Detroit — Before there was rust, there was gleaming chrome. You can see it on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Behold the voluptuous 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible, bursting with movie-star glamour. Check out the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado, a rocket ship on wheels, fit for a titan of industry.
A small sign by the Caddie includes a quote:
A look at how the candidates are approaching their next primary contest in Michigan.
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“Cars 19 feet long, weighing two tons, are used to run a 118-pound housewife three blocks to the drugstore for a two-ounce package of bobby pins and lipstick.”
That’s George Romney, 1955. He was a car executive then, running American Motors Corp., which bucked the Detroit tradition and tried to sell small cars.
Now his son Mitt is stumping across the state, trying to sell himself as an authentic Michigander. (“I love cars ” is one of his messages, and more than once he has said he likes the state because “the trees are the right height.”)
He told an audience in Milford on Thursday night that he was born in Detroit. His family lived in a “lovely” house in a nice neighborhood in Palmer Park. After his family moved away, Romney said, the house became an eyesore — and it was demolished.
A connection to demolition, however distant, gives a candidate in Michigan a modicum of street cred. So many houses in Detroit have been bulldozed that urban agriculture is making a comeback, and “grown in Detroit” is a selling point at the city’s farmers market.
The candidates also need to make a connection with Michigan’s blue-collar workers. Rick Santorum, who comes from a less privileged background than Romney, took a shot at President Obama on Saturday for saying that every American deserves a college education. He suggested that Obama wanted to indoctrinate students in the liberal ideology taught in college. What many people need, he said, is training for a job.
A Santorum victory Tuesday would be a tremendous blow to Romney, who has spent years building his political machine here but saw his once-commanding lead in the polls disappear this month as Santorum surged to the top in all the surveys. Bill Ballenger, editor of the Inside Michigan Politics newsletter, said of Romney: “He must have been tearing his hair out. How could this happen? He found himself 15 points behind a guy who had no history in Michigan, who nobody knew.”
Santorum won supporters such as Kelly Gingras, 45, a heavy-equipment operator. “He has more of my values,” Gingras said one evening last week in an Ypsilanti tattoo parlor. “Just limit government.”
Romney has closed the gap in the most recent polls. But it’s easy to find undecided voters even after all these months of campaigning.
Timothy King, a retired autoworker from Ypsilanti, said his choice is “anybody but Obama.” He said: “Socialism didn’t work in Europe. It’s not going to work here.”
Frank Crouse, 72, of Hartland went to hear Romney as an undecided voter but came away a convert — because he liked the way Romney didn’t use a teleprompter.
“He won me over,” he said. “It seemed to come from the heart.”
Tarnished state still important prize
Michigan remains a critical state for anyone wanting to become president, but its importance is eroding. It had 18 electoral votes in 2000, and 17 electoral votes four years ago, but will have only 16 this time. The state’s population declined in the most recent census.
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