My home state of Michigan provides something of an acid test for the popularity of the policies of the Obama Democrats. For a brief time, Michigan voted almost exactly the same as the nation as a whole: 59%-40% for Ronald Reagan in 1984, 54%-46% for George H. W. Bush in 1988, 44%-38% for Bill Clinton in 1992, with 19% for Ross Perot. Then Michigan began voting 3% more Democratic than the national average: 52%-38% for Clinton in 1996, 51%-46% for Al Gore in 2000, 51%-48% for John Kerry. In 2008 Michigan was 4% more Democratic than the national average: 57%-41% for Barack Obama. This was very similar to the state’s 2006 margins for Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm (56%-42%) and Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow (57%-41%).
Standard political analysis would suggest that Michigan should have moved even farther toward the Democrats since 2008. In the deep recession Michigan has consistently been the nation’s number one unemployment state. And the federal government under the Obama administration bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, two of Michigan’s largest employers—although one might more accurately say that the Obama administration bailed out the United Auto Workers, Michigan’s largest private sector union.
But Michigan voters have been moving right, not left. A recent poll taken for the Detroit Free Press poll showed that only 43% of Michiganians support the Obama Democrats’ health care bill and 53% are opposed. Most interestingly, 69% of those under 30 are opposed; they apparently have figured out that the bill would force them to pay more to subsidize insurance for their elders.
Moreover, Republicans have been consistently leading in the open race for Michigan’s governorship. A recent poll from EPIC/MRA (via Politico) shows all four Republican candidates for the nomination—Congressman Pete Hoekstra, Attorney General Mike Cox, businessman (and self-described “nerd”) Rick Snyder and Oakland County Sheriff—leading the two Democratic candidates—House Speaker Andy Dillion and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero by an average margin of 48%-34%. This poll also shows negative job ratings for Barack Obama (44%-54%) and Jennifer Granholm (28%-71%). Evidently Michigan voters don’t think tax increases (Granholm’s response to dwindling revenues) and stimulus packages are the right public policies in a time of economic distress. While the Obama Democrats’ ratings remain relatively high in New York and California, where affluent secular liberals are one of the largest Democratic constituencies, they certainly are not doing so in Michigan, where such voters are a much smaller part of the electorate. Tentative conclusion: rich liberals may be able to afford Obamastimulus and Obamacare, but voters with modest incomes don’t think they can.
