(I thought this was interesting, so I posted it. I’ll let someone else decide to promote it)

To:                   Michigan Republicans

From:              Chuck Yob

Date:               June 3, 2008

RE:                  McCain Positioned to Win Michigan

CC:                  Jennifer Hallowell

__________________________________________________________

McCain Positioned to Win Michigan

The Michigan Republican State Committee Meeting this weekend will give Michigan Republicans an excellent opportunity to evaluate the status of the General Election campaign and specifically our nominee for President.

Let’s face it.  The national tide is against us and 2008 is shaping up to be a very challenging year for Republicans across the country.  Bush-fatigue, a difficult economy, and other factors have combined to form a tough environment for our party.    

But Michigan is shaping up to be a very bright spot for the McCain campaign and ultimately could be the state that holds the White House for Republicans and elects John McCain the next President of the United States.  Michigan is one of the first states in the country where the McCain campaign invested advertising resources for the General Election and it is quickly turning into one of the top targeted states in the country.

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Evans and Novak recently put together an Electoral College map that showed Senator McCain winning the presidency by a narrow margin and picked Michigan has the state most likely to swing from a blue state to a red state in 2008.

We have known since 2000 that Senator McCain has a unique appeal among some Democrats and most independent-minded swing voters who usually determine the outcome of competitive Michigan general elections. 

Senator McCain’s natural strength in Michigan combined with Senator Obama’s likely victory over Senator Clinton for the Democrat nomination has moved Michigan toward the top of the campaign’s swing-state targeting.  The three most recent publicly released polls for Michigan are:

Survey USA                             May 27            McCain  41%              Obama  37%

Detroit News EPIC/MRA           May 19-22       McCain  44%              Obama  40%  

Rasmussen                             May 11            McCain  45%              Obama  44%

Every successful candidate must secure the base and Senator McCain has secured the support of former supporters of Mitt Romney, Governor Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani in Michigan.  The EPIC/MRA poll showed Senator McCain doing better among Republicans than Barack Obama does among Democrats:

Republicans                            McCain  79%                          Obama  11%

Democrats                              McCain  13%                          Obama  76%

This is the first time since 1988 that the likely Republican nominee for President has consecutively led the likely Democrat nominee for President at this stage of the campaign.  The fact that Senator McCain performs so well in Michigan despite the difficulty in GOP branding this cycle is a testament to his unique appeal to Michigan voters. 

Ronald Reagan appealed to Democrats in the 1980’s who were patriotic, pro-gun, often Catholic, and relatively conservative on most social issues.  They were termed ‘Reagan Democrats’ and the home of the Reagan Democrats as studied by political scientists in the years since was Macomb County, Michigan.  The blue-collar, working class voters in Macomb County have proven to be the swing-voter in Michigan General Elections for the last two decades.  Senator McCain’s maverick image, post-partisanship, and war hero-status has an appeal to these voters that might be even stronger than they had for Reagan in the 1980’s.  The Reagan Democrats became McCain Independents in 2000 and will once again be the dominant swing voting bloc in Michigan in 2008.  This was clear in the EPIC/MRA crosstabs:

Statewide Independents         McCain 42%                           Obama  28%

Statewide Ind Fav/Unfav         McCain 53%/29%  (+24)          Obama 39%/44%  (-5)

All Voters Macomb County    McCain 51%                           Obama 35%

Statewide Catholics Voters     McCain  54%                         Obama  30%

The Macomb County numbers compare to 53% for Granholm in 2006 and 49% for Kerry in 2004.  Senator McCain will significantly outperform recent statewide Republican campaigns in Michigan with the help of tremendously popular Congresswoman Candice Miller.  A recent poll by the same firm of her district in Macomb County showed McCain leading by an even larger 55-37 margin.    

Although Senator McCain’s unique appeal to Michigan voters is the dominant variable in his current success in survey research, there are also several factors that are specific to the weakness of Barack Obama in Michigan.  Obama faces significant problems related to the disenfranchisement of Michigan Democrats by Obama and the DNC, his weakness among working class voters, his opposition to the American auto industry, and disapproval of the incumbent Democrat Governor.

·                     Democrat Disenfranchisement – The DNC’s insistence on rejecting the votes of the Michigan Primary has dispirited the Democrat base in Michigan, and increased the problems they face among Democrat leaning swing voters who are already tentative about Barack Obama.  Voters remember that he refused to campaign in Michigan, removed his name from the ballot, and fought to prevent the delegates from being seated at the national convention.  This disenfranchisement has hurt the intensity of Democrats in Michigan.

