McCain's cars and the Michigan factor

Some new numbers are out, and they show John McCain defeating Barack Obama by a margin of 13-1.

But this isn't about votes. It's about cars.

It's already factually established that McCain is the real elitist in this race, a third-generation Naval Academy legacy from an affluent family who in midlife married a beer heiress and has since taken up residence in seven houses. But the story keeps getting better. The other day, Newseek checked the vehicle-registration records and discovered that John and Cindy own 13 cars (roughly 11 more than the typical suburban American household), whereas Barack and Michelle own...one (roughly half as many as the typical suburban American household).

Actually, the story is even better than that. Three of the cars in the McCain family fleet are foreign - a Volkswagen, a Honda, and a Lexus - and that statistic doesn't quite square with McCain's recent boast, on a Detroit TV station, about how "I've bought American literally all my life, and I'm proud." He didn't quite say that he has always bought American, but clearly he was seeking solidarity with the beleaguered working stiffs of Michigan who make American cars.

By itself, this car story is nothing special, just more incremental evidence of McCain's elitist lifestyle. (Memo to those who think the car story is totally trivial: If Obama owned 13 cars, the McCain message machine would be reminding us day and night.) Indeed, the car story is less important than the news today about McCain's elitist inner circle, about how campaign manager Rick Davis' Washington consulting firm was actually a fixture on the Freddie Mac payroll until the end of August - a revelation which blows apart McCain's weekend claim that Davis has steered clear of Freddie Mac since 2005. Here's McCain on Sunday, referring to his campaign manager: "I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

But what's most significant about the car story is how - and where - Barack Obama is seeking to exploit it.

Obama's message people quickly worked up a TV ad that shows McCain's buy-American boast (twice), flashes the corporate logos of McCain's foreign cars, then tells the viewer: "Don't believe John McCain when he says we'll help Michigan." This ad is aimed squarely at those hurting Michigan workers, and no wonder:

For Obama to assemble an electoral-college majority, he badly needs to win Michigan, a state that has backed the Democratic candidate (Clinton, Gore, Kerry) in four consecutive elections. But it's by no means certain that it will back Obama.

Here's the national map in a nutshell: Obama probably needs all the states that John Kerry captured four years ago - totaling 252 electoral votes - in order to put him within range of the magic 270 (the Kerry states, plus Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa would put him over the top, and there are other feasible hypotheticals). His task, however, would be immensely complicated if Michigan - the most vulnerable of the Kerry states - bails out on election day, reducing his foundation to 235 electoral votes.

Obama, at best, is clinging to a small, tenuous lead in Michigan for a whole host of reasons. Even though the state is suffering exteme economic distress - the median annual household income has dropped $7,100 over the past seven years, which is seven times greater than the national decline, according to new census figures released yesterday - voters nevertheless haven't signed on to Obama's economic message. Probably because he has yet to frame one that people remember.

That's just for starters. Obama is also new to Michigan; as you may recall, he didn't campaign there last winter, when the Michigan Democratic primary was deemed illegit by the national party. McCain, by contrast, has been popular in Michigan dating back to 2000, when he won the GOP primary with help from independents and crossover Democrats. Moreover, Obama's newness has left him vulnerable to attack from McCain-friendly independent groups; they're currently airing cable TV ads linking Obama to Jeremiah Wright and to the disgraced ex-mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick.

Not surprisingly - at least to me, since I wrote about this several weeks ago - there is a racial dimension to Obama's potential troubles. Obama has barely rubbed shoulders with Kilpatrick, who is black, but that matters little to the group called Freedom's Defense Fund, which is aiming its Obama-Kilpatrick commercial at the white denizens of Macomb County; in that vote-rich region northeast of the big city, the word "Detroit" is synonymous with "black," and the word "black" is synonymous with bad.

Am I being too melodramatic? Not according to the top Republican in Michigan. Saul Anuzis, the state GOP chairman, went on record the other day - finally, somebody has gone on the record - to acknowledge the obvious, that Obama's race will be a factor. Anuzis told Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne that Michigan voters typically list a bunch of reasons why they're wary of Obama, without listing the one he believes is pivotal: "Racism, like sexism, is not something people admit to. When they have five or six reasons, it's usually for another reason they don't want to mention."

Hence the Obama ad about McCain's 13 cars. Obviously Obama needs to sharpen his own economic message, if he is to convince wary Michigan voters that he is on their side; but, in addition, part of his task is to convince them that McCain, merely by dint of his lifestyle, is out of touch and not on their side.

The message about 13 cars is potentially effective populism - but the ad's outrage about three foreign cars is a bit phony. After all, Obama stated in May 2007 that the U.S. carmakers screwed themselves by allowing foreign competitors to capture the domestic market for fuel-efficient quality cars, so it's hard to imagine that he would fault McCain, or any other American, for buying foreign. And, lest we forget, Obama is generally a free-trader, not a protectionist. Nevertheless, given his political obstacles in Michigan, and the importance of Michigan to his national prospects, it's hardly surprising that his campaign is trying to seize all available opportunities, even if it means pandering to the buy-American worker.

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Check out this photo, which begs to be comedically annotated. Care to give it a try? Here's mine...

Kissinger: "I am concerned right now about our liquidity."

Palin: "Oh, me too. Can somebody bring us some bottled water?"

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