Let me check... it is 2008, right?
So, I just read the Oakland Press from today. I did not realize that I live in redneck central, but...
MOUNT CLEMENS -- Michigan's history of racial tensions is tugging against its Democratic tendencies, giving Barack Obama fits when most everything else potentially benefits Democrats: a soaring unemployment rate, shrinking auto industry and depressed housing market.
The first minority candidate with a serious shot at the presidency is not running as well as his Democratic predecessors among working-class white people in this pivotal Midwestern swing state, partly because of the color of his skin.
"I've got a lot of friends ... (who) are like, 'Oh, no,'" when it comes to voting for a black presidential candidate, said John Martin, a 42-year-old Democrat from Macomb County's Harrison Township who backs Obama. "They're all working people, all in unions, plumbers and stuff like that. ... A few of them have said they're not even going to vote."
...
But Republicans think tying Obama to the racially polarizing mayor might help John McCain, particularly in Detroit's suburbs. A recent CNN/ Time/Opinion Research Corp. poll showed McCain leading Obama by 14 percentage points among whites in Michigan. The Republican also had an 18-point lead in the Detroit suburbs, which split about evenly between Bush and Kerry in 2004.
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/091608/pol_20080916378.shtml
There is a little more redeeming value towards the end here... by that, I mean that at least they aren't voting by skin color!
McCain's folksy style, his military record and his patriotism connect well with Michigan's blue-collar voters, one reason he was able to win the state's 2000 GOP primary over Bush, with the help of Democrats and independents.
It's a record that could appeal strongly to voters north of Detroit in Macomb County, home to many of the "Reagan Democrats" -- blue-collar, socially conservative voters who often are Catholic and of eastern European descent.
Many are older residents who oppose abortion and support gun rights, and ardently defend their union rights. That's a profile that lines up closely with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who likes to hunt and whose union-member husband has worked in oil fields and raced snowmobiles, a popular pastime in Michigan.
Bernie Porn of the Lansing polling firm EPIC-MRA said conservative Democrats and swing voters can be won over by Obama, but are skeptical that he feels their pain. Comparing polls from July and August, Porn said he saw Obama slipping in Macomb County among Reagan Democrats, union members and Catholics.
MOUNT CLEMENS -- Michigan's history of racial tensions is tugging against its Democratic tendencies, giving Barack Obama fits when most everything else potentially benefits Democrats: a soaring unemployment rate, shrinking auto industry and depressed housing market.
The first minority candidate with a serious shot at the presidency is not running as well as his Democratic predecessors among working-class white people in this pivotal Midwestern swing state, partly because of the color of his skin.
"I've got a lot of friends ... (who) are like, 'Oh, no,'" when it comes to voting for a black presidential candidate, said John Martin, a 42-year-old Democrat from Macomb County's Harrison Township who backs Obama. "They're all working people, all in unions, plumbers and stuff like that. ... A few of them have said they're not even going to vote."
...
But Republicans think tying Obama to the racially polarizing mayor might help John McCain, particularly in Detroit's suburbs. A recent CNN/ Time/Opinion Research Corp. poll showed McCain leading Obama by 14 percentage points among whites in Michigan. The Republican also had an 18-point lead in the Detroit suburbs, which split about evenly between Bush and Kerry in 2004.
http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/091608/pol_20080916378.shtml
There is a little more redeeming value towards the end here... by that, I mean that at least they aren't voting by skin color!
McCain's folksy style, his military record and his patriotism connect well with Michigan's blue-collar voters, one reason he was able to win the state's 2000 GOP primary over Bush, with the help of Democrats and independents.
It's a record that could appeal strongly to voters north of Detroit in Macomb County, home to many of the "Reagan Democrats" -- blue-collar, socially conservative voters who often are Catholic and of eastern European descent.
Many are older residents who oppose abortion and support gun rights, and ardently defend their union rights. That's a profile that lines up closely with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who likes to hunt and whose union-member husband has worked in oil fields and raced snowmobiles, a popular pastime in Michigan.
Bernie Porn of the Lansing polling firm EPIC-MRA said conservative Democrats and swing voters can be won over by Obama, but are skeptical that he feels their pain. Comparing polls from July and August, Porn said he saw Obama slipping in Macomb County among Reagan Democrats, union members and Catholics.