·                     Weakness with Working Class Voters – Obama’s weakness with working class voters was shown in dramatic terms with his losses in West Virginia and Kentucky where he lost by over 30 points in each state.  This followed contests in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana where he also struggled among similar voters.  These voters are the traditional ‘Reagan Democrats’ who have a proven willingness to vote for a Republican candidate.  Macomb County, Michigan is the original home of Reagan Democrats and has proven to be the swing county in recent Michigan statewide elections. 

·                     Opposition to the American Auto Industry – Obama visited Michigan in May of 2007 to give a speech to the Detroit Economic Club to criticize the American auto industry.  He then included his criticisms of Detroit automakers as part of his standard stump speech that he gave regularly across the country.  Hundreds of thousands of Michigan workers receive their paycheck, or once received their paycheck, as a result of business generated by the American automotive industry.  Although Senator McCain has been a long time leader on matters related to environmental protection and fuel standards, he has not condemned American automakers with the vitriol shown by Obama and has not offended the autoworkers who are the swing voters in Michigan.

·                     Governor’s Job Performance – Michigan has the worst economy in the country and Governor Jennifer Granholm is receiving a good portion of the blame for the economic challenges.  A publicly released poll conducted earlier this year showed that 66% of Michigan voters disapprove of her job performance.  The recent EPIC/MRA poll showed 65% gave her a Fair/Poor rating versus 31% who gave her Excellent/Good.  Voters are taking notice that because of inadequate economic development efforts and bad tax policies Governor Granholm and many state Democrat legislators are largely responsible for the state’s economic struggles.   

Senator McCain’s maverick image, post-partisanship, and patriotism give him strength among independent-minded voters historically referred to as Reagan Democrats.  His strength combined with a number of problematic factors for Senator Obama give Senator McCain the best chance to win Michigan for the Republican Party since 1988.  For these reasons, Michigan Republicans can be confident that voters will see Senator McCain often over the next several months and have an excellent opportunity to win Michigan’s 17 Electoral votes – making a dramatic impact on the national electoral map.

Other interesting results from Detroit News EPIC/MRA Survey from May 2008:

McCain leads 44-40

McCain leads 59-27 in Outer Wayne (Wayne County minus Detroit)

McCain leads 51-35 in Macomb County

McCain leads 53-34 in Grand Rapids media market

McCain leads 53-19 in Traverse City media market

McCain leads 59-26 in Southwest Michigan

McCain leads 42-28 among Independents’s

McCain leads 54-30 among Catholics

Several weeks ago, our own Jeff Emanuel broke the news that Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA-11) admitted that the Democrats lied about the war for political advantage. Today, Freedom’s Watch is hitting Kanjorski with robocalls recorded by Beverly Pearson, the founder of the Band of Mothers, (see her story here) to explain his morally bankrupt position to voters.

Listen to the robocall here.

Give money to Lou Barletta, Kanjorski’s opponent, and check out Band of Mothers here.

Script after the jump.

Hello I’m Beverly Perlson calling for Freedom’s Watch

My son, John, just returned from his 4th tour in Iraq and Afghanistan – and I’m tremendously proud of him.

But I’m not proud of Congress…

Congressman Paul Kanjorski was caught saying Democrats ‘stretched the facts’ about the war in an effort to win the election.

And now, Congress goes on vacation without providing funding for our troops, putting their paychecks in jeopardy.

My son protects us and yet Congressman Kanjorski admits to playing politics with his life, and now his paycheck.

I’m not just embarrassed by Mr. Kanjorski and Congress, I’m angry. You should be, too.

Call Congressman Kanjorski at 570-496-1011.

Tell him to wrap up his vacation, get back to work, and vote to pay our troops.

Paid for by Freedom’s Watch. 202-379-3742

In a comment in response to Ruffini’s post on Democratic polling, Tom Readmond says:

I don’t have a client right now , but if I did, I’d be looking very hard at what I might do to attract angry women to the party, much as Nixon did with angry southerners in 1968.

Well, actually, I refer you to Janet Elder piece in the NYT from last year:

Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster whose firm, Public Opinion Strategies, is working for Senator John McCain, said, ”Right now all groups are a significant challenge for Republicans.” … Most of the names on Mr. Newhouse’s list have little to do with gender, with the exception of ”Wal-Mart women.” Those are voters who ”generally have lower incomes, are less educated, tend to be conservative and have been impacted by economic difficulties,” he said.

Perhaps the McCain campaign is planning to reach out to these women? Polling indicates fertile ground. Read on.

