I live in Michigan. I went to a Lieberman/McCain rally. I voted in our primary.

motorcity

(72 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Wed Jan-16-08 11:57 AM
Original message

I live in Michigan. I went to a Lieberman/McCain rally. I voted in our primary.

I see a lot of non-Michiganders weighing on the MI results, so I thought I would give you my perspective. I have lived around the Detroit area my entire life, and currently live in Washtenaw County. Most of my family and friends reside in south east Michigan.

Over the weeks, I have seen lots of Ron Paul signs and bumper stickers, a Ron Paul campaign office on Main Street in Ann Arbor, a few Romney bumper stickers and that is it in regards to this primary. No Hillary signs. No Obama signs. No uncommitted signs.

I know a couple of Hillary supporters, but everyone else prefers Obama and/or Edwards. In fact, I would say everyone I know could probably be divided into Hillary and non-Hillary supporters. The people who support Edwards prefer Obama over Hillary, the people who support Obama prefer Edwards over Hillary.

A few weeks ago it became very clear that all of the Obama/Edwards supporters were very, very confused about how to vote in this primary. Some people thought write-ins were valid, some people got robocalls telling them that there was no Democratic primary to vote in, people were debating whether they should vote in the Republican primary, I saw an article with my own eyes that claimed that MI was a closed primary, etc. There was lots of disinformation.

Everyone knew that Hillary was on the ballot, so her supporters were pretty relaxed about the whole thing. It was the Obama and Edwards supporters who didn't know what to do. I know that the posters on this site have a good idea of what is going on politically, but you guys are way outside the norm. I know the good information was out there somewhere, but never underestimate the power of "aunt Sally heard that..." My mom sent me a picture of a ballot that had the candidates and "write in" as an option and said "See? You CAN write in!"

In the end, thanks in part to this website, my Hillary supporting friends voted for Hillary like they knew they would, some of the Edwards and Obama supporters voted uncommitted, many stayed home, and some voted for McCain (don't ask). In the middle of a bunch of Ron Paul signs, there was a lone uncommitted sign outside the polling place, but no real explanation as to why anyone should vote uncommitted. An Obama supporter screwed up her ballot while I was at the polling place, but I never heard the outcome.

I was pretty amazed that uncommitted got 40% of the vote, and I live in one of the few counties that uncommitted won. Anyone who claims there was some massive movement for uncommitted must live in a different part of Michigan than my friends and family, None of us saw it. I did see my governor tell Wolf Blitzer that everyone should vote for Hillary Clinton.

And now my Lieberman experience. I went to a Lieberman/ SOS Cox rally for McCain in downtown Ann Arbor, the day before the election. 150 people there. Every shade of white imaginable. It was pretty uneventful except for a few things. It was very close to the student area, and the college Republicans had some ties in with the event, but maybe 15% of the audience were students. The main thrust of the rally was that McCain would reach across the isle, work with Democrats, unite the country, yadda yadda yadda. People on this site often complain that only Democratic candidates talk about reaching across the aisle, but that was absolutely not the case at this rally. There was even some criticisms of the "far right." No mention of Bush, a few mentions of Hillary Clinton, and not a lot of talk about the war.

If McCain is the nominee, our candidate better be able to really appeal to independents. If this rally is any representation, that is the group McCain is going for.

I don't expect to post here a lot, but I do come here for news. Thanks for the information about the Michigan primary. This site is more helpful than some of you probably realize.