OP-ED: Will Michigan’s White, Independent Voters Fall For Gov. Rick Snyder’s Song & Dance Again in 2014?

by Rob Smith

CHAD SELEWSKI IS a good writer. He opines on politics for the Macomb Daily. The Macomb Daily is one of the few newspapers published in southeastern lower Michigan not decimated by the slash and burn newsroom strategy being pushed by the folks who own Advance Publications. The Macomb Daily is owned by the Journal Register Company. That’s not to say the Journal Register Company hasn’t had its problems, but it is to say that the Macomb Daily is a great read in a sea of local and state reporting that has been filleted and deboned by cost-cutting and corner-cutting. That being said, Selweski posted a column that should scare to death just about every Democrat in this fine state of ours: “Politically Speaking: Are the 2014 Michigan elections already over?”  The piece predicts the 2014 Michigan elections and the result, according to Selweski, is another four years of Governor Rick Snyder’s “relentless positive action,” which is code for “a relentless economic war on the middle-class and poor folks.”

Selweski says, “Many pundits and political activists believe Snyder is vulnerable because his approval ratings remain low, down at 40 percent. Some of Washington’s top prognosticators list Michigan’s gubernatorial contest as one of the hottest in 2014, with Snyder considered one of the most vulnerable GOP governors. Those who see Schauer as a formidable contender base their judgment largely on polls that, this far out from the election, cannot be considered reliable predictors. At this point, Schauer is a clean slate. It’s very difficult to defeat an incumbent governor, especially one who can raise many millions of dollars — and has millions more in his bank account. Schauer’s name ID with voters is only 38 percent and he’ll need barrels of cash just to get the electorate familiar with him. Because he spent many years in the state Legislature, I think the Lansing political junkies don’t realize just how unknown Schauer is in southeast Michigan.”

I have to say that when I saw Mr. Schauer emerge as the Democratic candidate, my heart fell. It’s not that Schauer isn’t a solid politician with experience; he’s been in politics since 1996 when he was elected to the Michigan House from the 62nd District. It’s just that Mr. Schauer couldn’t win re-election to his seat in the House. On November 2, 2010, Tim Walberg defeated Schauer 50%-45%. The incumbent won just two of the district’s seven counties: Eaton (48%) and his home of Calhoun (50%). Combine that with the fact that a large percentage of the state’s residents just have never heard of Mark Schauer, and we have a classic uphill battle against an incredibly well-funded Republican candidate.

Selweski goes on to point out: “Schauer, like Snyder’s 2010 Democratic opponent Virg Bernero, is a liberal Democrat. Snyder adeptly won support from independent voters by appearing far more moderate and pragmatic than Bernero.”

Now this is where I get excited. Like Pointer Sisters excited. Like soooooo excited.

Every election since World War II has been determined by voters in the middle. The middle elected Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The margin by which Obama carried the independent vote in crucial swing states around the country in 2010 was one of the significant factors in his victory. Democratic and Republican office holders are beholden to their base supporters, the special interests who donate time and money to them and the parties that control both candidate selection and the agenda. What has Governor Snyder done for the independent voters who put him in office in 2010? He raised their taxes, taxed their pensions, cut their benefits, made it tougher for them to vote absentee and shoved a radical GOP agenda down their throats after persuading them he was a RINO.

As I wrote for A2Politico:

There has been job growth in Michigan, but it’s in low-paying industries—leisure and hospitality. Right-to-work, which adversely impacts average pay rates, is sure to push down the already low average salaries and hourly rates paid to Michigan residents, and widen the pay gap between men and women—the largest in America. I want to see Michigan make a comeback and I don’t care who gets the credit. If Mr. Snyder was sitting in Lansing creating good-paying jobs, I still wouldn’t vote for him in 2014, but I would congratulate him on easing what has become chronic poverty and suffering in our state.

Well, it’s 2013 and Mr. Snyder’s trickle down economics (tax breaks for businesses whose owners, then, will create good-paying jobs) have adversely impacted the middle and lower-class taxpayers whose tax breaks and incentives the state’s GOP slashed and ended. Homeowners and renters used to qualify for a credit if their household income was no more than $82,650 a year. Now they don’t get it unless their total household resources are $50,000 or less and their home’s taxable value (roughly half the market value) is no more than $135,000. That change impacted about 400,000 state income tax returns.

The child deduction is gone. So are special exemptions for seniors and those getting at least half their income from unemployment checks.

A refundable credit for low-income workers was reduced, which impacted about 783,000 returns. Snyder and the Michigan GOP eliminated state credits for city income taxes, college tuition, adoptions and donations to universities, public radio and TV stations, food banks and homeless shelters.

