I doubt it matters very much that Michigan’s embattled Republican governor, Rick Snyder, won’t be endorsing Donald Trump for president. Given Snyder’s performance on the Flint water issue, who would want his endorsement? Gov. Snyder says he’s going to stay focused on retaining a Republican majority in the state’s House of Representatives.
Yet, as Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post reported a week ago, Trump has identified Michigan as one of fifteen key states he plans to target as part of his strategy to win the Electoral College. It probably matters that the Mitten State’s GOP is in complete disarray.
When Morning Consult did a 50-state poll back in May, they found that only Sam Brownback of Kansas and Dan Malloy of Connecticut are more unpopular than Snyder in their homes states. Snyder is even narrowly more disliked than Chris Christie of New Jersey, which is saying something.
So, a key question for the presidential campaign is whether Snyder’s problems are going to infect the Republican brand in Michigan, and whether Trump is enough of an outsider that it won’t matter for him.
Ordinarily, the governor can and should be an asset for a candidate of the same party, but that requires some degree of coordination and effort. I don’t see that happening in Michigan, but it also seems like Trump doesn’t know how or simply doesn’t want to do this kind of coordination with any Republican governors.
If he succeeds, it won’t be because he synched up his campaign with the winning organizations of state governors. Maybe Florida will be a little more successful in that regard than Michigan, or certainly Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich remains hostile and estranged.
For a campaign that has a Midwest strategy, Trump’s weaknesses with the Republican Establishment in Michigan, Ohio, and (we need to add) Wisconsin, should be a glaring warning sign.
Why is the Republican Party alive at all in Michigan?
Explain. It is more baffling than Kansas.
I love Michigan and have deep roots there. Went to college there. But it’s the Alabama of the North.
Over Indiana?
I dunno, BooMan.
Now it’s my turn to say “Ouch.”
Folks I know from central Pennsylvania say that that’s the Alabama of the North.
Because of Amway money. Just like NC is deeply GOP at the government level because of Democratic perfidy and Art Pope money.
It goes deeper than that. The decades long collapse of the manufacturing base for autos inside of Michigan has hurt the middle class, and the right has used both attacks on unions and dog whistle attacks on poor and minorities to blame them for the investment class strip mining of the middle class in the state.
Flint is a classic example, in the 60-70’s home to many auto based plants, now a days a concrete wasteland, where many plants stood
Result, latent racism becomes much more open, and the GOP handing them candidates who feed their anger both economic and social, gets votes against their interests.
Given how the problems facing the lower and middle class are discussed in the media, and the repetitive attacks on government and unions as the problem, the swing toward the GOP could be expected.
The only hope is how badly Snyder has done might wake enough people up, but given how the media has allowed the GOP to blame the local politicians even though the were powerless because of the city manager law, and of course the old bogey man the EPA, is how the GOP will try to survive this mess.
Thanks for explanations, as I wondered as well.
It’s sadly astonishing how people’s angers and hatreds can be so stoked that they consistently vote against their own interests… just in order to screw over poor people and minorities.
Sadly I see similar behavior across the political spectrum. It’s not limited to GOP voters, sad to say. Most US citizens are huge authoritarians and love to kiss up and kick down, no matter how they vote. JMHO, of course.
Well, the GOP wants to blame Anybody But The Snyder Administration, sure.
His cratered approval polling suggests the GOP is failing in the blame game here.
We’ll see if that works any better for them than it did for the shrub.
He is painting pictures of himself in the shower and his dog. Nobody asks him for comments.
Not another allusion to What’s the Matter With Kansas?….
Thomas Frank had a hypothesis: people vote on the basis of economic self interest. When he saw that Kansans were doing otherwise, he didn’t re-examine his hypothesis. Instead he pulled out the hoary old “false consciousness” rigamarole. Jeezus. I remember first hearing that when I became politically aware in about 1980, except then “false consciousness” was the supposed explanation for why the oppressed masses didn’t understand that socialism was what they needed.
Ditch the economic-determinism hypothesis. People vote for all sorts of reasons. Maybe their reason is “saving the unborn”. You’d probably be surprised how many people vote GOP for that reason.
That is the exact metric that ended up with a tea party turd sitting in the Governors Office in Frankfort KY, except it was hatred of the gays and their legalized marriage that got him there. Even though his dismantling of the states Kynect care program he touted would hurt many of them and their families. He’s gone further then that cutting education budgets, and slashing the minimum wage executive orders of Gov. Beshear, which also hit them in the pocket book.
It’s his playing the anti-gay pro-religion card that got him over the top.
succeed at getting Kynect dismantled? I haven’t heard that (guessing would have if it had happened? pretty big news?).
An honest answer would be both yes, he has started to dismantle kynect, and NO because his attempts are failing to work so far.
His aim for the end of the year is to have the federal government running the ACA portion like they do in other wingnut controlled states.
I will be really curious to see where Kasich finally lands on the issue of Trump. My gut tells me he will be one of those, “I support the Republican nominee because I’m a Republican” people. But I have a hard time seeing him embrace Trump or standing up on a podium with him and saying good things about him. But Kasich has proven he can be a moral chameleon, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he proves me wrong.
Kasich is too much the primmadonna to make kissey face with the Donald. More likely to carefully nurse his own grudges for years and years, unlike Rubio who’s proven himself willing to strap on knee pads.
