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When revote proposals die, Michigan edition

Dante Chinni

Posted: 03.24.2008 / 8:11 AM EDT

Up until last week Michigan and Florida were the wallflowers at the 2008 election dance with high hopes. Ignored? Passed over? Maybe, but suddenly they were looking good to the two Democrats who needed to fill out their dance cards.

The “end” of Florida’s revote chatter came early in the week when the party announced they could not come up with a solution that would work for all the parties involved. Michigan’s revote talk ended Thursday when the state’s Senate adjourned for two weeks without taking up the issue.

How did the state react? At least in Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, it was mostly a shrug of the collective shoulders. That could have been because the Florida revote  proposal died just days earlier, or maybe it was the assumption that both sides were too dug in for anything to happen.

Even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to Detroit stirred up little support.

“I think most people are focused on the economic turmoil and their own survival and looking forward to warmer weather. I don’t hear a lot of buzz about the candidate selection process,” said Jesse Bernstein, president of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, in an e-mail.

Ann Arbor’s Mayor John Hieftje said he attended a fundraiser for Rep. John Dingell (not an unpolitical crowd) and there was “very little talk of the revote among the 100 guests.”

Such nonreaction over the revote fight is a bit of a surprise, particularly in Ann Arbor. In Michigan’s presidential primary in January, the city’s home county, Washtenaw, gave its vote to “uncommitted,” and some residents have talked about how important it was for their voices to be heard.

But in the end it may be that as long as all sides resolve the impasse in a way that they see as fair, most voters will go along – revote or no revote.

“From my perspective, while the news has been on a daily feed about a re-do, I’ve picked up very little passion in Ann Arbor/Washtenaw County about the debate,” another Patchwork correspondent wrote. “[U]ncommitted won in Washtenaw County – and I frankly suspect that if a re-do had been scheduled – the result in the county would have been near an even split.” 

Of course, the debate may have sparked “little passion” among students because of the proposed timing of the revote. It was to be in June when most of the area’s college students are home for the summer, as noted in the Ann Arbor Patchwork blog of Andrew Grossman.

The death of the Michigan revote may have stirred little excitement in Ann Arbor, but for the Clinton campaign it was huge news. The campaign’s plan to fight for the nomination hinges, in large part, on Senator Clinton’s ability to woo superdelegates by winning more of the overall popular vote than Sen. Barack Obama. 

Without revotes in Florida and Michigan that math becomes very difficult.