The GOP Michigan Anecdotal Poll

The all-important, all-revealing anecdotal poll tells me that Mitt Romney might have trouble in his native state of Michigan.

The other, actual polls show that it is very close between Huckabee, McCain, and Romney in Michigan, and evangelicals don't rule the LP/UP roost. Since Mitt's dad George was a captain of the motor vehicle industry and also the state's governor in the late 1960's, why wouldn't Mitt do well there?

I was born in Michigan, and I can definitely tell you this — the kinds of people that are politically motivated in Michigan are different than they are in, say, Texas. Since there was really only one boom industry in Michigan for so long and there are so many families depending on auto manufacturing plants for jobs, people pay attention. And people in Michigan have long memories.

I was born there, and while I didn't grow up there, it is where my mother and father grew up and spent a majority of their lives. And my mother thinks the state will reject Romney, because "his father was a terrible governor." My father likewise thinks George Romney was something of a clown.

I know this isn't necessarily scientific (or scientific at all), but Romney seems to be setting himself up to do nothing to combat any left-over animosity towards his father. His positions in Michigan are weak and failing to resonate. He's getting beaten by or running neck and neck with two southerners. And he just seems cosmically ill-aligned to make any headway with the state's electorate. From the Newsweek piece by Daniel Gross:

So, what does Romney have going against him in Michigan? He's an unabashed free-trader in one of the few states where industrial unions (the most implacable foes of free trade this side of John Edwards) still have a significant presence. He's selling himself as a Reaganesque optimist in a state where pessimism reigns (and frequently with good reason). His economic policies—extending the Bush tax cuts, running away from his own successful efforts to expand the social safety net in Massachusetts, essentially ignoring the housing mess—may resonate with the dwindling core of wealthy Michiganders. But they may do little to attract the state's shrinking ranks of Reagan Democrats.

And also this:

Like Rudy Giuliani, Romney has painted the world's Muslims and Arabs as an undifferentiated mass of bloodthirsty terrorists. "This is about Shia and Sunni," Romney said last year. "This is about Hizbullah and Hamas and Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood." Michigan is the state with the highest concentration of Arab-Americans in the nation. While Arab-Americans constitute only about 1 percent of the state's population—about 115,000 people—and many are Christians, Michigan's Arab-Americans are still a significant voting bloc. (Back in 2000, George Bush successfully courted them.)

It just doesn't seem to line up. I don't think nostalgia will win him any votes on primary day, either. I don't know many Michiganders that are nostalgic about anything, other than when the plants were open. If Romney is counting on a Michigan victory to shore him up for future contests, I think he's in for serious trouble.