Kalamazoo and Michigan Democrats are Overly Confident About 2010 Prospects
Fred Upton
When I read Democratic blogs that cover Michigan politics one thing is clear: they think 2010 is going to be as successful, if not more successful, than 2008. Of course, it is natural to hear Democrats more concerned about party dominion than anything substantive. What’s surprising is how delusional they seem to be.
In the case of the Kalamazoo-Portage area, Democrats are immensely confident because of the turn out for Obama last year. In Kalamazoo County Barack Obama pulled in 77,051 votes over McCain’s 51,554. These figures, however, are very misleading. Considering McCain’s Michigan pullout and his general decline in polls over the over-hyped economic “crisis”, these figures aren’t too surprising.
Democratic pundits/bloggers never talk about the fact that Upton took Kalamazoo County with 68,028 votes over Kalamazoo’s favorite Don Cooney, who managed only 55,599. Two out of three of the Michigan House districts that cover Kalamazoo were held as Republican. Jase Bolger took over Lorence Wenke’s seat and Larry Deshazor, despite being outspent, managed to hold the 61st district. Of course, corporate groomed Robert Jones managed to hold his 60th district, which is essentially the City of Kalamazoo.
Given the incompetence of Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature coupled with the lack of anything accomplished by Obama other than more Bush-era war mongering and spending, it’s not really clear how these numbers will be improved on in 2010. However, I may be wrong, that is, if Democrats put together a substantive case for election other than “Republicans can’t rule, just ‘cuz”. I doubt it though – they had their chance last year.