, while by July 28 Obama had spent $2.7 million. Former McCain rival and native son Mitt Romney has been stumping heavily for McCain and is widely believed to be on a short list of potential vice presidential nominees, valued for his appeal to the party’s right wing but especially for his Michigan roots. (Jonathan Martin at Politico reports that McCain is leaning toward announcing his veep choice after Obama’s speech at the Democratic convention on Aug. 28.)

But Jacoby said Michigan’s blue leanings and bad economy mean all the love McCain is showing Michiganders is likely to go unrequited.

“I’m really surprised at the money McCain is investing here,” he said. “I don’t think it’s likely McCain will win this state. I think any Democratic state is going to go Democratic this year.”

The visit to Fermi II, an 1,130-megawatt boiling water reactor near Lake Erie, was an opportunity for McCain to showcase his support for nuclear energy, which he believes will help the United States reduce its dependence on foreign oil. The candidate has called for the construction of 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 and points to France, which gets about 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear sources, as a model of how to successfully harness nuclear power.

Yet in some respects, Fermi II is an odd location for McCain to highlight the nuclear power’s benefits: the plant site’s original reactor, Fermi I, had a partial meltdown in the 1960s and was decommissioned in 1972. It was forced to make an emergency shutdown this year when two water pumps failed.

The Detroit News reported that Graham said at the Detroit airport today that he supported McCain’s plan for new nuclear power plants as a way to help achieve oil independence. He also reportedly validated McCain’s plan to develop technology to recycle nuclear waste into fuel for nuclear plants, saying “If … you can’t recycle, it’s a backdoor way from keeping the industry from growing.”

The closed nature of the event was in line with McCain’s other recent visits, to Warren and Belleville. Both were invitation-only “town halls,” though both were open to the press. In contrast, nearly all Obama campaign events in the state have been open to the public and the press.

“I think these are decades-long differences between the campaign styles and the public relations styles of the Democratic and Republican parties,” Jacoby said. “The Republicans have at least since the 1960s taken a more — the only term I can think of is professional — view of this, the process and setting of relatively controlled environments so they can control the interaction. The people who plan events for Democrats maintain this sort of openness, a style that emphasizes the connection of the candidate with diverse constituencies.”