Former President Bill Clinton came to our fair state of Michigan yesterday to speak at a ralley in Detroit. Michigan is often referred to as a left-handed mitten. As such, Detroit is the second knuckle of the thumb. It's only a knuckle, but it's a big ol' swolen knuckle, infected by the woes of the auto industry and other problems. When that knuckle aches, the whole state aches.
Funny thing about that knuckle: its also the face of the state. When people think "Michigan," they typically see Detroit, even though the rest of the state looks nothing like it. .
Michigan is mostly rural with forests and lakes and people who use guns for hunting furry critters in the woods and cornfields--not for shooting each other as is more true in Detroit.
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Since Detroit is the big knuckle and the face of the state; and since the face is the front of the head; some folks think Michigan is full of knuckle-heads.
Bill Clinton must think so. He showed up in Detroit yesterday and stood in a two-thirds empty high school gymnasium downtown. He'd come to tell his shrinking fan-base how to vote next week.
The Democrats have known for decades that the Detroit vote dominates the entire state. They also know that if the Detroit vote is lethargic--and it is--the cast of characters in the rest of the rest of the state gets to be heard--the rest of the fingers in the mitten suddenly matter again. It's long overdue for the rest of those fingers to count. Based on this photo, it looks like at least one of them showed itself (...maybe it was the little finger where I live), and based on the article below, I think Lansing (and thereby the whole mitten) has a chance of going red!
Here is part of what the Detroit Free Press said:
“These other guys are playing you. They say they’re mad, they’re frustrated and want something new,” Clinton said. “But this country is coming back.”
Bernero was joined by all the other statewide candidates at the rally. Their message was clear -- don’t be discouraged by the polls that show them trailing Republicans.
“Are you ready to win, ready to fight, ready to vote?” Bernero asked the crowd.... “You have to remember the votes, because this election is up to you, not the editorial pages, or the pollsters, or pundits or prognosticators.”
While the crowd hoisted signs that stated “Virg Surge,” the turnout at the rally was anemic. More than 500 people came to the rally, but the gym at Renaissance High School was only about one-third full, even though Clinton used to command full houses wherever he went, especially in Detroit.
Politician after politician exhorted the crowd to not let the polls keep them from voting on Nov. 2.
“They think that if they tell you often enough that you’re not doing well that you won’t go to the polls,” U.S. Rep. John Conyers said. “But we’re not buying that malarkey. If Detroit turns out as it has in the past, we win.”
Without Detroit's vote, Michigan would not be "a blue state" for the Democrats who think votes can be bought with bail-outs and warn-out faces from the past. Looks like Clinton's got the blues. Maybe we're about to see a red.
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