John McCain

Mitt Romney isn't the only GOP Presidential candidate trying to court Michigan voters.  According to Michigan for McCain, John McCain is going to be hanging out at the Michigan Republican Party Convention.

The Exploratory Committee "National Co-Chairman and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will be addressing the Michigan Republican State Convention on behalf of the Arizona Senator. Pawlenty will be addressing the convention on Saturday, February 10th."

This is huge news for Team McCain as they will be able to expose a huge part of the McCain organization to thousands of members of the Michigan GOP at this weekends State Convention.

The funny part is that this will be happening only three days before Romney makes his big announcement in Michigan.

Does anyone know of any Democratic candidates for President who will be appearing at the Michigan Democratic Party convention?

Especially given the new primary schedule, Michigan is going to be critical to the success of both John McCain and Mitt Romney in attempting to secure the Republican nomination for President in 2008. We already saw that McCain's supporters in Michigan were ambitious enough to try and oust Michigan Republican Party chair Saul Anuzis before the 2006 election. With any luck, that kind of infighting will continue to occur through 2007 and 2008.

Typically, we are the targets of the Republican smear machine. With the upcoming 2008 Republican primary, various conservative figures are setting their sights each other instead of us. For example, Pat Robertson's CBN (take a very large grain of salt) reports that Mitt Romney's support in Michigan may be eroding due to inconsistencies in his positions on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.

...there are at least four Republican Representatives from the Michigan State House that are seriously rethinking their support of Romney for President.

These are members of Romney's steering committee in Michigan who are now having reservations about recent revelations about Romney's past comments in regards to marriage, abortion and the Boy Scouts. There's a good chance that they could jump ship. I know that one of them wrote to Romney's office demanding specific answers to certain questions.

(snip)

What I'm being told from a well placed source on the ground is that the representatives who may leave Romney are really questioning the legitimacy of his conservative credentials. Romney has always said he has evolved on these issues over the years, but these folks in Michigan think it's okay to evolve, but some of this seems to be major flip flop material, especially on the life issue where they point out how he's gone from pro-choice in 1994, to pro-life in 2000, to pro-choice in 2002 and now back to pro-life.

Romney's office will dispute this, but what they can't dispute is a potential unraveling among their steering committee in Michigan.

Given George Romney's reputation and Mitt Romney's history as a candidate in Massachusetts, Romney appears to be a moderate. We like our moderates in Michigan, and Romney needs to keep that appearance to be successful in the general election here. However, he appears to be trying to cater to a conservative base so he can win the primary.

Romney's behavior is insincere and grossly underestimates the intelligence of Michigan voters. Should he make it to the general election, Michiganders should strongly consider how Romney has changed his behavior to suit his political need.

The Swing State Project took a peek at all of the states where the vote difference between Kerry and Bush was under 10%. In 2004, the vote difference in Michigan was 3.42%, which makes it a "swing state" and a necessary component needed for victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Our own lpackard weighed in on the SSP thread, commenting on the viability of the Republican candidates in Michigan:

I hope this is not true, but either McCain or Romney might be able to take a decent shot at Michigan. McCain is popular here - he won the primary back in the '00 cycle. And Romney is the son of former Governor Romney, a well-regarded moderate Republican. Although maybe it's ancient enough history that his name is no longer good.

McCain actually wants to escalate the war in Iraq, and Romney's recent positioning puts him at odds with the philosophical approach that his father used in his governance here. For us, it is simply a matter of demonstrating that neither McCain nor Romney is the right candidate for Michigan.

Via Hotline, John McCain has picked up Dave Dishaw as his "grassroots chair" for Michigan. Remember, Dave Dishaw was one of the guys that wanted to oust Saul Anuzis. Hopefully this gets interesting.

Per a noon release from his exploratory committee, Sen. John McCain announced that he's brought on MI-03 GOP Chair Dave Dishaw as his grassroots chair for the state. Dishaw was the MI Chair for Bush-Cheney '04 grassroots operations and recently was finance chair for Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land's re-election campaign.

According to the Detroit Free Press, John McCain has selected Mike Cox to manage his Michigan operations in 2008:

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox was named Thursday to head U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential exploratory committee in the state and its law enforcement committee nationally.

Cox, re-elected to a second four-year term in November, becomes the highest profile Michigan Republican to join the McCain team to date.

Does this mean that Mike Cox also supports sending more Michigan soldiers to Iraq?  It wouldn't be the only thing they have in common.

UPDATE (1:22 PM):  Images courtesy of Pohlitics.