Battlefield Rust Belt

By Eric M. Johnson

DETROIT – Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma won the indus­tri­al Mid­west in 2008 with a mes­sage of hope and change, but he faces a much dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic re-elec­tion land­scape. And with key con­gres­sion­al races loom­ing in 2012, the belea­guered Rust Belt will be on the front lines of the bat­tle over com­pet­ing def­i­n­i­tions of Amer­i­can cap­i­tal­ism and plans to restore the dwin­dling mid­dle class.

n states like Ohio, Wis­con­sin and Indi­ana – where Repub­li­can law­mak­ers have suc­cess­ful­ly pushed anti-labor leg­is­la­tion since ear­ly 2011 – unions and fis­cal hawks have flocked to the streets and capi­tol build­ings with teeth bared and fists clenched. ​“This elec­tion is about the heart and soul of Amer­i­ca,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D‑Ill.) says.

Let’s go through the states. Illi­nois votes Demo­c­rat solid­ly. Indi­ana is lean­ing Repub­li­can (before 2008 no Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee had won Indi­ana since 1964), and some observers say Obama’s cam­paign is under-invest­ed there. Oba­ma car­ried Ohio, Michi­gan and Wis­con­sin hand­i­ly in 2008, but they are also up for grabs. This trio car­ries 44 Elec­toral Col­lege votes – with the goal of 270, it’s all but impos­si­ble for Oba­ma to win re-elec­tion with­out win­ning two of these states.

When asked about the president’s health reform and its con­tentious man­date that Amer­i­cans obtain health insur­ance – which Ohioans vot­ed against in a Novem­ber 2011 bal­lot – an Oba­ma staffer there said the pres­i­dent will make income inequal­i­ty, the suc­cess­ful auto indus­try bailout and plans to boost man­u­fac­tur­ing cen­ter­pieces of his campaign. 

Repub­li­cans in Ohio, Michi­gan, Indi­ana and Wis­con­sin said they will respond by cred­it­ing their gov­er­nors’ fis­cal dis­ci­pline, lais­sez-faire reg­u­la­to­ry approach and low­er tax­a­tion with improv­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in their states. ​“We’ve obtained a triple A cred­it rat­ing, we have a bud­get sur­plus right now of $1.2 bil­lion and we are mov­ing up the list of the best places to do busi­ness,” says Pete Seat, spokesman for the Indi­ana Repub­li­can Par­ty. ​“That is because of Gov­er­nor Mitch Daniels’ record, not the gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion and stim­u­lus that Oba­ma pushes.”

‘The odds are in his favor’

Mid­west man­u­fac­tur­ing was hit hard by the Great Reces­sion. Many of the 2.2 mil­lion U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs lost in the past four years were here; few have come back, and those that have often pay less.

What do the lead­ing GOP pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates say they’ll do to get the Rust Belt mov­ing again? Front-run­ner Mitt Rom­ney attacks Chi­na on unfair trade prac­tices and poli­cies that arti­fi­cial­ly deflate the price of Chi­nese goods. Mean­while, Rick San­to­rum says man­u­fac­tur­ers would cre­ate more jobs if their cor­po­rate tax­es were eliminated. 

But Rust Belt vot­ers may warm to Obama’s pro­pos­als for revi­tal­iz­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing through inno­va­tion and work­er re-edu­ca­tion, instead of com­pet­ing on labor costs, said James Bur­nell, a pro­fes­sor of eco­nom­ics and urban stud­ies at the Col­lege of Woost­er. ​“We are not a cheap labor coun­try,” Bur­nell says.

Unem­ploy­ment has come down in recent months, but in Jan­u­ary the rate in Michi­gan, Indi­ana and Illi­nois was above (while Ohio and Wis­con­sin were below) the nation­al aver­age of 8.3 per­cent. The hous­ing cri­sis has also hurt the region, dev­as­tat­ing already-blight­ed cities like Detroit, which saw 56,000 fore­clo­sures last year. 

That num­ber angers David Green, Detroit-area Chair of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Social­ists of Amer­i­ca, who applauds Obama’s pro­posed mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar pack­age to help strug­gling U.S. home­own­ers. Despite mis­giv­ings over Obama’s record, Green says the president’s sup­port of the 2009 gov­ern­ment-led bank­rupt­cies of Gen­er­al Motors and Chrysler helps him here. ​“The odds are in his favor,” said Green, who cam­paigned for Oba­ma in 2008 but has not done so this time around. 