I kind of see it that way, too. Was utterly unsurprised when Rubio strapped on the knee pads to kiss Trump’s heiney. Rubio’s just such a worthless little POS.
Kasich is not a good man, but I don’t see him caving like Rubio. Deals will have to be made with Kasich, and most of it will be far out of the public eye. I don’t see Kasich bending his knees quite so readily, but only time will tell. He may hold out to the end.
You write:
There are a couple of
poundit…errrr, ahhhh…I mean pundit-intensive flaws in these sentences.Here they are:
and
I find it hard to believe that anybody who has been even casually watching the astoundingly successful Trump campaign might think that Trump gives two shits about “The Republican Party” or its governors/working mechanisms in place. He has been successful by running against those entities and he obviously believes that he will continue to be successful…on his own terms…without their active help in the election as well. In fact…he might think that he will be better off without them.
Trump is his own party…a truly democratically (rule of the majority, even if it’s a minority within a greater majority), grass-roots oriented, mass media/social media-produced party that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Republican Party other than using its leverage to get him on the state ballots come
Erection…damn!!! I meant “Election”…Day.Is he right about this?
There are two levels to that question:
1-Does he think that he can win the presidency using this approach? I don’t know, myself. Considering the sad state of the country under a Dem President coupled with HRC’s even sadder state as a candidate? Could happen…
2-Does he even expect…or want…to win? That’s another biggie. As I said above ‘”…he obviously believes that he will continue to be successful…on his own terms…without their active help in the election as well.”
The kicker in that statement is the phrase “on his own terms.” I personally think that he is playing a win/win game here. If he wins the presidency, he wins. He’s the Big Cheese for a while. The Biggest Cheese!!! That’s fun for him, right? If he loses? He still wins. He’s a bigger Big Cheese than he was before he started this campaign; he will be famous…or infamous, it makes no difference to him because of the “Print anything about me but spell my name right!!!” concept that has ruled American celebrity for over 100 years…for the rest of his life with the added bonus of not having to actually do much but lounge around his various residences and take Viagara whenever he thinks he should act horny.
Hurdles?
If it makes little or no difference whether you win or lose…where are these “hurdles?” Egomania on the Trump level is impermeable to failure.
Bet on it.
AG
Yeah, I think you might be right on this. We will see if GOTV really is reliant on sheepherding.
Good points, all of them.
My worthless speculation pretty matches your explanations. I don’t think Trump gives 2 shits whether he wins or loses. It’s all win-win for him.
It’s hard to imagine that he really truly honestly WANTS to do the work of being a President. W couldn’t really do it, but he had Cheney there to do the heavy lifting.
I think Trump just loves the attention, whether it’s adoring or dismissive, it’s all the same to him.
And no, I don’t see Trump working collaboratively with the GOP establishments or other politicians, whether state governors or whatever. Trump wants to be a Team of ONE, just him. It’s all about him, and he wants to run this on his own and show that he can do it without much help.
So far, that behavior has led to great success for him.
Why fix it if ain’t broke? Not snark.
I’m not so sure it’s win-win for him anymore.
The PGA just moved annual tournament from his Doral Resort in Miami to Mexico.
Why?
Think about it, people who sponsor the PGA event don’t want to be to closely associated with he brand that is Trump.
This isn’t the only deal he has lost.
His law suit for fleecing people at trump U is very public, and that won’t go away, even might get other to sue him after November.
he has alienated many many people around the planet, and that also isn’t going away.
Like Dick Cheyenne, Trump might have crossed the Rubicon in bad publicity and vastly shrunk his circle of people wanting to be associated with him.
He might just understand that, and realize he NEEDS to win, or his loss will be much worse than Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, or Mitt Romney had to face the day after they lost.
This election might be his most public bankruptcy because he isn’t losing money but the brand he made the money off of.
Dick Cheney,
I HATE SPELL-CHECK.
Aw, I kinda liked “Dick Cheyenne” — sounded like an arrogant cowboy.
The deals are happening now. Trump isn’t going to be a president-the GOP PsTB are plotting among themselves & bartering with Trump to assign to people & corps all the “out-sourced” responsibilities of the President. Except, of course, the showy appearances. The GOP is accepting this absurdity and turning it to advantage by consolidating all the unsavory corporate & personal interests of faithful party members. Trump will have the crown but not the court. the big question is who will be the Cheney-the ring leader.
Other than referring to Trump with the word “democratic”, this seems about right. He obviously loathes democracy, and has ginned up a spectacularly successful cult of personality.
You write:
Wrong again, JDW.
If a group of asshole white supremacists, equally asshole gangbangers or Hell’s Angels types elect a leader by majority vote, that is democracy in action. Nothing less and nothjng more. “Democracy” does not guarantee morality, JDW. That’s just more PermaGov bullshit. Trump has quite legitimately…as in “under the law as it stands”…conbstrfucted a majoprity of the people who vorte in RatPublican primaries. You disagree with his tactics and/or policies? Me too. But he didn’t force people at the point of a gun to vote for him; he convinced them to vote for him.
Are the Trump voters a minority in the U.S. population?
Let us pray that they are, but he has so far used the rules of a so-called “democracy” to…quite legitimately…assemble a majority within the group of people who voluntarily identify themselves as Republicans.
Will his success continue?
I dunno.
Look at the likely opposition.
HRC has too much baggage. Trump will rip her up.
Watch.
AG