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From the Politico:

Forty-nine percent of white women view Obama unfavorably, while only 43 percent hold a favorable opinion. In February, 36 percent of these women viewed Obama unfavorably, while 56 percent had a positive perception of the likely Democratic nominee.

Over the same period, Democratic white women’s negative view of Obama increased from 21 percent to 35 percent, while their positive view decreased from 72 percent to 60 percent — roughly the same rate as white women overall.

The author of the Politico piece, one David Paul Kuhn, has written a very interesting book about the gender gap being a structural problem for the Democratic Party. The book is titled The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma.

I can’t help but watch all the videos from the DNC’s RBC meeting and think that there’s an opening for the GOP.

Now, the general pushback from Democrats is that DNC and/or 527s, PACs, etc. will go up with ads saying that John McCain is pro-life. I suspect that this may resonate and bring some of the upscale Democrats back to Obama. I am not convinced that it will move downscale Democrats at all.

One of the most important things that the McCain campaign could do is wrap himself in high-level female surrogates like … Carli Fiorina. Now is the time to strike with high-profile coalition events or something similar.

Can you believe that Barack Obama gave this guy “at least $225,000” in earmarks?

Obama may be running away from this guy, but this was a leader in Obama’s campaign, Obama was a long-time patron with government dollars, and the relationship went both ways.

In September, the Obama campaign brought Pfleger to Iowa to host one of several interfaith forums for the campaign. Pfleger has given money to Obama’s campaigns and Obama as a state legislator directed at least $225,000 towards social programs at St. Sabina’s, according to the Chicago Tribune. Pfleger appears to have been scrubbed from the Obama campaign’s page that features the testimony of faith leaders, but you can see the cached version HERE.

How many more of these are we going to find? Is the press drilling down on his other “campaign leaders” and Chicago earmarks?

This weekend, there were Republican conventions in 8 states. According to Jonathan Martin, Ron Paul supporters are "blitz"ing these conventions:

There are quite a few state GOP conventions this weekend, and reading through the coverage online one finds a recurring theme: the Paul presence.

The libertarian Republican’s hardy band of supporters are showing up at conventions in an effort to win a delegate slot in the Twin Cities in September.  

Paul backers have achieved some small success in becoming delegates, but their larger impact has been to offer an element of news at what are largely newsless and ceremonial state party confabs.

My sources indicate that of the 430 delegate or alternate spots available this weekend, Paul supporters won 11. (Read the Washington State account here) Martin, like many other analysts, suggests that this whole phenomenon is bad news for John McCain. I disagree. Read on.

Winning a convention takes significant work. You have to mobilize and coordinate a lot of people. In a number of states like Maine, Missouri, Virginia, or Washington, the McCain campaign did not develop a strong organization before winning the nomination. I have spoken to local and district party officials who had not had contact with the McCain campaign until after their state’s primary or caucus. And in many states, the McCain campaign  and Victory have not yet staffed out fully their victory programs. Simply put, there’s been no organization to work with.

But when it comes to convention time, the game is on. Earlier this month, I attended the VA-08 convention. Ron Paul supporters were running for Chairman of VA-08, delegate to the Republican National Convention, and alternate to the Republican National Convention. They were blanked. The elected delegates were Orson Swindle and Tom Brooke, who were McCain-slated delegates, and Helen Blackwell, the wife of long-time Virginia GOP National Committeeman and a former Arlington County GOP Chairwoman.

To win this convention, the McCain campaign had to turn out at least 100 supporters. They succeeded. These are people who in early May were willing to turn out for a good chunk of a gorgeous spring day for John McCain. Anyone who tells you that McCain doesn’t have grassroots and is not present on the ground has to wrestle with these kinds of facts. The McCain campaign is actively developing a grassroots and deploying them successfully in conventions.

In some places, the McCain campaign is probably cooperating with local party leaders to make sure that Ron Paul supporters are not elected. Again, they are working with party leaders to build the trust that you need to effectively run the grassroots component of a national campaign. In most cases, grassroots leaders are even more worried about Ron Paul delegates than the McCain campaign. Those are people who could lose their positions in the party. So the McCain campaign is helping keep these people in power, something that is most important to them. Remember, politics is about mutual addition and benefit. And these conventions are providing the McCain campaign to accumulate good will that it might not have had.

The upshot of all of this is that right now the McCain campaign needs to be building an organization. These conventions are field tests of the quality of organization being built. And the McCain campaign is passing with flying colors. Simplistic analyses like Martin’s, "It’s difficult to see many of these — largely young and anti-war — Paul supporters getting behind McCain," completely miss the point. Right now the campaign shouldn’t be swaying Ron Paul supporters.

