Kerry to visit job loss wracked Michigan

[JoFerret]

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/special_packages/election2004/8262184.htm

[JNelson6563]

1. Bush won't win Michigan

from the article:

In Greenville, in western Michigan, Electrolux AB recently announced that it's moving its refrigerator plant to Mexico, eliminating 2,700 jobs in the town of 8,000. Republican Mayor Lloyd Walker said he worked with the union and Gov. Jennifer Granholm to offer Electrolux a $74 million incentive package, but didn't get help "or sympathy even" from the Bush administration despite pleas to the Labor Department.

That's right, we have a Democratic Governor and there's no way they will help her. When he came to town soon after Jennifer Granholm was elected Michigan's first woman Governor, the boy king could only acknowledge her in passing "and your Governor's here..." What an asshole.

"I've never voted for a Democratic president, but I think that's going to change this year," Walker said.

I'm in northern Michigan, an area of the north that is in a Republican strangle-hold and I'm here to tell you brothers and sisters, the above quote is being repeated thousands of times a day across this great state. It's music to my ears.

Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer said Democratic clubs are starting in the more conservative western and northern parts of the state. Teacher Jack Schneider, who formed Democrats of West Oakland County two years ago in a conservative section of Detroit's suburbs, said dozens of people have joined because of outrage at Bush, the economy being the chief complaint.

Our local Dem membership has nearly quadrupled in less than six months.

:toast:

Julie

[phillybri]

2. Great stuff, Julie!

Here's to you! :toast:

[TahitiNut]

3. It has always disappointed me that this state swung so far right ...

... after benefiting so immensely from the policies and programs of New Deal Democrats (e.g. Soapy Williams) and liberal Republicans (e.g. Bill Milliken) over the years. The right-wingers leveraged the narrow-minded bigotry of the "Southern Strategy" and state regionalism to divide people and play on the politics of fear and ignorance. (Macomb County is almost the archetype of a neoconservative area.) In the 50's, this state's infrastructure (educational, transportation, and utility) was second to none in the nation. It's appalling to see the municipal decay of the Detroit area and the wretched excesses of greed surrounding it. (The fascist Ford family has led the march to the bottom, imho.)

[JNelson6563]

5. You make very good points

It's not pretty for me to go "downstate". There's so much wealth and yet it is so dilapitated!

Still, I think Michigan is waking up. Taken a while to shake out of the fog, musta been all the gas fumes or something. haha

Julie

[billybob537]

4. Quick open the flood gates

Let them in. Once we get them they'll wonder what they ever saw in the Bushstappo!

[5thGenDemocrat]

6. One of my best friends works on the Greenville Daily News

He was in town last weekend. I asked him how the folks are responding to the Electrolux shutdown and he said just about everyone he's talked to is laying it off on Republican policies, big business interests (greed) and, in short, they're pissed.
The Greenvillians deeply appreciate that Gov. Granholm moved heaven and Earth in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the plant in town and the fault for its leaving is to be laid squarely on the other side of the political aisle.
Now, Chip is a conservative guy -- a church-going fellow and, alas, a Republican to his bone marrow (incidentally, he has a bone to pick with Dopey too, as he feels what is happening in Iraq is nothing more than an oil grab and cold-blooded murder to boot -- a violation of at least two of the Ten Commandments). So I don't think he's telling me all this just to make me feel better.
Anyhow, Greenville is about as Republican as it gets in Michigan and the view from Chip and the Daily News is that The Pretender is in the horsesauce right up to his eyebrows there. Gore won the state in 2000 and Clinton won it twice before that. I sure don't see, nor does Chip, how Dopey is going to put it in his column this time.
Especially not if he can't carry Greenville. And he surely won't.
John
So what Julie sees over there on the western side of the state isn't an isolated incident by any means. Michigan will go Dem and go Dem big.

[Scout]

7. Hi Julie

Another Michigander here, just saying Hi :hi:

Are you coming down for Funday, at 5thGenDem's in Saginaw?

[5thGenDemocrat]

8. Hiya, Scout!!

Are you coming up June 19? I have my 29-foot, seven ton, 1963 International Harvester bus back here -- rusting away in the side yard and ready for mega-partying. I really hope all the DUers, at least all those in Michigan, can make the soiree.
John
It is, for those keeping track, now 86 days, 19 hours and 20 minutes to FUNDAY X.
ON EDIT: Text changes because I can no longer keep my guest list straight. Either FUNDAY's just getting too successful or I'm going senile. Probably both.

[Scout]

9. I want to be there.

I can't promise yet, but I'm going to try. I thought I'd get there last year, but it didn't happen. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

[amandabeech]

10. Ex-Michigander here

I'll be off to the western edge of the LP for Easter. I'll try to take the pulse of a very, very Republican area. If my friend the asparagus and cherry farmer is disgusted with *, then * should just give up.