Kos is on the front page right now telling Michigan Democrats to go vote for Romney in Michigan's half-sanctioned primary next Tuesday in an attempt to get Romney a win in order to keep the GOP fractured for an extended period of time. This is a good idea, and, being a Michigan Democrat, I might do it.
BUT, for the record, Kos says that Michigan's governor, Jennifer Granholm miscalculated in pushing Michigan's luck with the primary scheduling gods after receiving a warning that our delegates would be ignored. I don't remember it going down as Granholm's idea. I remember both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the legislature pushing for this, and Granholm signing it. But I also disagree with the ENTIRE process, in that Iowa and New Hampshire have a lock, followed by fucking Nevada and South Carolina?
Whuh? Exsqueeze me?
So we have Corn, New Hampshire, Gambling and Gun totin' Jesus before we can have a middle-class manufacturing behweemoth and everyone just sits back and lets it happen? In fact, the DNC holds the very order hostage?
I've only been back in Michigan for about 13 months after 6 years in NC, but the way I see it, that 'miscalculation' can't be placed at anyone's feet until after the general in November.
Here's why...
The only Democratic candidate stepping foot here in MI this week is Kucinich. I wish he had a better shot, but he doesn't. Given the current economic times here in Michigan--brought on by the Autos, not Granholm, despite the morons that will plead the contrary--Edwards and Obama's campaigns would have played HUGE here right now. Edwards' populist message and Obama's hopeful one, and Hillary's... well, Hillary-ness... would have brought Michiganders out in DROVES to the Democratic primary, with Democrats AND Republicans voting in huge numbers for a candidate they believed in and in a contest that mattered. Crossover would have flowed in the other direction, with Republicans and independents stepping in to vote on the Democratic ticket in order to pick their preferred candidate, which, I think would have blown Republican numbers away.
Now, rather than the big-name Democrats playing to the audience of a state they can win in the general, they're avoiding it like the plague. Instead we're flooded with visits and ads from Huckabee, McCain and Romney, each of whom has reason to NEED to win Michigan, and each of whom is here preaching lies and half-truths about how they can save the state and bring back the good times.
So, this is going to go on for some time. None of the Democrats were even allowed to campaign here, and Edwards, Hillary and Obama all yanked their names from the ballot to comply with the decree from Mount DNC (I still can't believe Dean allowed this horseshit). Until the DNC blesses the Great Lakes State again, there will be no equal time, no balanced message, no major Democratic representation, and that is purely the fault of Michigan?
Well, pardon fucking us. We just thought that maybe, after 7 years of George Bush hoping to fucking hope that our Unionized asses would freeze in our giant leather interiors and go away--go away so they could keep trouncing labor into the fucking ground, beating the shit out of the working man by ignoring him to death--that maybe it would be nice if someone really paid some fucking attention to our needs. A gridlocked state legislature and a governor from the other side of the aisle are having a bitch of a time getting anything done, and ya know, maybe a little more time on the national stage for good reasons would have been a positive thing for everyone in the country. But no, the DNC says no, gotta protect the 4 aforementioned states who dumbfucked their way into the beginning of the calendar? I don't even care how they got there. I couldn't fucking care less. What I care about is the fact that they now think they deserve to be there, and the DNC and the media somehow fucking agree, to the point where the DNC actually protects their monopoly on this shit.
Where are the States Rights whack-jobs when you want to agree with them?
Is there anything here in Michigan to counter the Republican message? Not really.
Would it have been a good time for Democrats to match Republicans ad for ad? Yes, probably.
Would it have been nice to have a Midwest opinion (No, Iowa doesn't count as Midwestern to me)? Fucking A, right.
Michigan has it rough right now, and it's been rough for a while. Michigan is a state that needs change. All of the candidates are offering it.
Now, imagine a close race (I don't think it will be that close, but imagine it for me) in November. A lot of states are teetering one way or the other, and it comes down to Ohio, Florida, and... Michigan? I don't think it would have come to Michigan. And maybe it won't. But if it does, remember that the Democrats were forcibly kept out of Michigan while first impressions were being made by the Republicans, and the eventual Democratic nominee will be playing catch-up to whatever opinions are made here now by the Repubs... the Dems won't even spend money here until the nominee is known. That's perhaps what, at least until Super Tuesday. So a full month, maybe more, of only Republican voices in Michigan?
All this situation does is point to the fact that until the primaries get on some sort of rotating schedule that allows all states a moderately-equal shot at getting an early primary, Michigan will not be the last, or the most-deserving state to get shanked by the DNC mafia.
In the end, the 'miscalculation' Kos mentions might not be placed at any Michigander's feet, but at whoever in the DNC decided that their control of things meant more than the great state of Michigan trying to have a little more say in an election it thought meant a whole helluva lot.
[edited to remove the f-bomb from the title]