And just to make one thing clear. I don’t hate the Paul supporters. On Tuesday, it is very possible that I will be voting for the Ron Paul endorsed Amit Singh for the Republican nomination in VA-08. We need to figure out how to incorporate Paul supporters into the GOP and McCain organizations and learn from some of their significant organizational successes.

More broadly, I’d really love to hear from some Ron Paul supporters about how we could do that. (constructive conversation only please)

This was crossposted from The Next Right. If you enjoyed it, please continue to read Redstate, but join us over at The Next Right.

This weekend, there were Republican conventions in 8 states. According to Jonathan Martin, Ron Paul supporters are "blitz"ing these conventions:

There are quite a few state GOP conventions this weekend, and reading through the coverage online one finds a recurring theme: the Paul presence.

The libertarian Republican’s hardy band of supporters are showing up at conventions in an effort to win a delegate slot in the Twin Cities in September.  

Paul backers have achieved some small success in becoming delegates, but their larger impact has been to offer an element of news at what are largely newsless and ceremonial state party confabs.

My sources indicate that of the 430 delegate or alternate spots available this weekend, Paul supporters won 11. (Read the Washington State account here) Martin, like many other analysts, suggests that this whole phenomenon is bad news for John McCain. I disagree. Read on.

<!–break–>

Winning a convention takes significant work. You have to mobilize and coordinate a lot of people. In a number of states like Maine, Missouri, Virginia, or Washington, the McCain campaign did not develop a strong organization before winning the nomination. I have spoken to local and district party officials who had not had contact with the McCain campaign until after their state’s primary or caucus. And in many states, the McCain campaign  and Victory have not yet staffed out fully their victory programs. Simply put, there’s been no organization to work with.

But when it comes to convention time, the game is on. Earlier this month, I attended the VA-08 convention. Ron Paul supporters were running for Chairman of VA-08, delegate to the Republican National Convention, and alternate to the Republican National Convention. They were blanked. The elected delegates were Orson Swindle and Tom Brooke, who were McCain-slated delegates, and Helen Blackwell, the wife of long-time Virginia GOP National Committeeman and a former Arlington County GOP Chairwoman.

To win this convention, the McCain campaign had to turn out at least 100 supporters. They succeeded. These are people who in early May were willing to turn out for a good chunk of a gorgeous spring day for John McCain. Anyone who tells you that McCain doesn’t have grassroots and is not present on the ground has to wrestle with these kinds of facts. The McCain campaign is actively developing a grassroots and deploying them successfully in conventions.

In some places, the McCain campaign is probably cooperating with local party leaders to make sure that Ron Paul supporters are not elected. Again, they are working with party leaders to build the trust that you need to effectively run the grassroots component of a national campaign. In most cases, grassroots leaders are even more worried about Ron Paul delegates than the McCain campaign. Those are people who could lose their positions in the party. So the McCain campaign is helping keep these people in power, something that is most important to them. Remember, politics is about mutual addition and benefit. And these conventions are providing the McCain campaign to accumulate good will that it might not have had.

The upshot of all of this is that right now the McCain campaign needs to be building an organization. These conventions are field tests of the quality of organization being built. And the McCain campaign is passing with flying colors. Simplistic analyses like Martin’s, "It’s difficult to see many of these — largely young and anti-war — Paul supporters getting behind McCain," completely miss the point. Right now the campaign shouldn’t be swaying Ron Paul supporters.

And just to make one thing clear. I don’t hate the Paul supporters. On Tuesday, it is very possible that I will be voting for the Ron Paul endorsed Amit Singh for the Republican nomination in VA-08. We need to figure out how to incorporate Paul supporters into the GOP and McCain organizations and learn from some of their significant organizational successes.

More broadly, I’d really love to hear from some Ron Paul supporters about how we could do that. (constructive conversation only please)

Jake Tapper reports that Father Mike Pfleger again has spoken out attacking Hillary Clinton. But this time he threw John McCain in the mix:

“Hillary and McCain would wish they had a preacher with the integrity of Jeremiah Wright. … They got some old weak preacher…some old Joel Osteen cotton candy preacher.”

Listen to the audio of the sermon here.

Earlier, Tapper had noted in a story about the local diocese rejection of Pfleger’s that:

I just have to say, as someone of faith, I have never before heard a cleric engage in such disdainful mockery from a pulpit. Have you?