Add it up and about half of all Michigan filers saw a considerable tax increase. Including a huge percentage of the independent (read middle-class) voters who helped put Mr. Snyder in office in 2010. That, I think, is going to make for a lot of unhappy America First Democrats, to quote a great column in The Atlantic which divides independents neatly into four categories. America First Democrats “used to be known as Reagan Democrats, but just like the moniker Rockefeller Republicans, that title is outdated. The America First Democrats are working- and middle-class voters who are concentrated in the Midwest and Rust Belt of the country….They tend to be more conservative than the Democratic Party on social issues. They lean toward populism, and are more protectionist, more religious, and more socially conservative.”

America First Democrats voted for Bill Clinton but not Barack Obama. In Michigan, they voted for Rick Snyder and shunned Democrat Virg Bernero.

As Macomb Daily writer Chad Selweski argued in his column, “Snyder adeptly won support from independent voters by appearing far more moderate and pragmatic than Bernero.” How’d he do it? A December 2012 A2Politico piece revealed that “Snyder shelled out over $1,000,000 to a Hollywood advertising firm that specializes in helping Republican candidates such as George W. Bush, Christine O’Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain shape campaign messages. Snyder spent millions, some might argue, misleading voters.”

Michigan’s white, Independent voters were taken in, but not blacks. According to the same A2Politico article:

Snyder tried hard to get the black vote, but blacks didn’t fall for his “one tough nerd” campaign, or the fact that he had his election night party in Detroit, rather than in Ann Arbor. In Highland Park, for example, where there are no white voters, Snyder pulled in four percent of the vote. In Detroit, Snyder pulled in just five percent of the vote. On the other hand, Democrats and Independents fell for the razzle dazzle, feel-good, say-nothing campaign Snyder paid millions to Hollywood and DC consultants to design for him. Dems and Independents voted for Snyder, and in Ann Arbor they donated to his campaign.

Certainly Michigan’s residents have felt the impact of the state GOP’s political policies which have resulted in economic apartheid instead of good-paying jobs. Homelessness is up. Childhood poverty is up, since Mr. Snyder took office. Food insecurity is up, as well. In our state 20 percent of children don’t have enough to eat. The number of Michigan residents whose homes have been foreclosed on is up. While unemployment is down from 14 percent in 2009 to 8.4 percent, Michigan currently has the ninth highest rate of unemployment among the states. We also went from having a civilian labor force of 5 million to 4.3 million. The state industry with the largest job growth over the past 12 months is Leisure and Hospitality, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor data. Come get a Michigan job—be a waiter, work at Burger King, clean hotel rooms.

In 2010 when Mr. Snyder took office, the state’s employed labor force was 4,152,290 individuals. In April of 2013, after lots of “relentless positive action,” a billion dollars in tax breaks, right-to-work, a bloody war against education and teachers, additional millions for economic development, there are 4,279,283 employed in our state, a gain of 126,993 people with jobs. Michigan spends $6.65 billion dollars on economic development giveaways each year, according to research by the Martin Prosperity Institute.

Chad Selweski suggests that Snyder need only run against Mark Schauer by suggesting that Schauer would return Michigan to the bad old days of Democrat Jennifer Granholm. Yeah, the bad old days of November 2003 when Jennifer Granholm took office and unemployment was 6 percent, the state had a workforce of over 5 million individuals, 4,696,245 of whom had jobs. According to Economic Policy Institute research published in May 2013:

• The unemployment rate of blacks in Michigan is 18.7 percent, about two and a half times that of whites (7.5 percent), and has been for much of the last five years.
• Of the 24 states with large enough African American populations to track with quarterly CPS unemployment data, Michigan has the highest African American unemployment rate.
• In Michigan, three groups—all workers, white workers, and African American workers—have higher unemployment rates than the national rate for the same group.

We are living in the bad old days under a governor whose political and economic policies have done little to ease the suffering of the state’s economically devastated black population, as well as its beleaguered middle-class—its America First Democrats—the white folks who boosted Governor Snyder’s candidacy with their contributions and their votes. The Ecomonics Policy Institute research into Michigan’s economic woes concludes with this:

Michigan’s recovery from the depths of the Great Recession has been impressive at times, spurred in particular by the successful bailout of the auto sector (New York Times 2012). Yet despite significant reductions in overall unemployment, nearly one in five African American workers continues to be unemployed. Others have stopped looking for work and have fallen out of the labor force altogether….The devastating impact on Michigan workers of all races demands strong federal job-creation efforts.

Translation: President Obama, not Governor Rick Snyder, should be given credit for the state’s economic recovery thus far and “relentless positive action” has reinvented Michigan’s economy in the image of Mississippi.

That non-white voters were never taken in by Rick Snyder’s song and dance is gratifying in retrospect. Unlike Chad Selweski, I’m predicting that the state’s white, independent voters won’t be fooled by Snyder a second time. I’m also hopeful that Mark Schauer will be able to make a positive impression on the state’s voters who don’t know him well enough yet to realize that a turn away from radical Republican leadership in Michigan is just what employment and economic data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor suggest our state’s retirees, workers and families desperately need.