McCain waves ‘white flag of surrender’ in Michigan

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“[We're in] a swing county in a swing state, so let’s have no doubt that this will be a battleground state. … We’ll have to work hard here in this state. … We’ll have to be on the bus, all around this state and convince people we have a plan of action to restore the economy. I know and you know that Michigan has been badly and hard-hit by this economic situation that we are in today.” — John McCain, Beaver Aerospace & Defense Plant, Livonia, August 13

In July, August and September it seemed that John McCain was coming to Michigan weekly. Fundraising in Grand Rapids, touring a nuclear facility in Monroe, touting the Volt in Warren, walking through a defense factory in Livonia, rallying the faithful in Sterling Heights.

His campaign and the Republican National Committee — which holds the purse strings for McCain due to his signing of a public funding agreement — spent $1 million a week on advertising here.

But Michigan will see no more visits from McCain and Sarah Palin, and neither will we see ads on local television, the messages of which are approved by the Arizona senator.

Yesterday it was learned that the Republican nominee for president is redirecting his resources — his staff, his money, his time — to other swing states.

There were good reasons why Michigan, which hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since George H.W. Bush in 1988, might have been swung into the red column this time around. The union base continues to shrink, for one. And with the economy and jobs eroding with the advent of globalization in the early ’90s, the population in Michigan has been getting older as young people leave the state to find work.

An older population and a severely reduced number of organized labor voters were trends that played into McCain’s perceived demographic strengths.

But even after regular visits and a carpet bombing of paid advertising, observers say it was voters’ lack of confidence in McCain’s ability to turn around the economy that failed to offer advances in poll numbers here. Yesterday, a poll by Public Policy Polling showed Obama ahead by 10 in Michigan.

According to the Associated Press:

McCain had identified Michigan early on as a potential target, particularly in light of Obama’s troubles with white working class voters in other Rust Belt primaries although he skipped Michigan because of a Democratic Party fight over its primary date and didn’t set up a campaign organization there during the primary.

But Michigan posed other difficulties for McCain. It has a Democratic governor and the nation’s highest annual average unemployment rate since 2006. McCain’s 90 percent support in the Senate for the unpopular President Bush, a theme hammered by Obama, proved too much for the GOP nominee to overcome.

GOP strategists said those troubles became more acute for McCain in Michigan after the Wall Street collapse, and both public and private polls showed him sliding. On Wednesday night, the campaign decided that the $1 million a week it was spending in Michigan wasn’t worth it with polls showing Obama approaching a double-digit lead, according to Republican insiders, who requested anonymity to avoid annoying the McCain campaign.

Certainly the decision, which was criticized fairly soundly last night by cable television pundits and electoral strategists, came as a surprise to many locally, including the Michigan GOP.

But Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis issued a General MacArthur-like statement yesterday to the press:

“I have always said that the winds that drive presidential campaign decisions can shift and shift suddenly. I have no doubt the campaign will be back. This has occurred previously, in some degree or another, in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, and when polls tighten, advertising can quickly be added and people moved back to Michigan.”

Michigan-based right-wing blogs were pretty quiet last night, but this post by a writer who goes by “Nick” on rightmichigan.com noted his disappointment:

The McCain campaign is abandoning Michigan. That sucks. Hard.

But the post by Nick also offers a pep talk imploring fellow Michigan conservatives to work harder for Republicans on down-ticket races like Tim Walberg and Joe Knollenberg for the U.S. Congress and for incumbent state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cliff Taylor.

Comments of disgust with McCain were found below the post, suggested Michigan conservatives look at alternatives to McCain, including Libertarian Bob Barr and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin.

Frustration was not limited to bloggers, naturally. Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop was quoted in the AP:

“John McCain is our candidate. We want him in Michigan. We want him to hear our issues.”

With the news that McCain’s campaign was pulling up stakes and redirecting resources, Michigan Messenger’s Minehaha Forman called up the McCain campaign’s Great Lakes Regional Headquarters in Farmington Hills for a statement. When no one answered the phone, she drove to the site at the Trott Center, where she found it open for business yesterday late afternoon, if not necessarily buzzing with activity.

Two McCain supporters were waiting in the lobby for McCain-Palin yard signs. Forman spoke with a receptionist there, a blond woman in her early 20s, who told her about a phone banking event that the headquarters was going to be hosting last night to remind people to watch the evening’s 9 p.m. Vice Presidential Debate. Volunteers were then invited to attend a “Pretty in Pink” potluck party at a home in Bloomfield Hills where female attendees were encouraged to wear “something pink.”

The Detroit Free Press reported last night that McCain’s full-time staffers, possibly including those staffing the Farmington Hills headquarters, are expected to be moved to “other battleground states, especially Wisconsin, Florida and Ohio.”

Michigan Republicans insist they are not too worried about losing voters on Nov. 4, even though conventional wisdom might suggest that McCain’s pull-out might keep some would-be McCain supporters at home on Election Day — voters who won’t be at the polls to also pull the lever for down-ticket local races.

According the Free Press:

What remains to be seen is whether McCain’s decision is reversible and whether it will have an adverse effect on other Republican candidates already in tight races in the state. Two incumbents — Rep. Joe Knollenberg of Bloomfield Township and Rep. Tim Walberg of Tipton — fit the bill.

Nate Bailey, a spokesman for Knollenberg, said that even without McCain coming to town, there’s enough interest in the presidential race that turning out the vote shouldn’t be a problem.

Michigan GOP Chairman Anuzis rejected that concern as well in his statement:

“That’s why while we’ve been breaking our backs for the McCain campaign, we’ve also remained focused on our Michigan priorities – re-electing Chief Justice Cliff Taylor, Congressmen Joe Knollenberg and Tim Walberg, and electing Republicans to the state house, county, and local offices. The infrastructure we built isn’t really affected by decisions like this that come so late in the game. Also, knowing the fickle nature of national campaigns, the Michigan Republican Party had the foresight to open several volunteer centers around the state with the sole mission of focusing on our Michigan candidates.”

According to another article on the McCain retreat from Michigan in the Washington Post:

Obama has made his own strategic retreats, scaling back his initial ambitions for a “50-state” strategy by pulling out of states such as Georgia, North Dakota and Alaska after polls showed the Republican opening a wide lead in them.

The difference is that none of those states were considered swing states, and none had the resources dedicated to them that McCain dedicated to Michigan.

But while the battle here is lost. It is only lost for now, for McCain. And the war is yet to be decided. It remains to be seen, however, if McCain will be able to gain back traditional red territory currently siding blue elsewhere around the country, or if he will be able to take the money and staff from Michigan to help him win traditional blue states such as Wisconsin and Maine.

Leaving Michigan to Obama is a tactical move that could pay off in the end for McCain.

But for now and likely days to come, it’s a public relations disaster nationally and a morale hit for the state’s Republican voters who wanted to see McCain fight here through November 4.

(Minehaha Forman and Diane Sweet contributed to this story.)