Michigan Primary: Romney Strikes Back!

What is going on here!?! Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee won the Iowa Caucuses. Arizona Senator John McCain won the New Hampshire Primary. And now, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has just won the Michigan Primary! Wow! This shows that the battle for the Republican presidential nomination is truly a wide open battle!

The spotlight was on the Republicans tonight because due to a ruling made by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Michigan's Democratic Primary essentially did not count. It's a complicated story but all you need to know is that the DNC was angry at Michigan for scheduling its primary before February 5th and so it punished the state by taking away all of its convention delegates, thus making Michigan's primary irrelevant. The Democratic candidates complied with the ruling by completely ignoring the state and of the major candidates running, only Senator Clinton's name appeared on the ballot. In looking at last night's results, it is interesting to note that Clinton received 55% of the vote while uncommitted (those who would have probably voted for Obama or Edwards) received 40%. But like I said, the candidates did not pay any attention to the state and so sadly for Michigan Democrats, their contest was for the most part meaningless.

But let's get back to the Republicans because they certainly made Michigan's primary relevant by giving the state its full attention (though the Republican National Committee (RNC) still penalized Michigan by taking away half of its delegates). It was primarily a battle among the winners of the first three contests: McCain, Huckabee, and Romney (yes, Romney as well because don't forget that he won Wyoming!). McCain, who had just won New Hampshire the week before, had history going for him in Michigan. During his first run for president in 2000, McCain won the state by defeating then Governor George W. Bush. Huckabee hoped to do well by winning the vote of social conservatives in western Michigan and by preaching his economic populist message in a state that is definitely in need of economic reform. And of course there was Romney, where even though he served as governor of Massachusetts, his true roots lie in the Wolverine State of Michigan. Romney was born and raised in the state and his family has strong ties to it as well due to the fact that his father, George Romney, served as governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969.

So each of the big three had something going for him in Michigan. They campaigned across the whole state and each candidate expressed their respective campaign messages with vigor and passion. I have to give Senator McCain a lot of credit because as usual, he campaigned by invoking his straight-talking message, not merely pandering but telling the people of Michigan what he believed to be the truth. He told the people that some of their old auto jobs would never return and that new jobs would need to be created in order to help those left behind. I definitely agree with this statement because after reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman and taking a couple of economic classes last semester, I now realize that in order for a nation to reach its full potential in terms of economic development, it has to let go of its old industries and create new ones. It has to focus on creating new innovate jobs because doing so will lead to greater productivity and hence, higher standards of living! This is especially true in the world we live in today where globalization requires us to be as competitive as possible. So as Thomas Friedman would say, we need this to be a race to the top, not the bottom, and Senator McCain's campaign speeches in Michigan certainly reflected this idea. Sorry for getting a little side-tracked here but I just had to complement Senator McCain for his ideas. Keep on straight-talking, Senator!

Unfortunately, the straight-talking did not help McCain's bid in the Wolverine State and Huckabee's populist message did not help his case either because as mentioned, Romney pulled through with a victory in Michigan. He won in convincing manner as well, winning the state by 9 percentage points and sweeping the population centers and the eastern half of the state. One interesting fact to point out from the exit polls is that 42% of the voters thought Romney's ties to Michigan were important. Among that 42% of voters, 58% voted for Romney, and I think this proved decisive in swinging the Wolverine state to its native son. This also shows that home state status truly matters, which is something you can discover in our presidential election computer game.

And as a die-hard political junkie, I must say that these past couple of weeks have been truly exciting. I just haven't seen anything like it before. These primary races usually end in a short period of time but with the way things are going right now, we could be in for a very long battle.

This is especially the case for the Republicans because as you notice, in every state there has been a different winner. At this point, there are multiple front-runners with Huckabee, McCain, and Romney, with the potential for more. Of course I am referring to former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Thompson has to win South Carolina this weekend to be viable and Giuliani is in a similar situation because he has to win Florida in order to have any chance. If both of these scenarios occur...oh for crying out loud, I'll just go crazy!

The battle for the Democratic nomination is wide open as well but their field of candidates have been narrowed down to the big three, Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. Some might argue that Edwards should not be included in this list but I am not counting him out yet. If he does poorly in Nevada and South Carolina, then yes, I will count him out at that time but as New Hampshire proved, you just don't know what might happen next.

Anyway, here are the results from the Michigan Primary and please stay tuned for analysis of this Saturday's contests in Nevada and South Carolina.

Michigan Primary Final Results

Republicans
Romney - 39%
McCain - 30%
Huckabee - 16%
Paul - 6%
Thompson - 4%
Giuliani - 3%

Democrats
Clinton - 55%
Uncommitted - 40%
Kucinich - 4%