Automak­ers’ sales have risen 29.1 per­cent since the bailout. The Oba­ma cam­paign touts this and has attacked Michi­gan-native Mitt Rom­ney – who edged San­to­rum to win the Michi­gan pri­ma­ry in late Feb­ru­ary – for his oppo­si­tion, made clear in a 2008 edi­to­r­i­al titled ​“Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Oba­ma won Michi­gan by 16 points in 2008. Months before the elec­tion, Oba­ma is already ahead of like­ly nom­i­nee Rom­ney in Michi­gan by 14 points, accord­ing to late Feb­ru­ary num­bers. The cam­paign feels so strong­ly about its chances in Michi­gan that sev­er­al Oba­ma cam­paign staff mem­bers have said if Oba­ma is behind in state polls a month before the elec­tion, he’s lost his re-elec­tion bid. 

Democ­rats gen­er­al­ly gar­ner more sup­port among white work­ing-class vot­ers in the Rust Belt than they do else­where. Oba­ma lost that bloc by 6 per­cent­age points in 2008, lift­ed instead by an out­pour­ing of sup­port from minor­i­ty, youth and col­lege-edu­cat­ed vot­ers. ​“The president’s real chal­lenge is not to con­vert Rom­ney sup­port­ers – it is to re-ener­gize his base,” said a top donor to the Oba­ma cam­paign. ​“There are a lot of peo­ple just fed up with the polit­i­cal process. If he can’t get vot­ers excit­ed about his mes­sage – then he is in trouble.”

Ohio: the bell­wether state

Beyond rough­ly 600 staff and vol­un­teers at its Chica­go head­quar­ters, the Oba­ma cam­paign has com­mit­ted the most resources to Ohio, which has vot­ed for every win­ning pres­i­dent since 1960 and which Oba­ma car­ried in 2008 by 5 points. 

Obama’s cam­paign won last time with huge vot­er dri­ves in Colum­bus, Day­ton and Cleve­land. It has offices in those cities and one in Chill­i­cothe, in the state’s south­ern region. The cam­paign will open a few dozen more offices in the next cou­ple of months as it builds an 88-coun­ty pres­ence, a cam­paign offi­cial said. It’ll need a big army. Many vol­un­teers were spurred into action ear­ly when con­ser­v­a­tives and labor unions bat­tled last year over a Repub­li­can state bill lim­it­ing col­lec­tive-bar­gain­ing pow­ers of pub­lic-sec­tor unions. A GOP leg­isla­tive major­i­ty passed it, but vot­ers over­turned the bill through a ref­er­en­dum in November.

“[Gov. John] Kasich real­ly kicked over the hornet’s nest with his assault on work­ers,” says Ohio Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty spokesman Justin Barasky. 

That fight per­suad­ed retired physi­cian Bren­dan Thomp­son, 73, a vol­un­teer at Obama’s Chica­go head­quar­ters, to trav­el to con­ser­v­a­tive coun­ties in Ohio to tout the president’s record. ​“I con­sid­er Oba­ma more vul­ner­a­ble in Ohio than oth­er states in the Mid­west,” he says. But vot­ers there sent a mixed mes­sage in Novem­ber when, in addi­tion to strik­ing down Kasich’s anti-labor law, they reject­ed the insur­ance man­date in Obama’s health­care bill. ​“It’s an open ques­tion what these two votes will mean in Novem­ber,” says Chris Lit­tle­ton, cofounder of the Ohio Lib­er­ty Coun­cil, an umbrel­la group of Tea Par­ties in Ohio.

The bat­tle lines are also sharp in Wis­con­sin, which Oba­ma won by about 14 per­cent­age points in 2008. State pol­i­tics have been con­sumed by an anti-union bill passed by the Repub­li­can leg­is­la­ture and Gov­er­nor Scott Walk­er in 2011. Demo­c­ra­t­ic activists hope to remove Walk­er in a recall elec­tion this year, so Wis­con­sin will like­ly be a tight race. ​“Oba­ma won Wis­con­sin walk­ing away in 2008,” says Bar­ry Bur­den, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor. ​“This time he will have to fight for it.”

Crack­ing the work­ing-class code

“The lev­el of gov­ern­ment spend­ing and reg­u­la­tion on our busi­ness­es is insane and the tax sys­tem is used too much for social engi­neer­ing,” said Bill Nel­son, 47, speak­ing out­side a Tea Par­ty con­ven­tion in Evans­ville, Ind. 

Oba­ma won Indi­ana nar­row­ly in 2008 with 44 field offices, a huge vot­er dri­ve and tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing in key regions. But a lot has changed. Repub­li­cans there made huge gains in the 2010 midterm elec­tions, win­ning majori­ties in the state’s Gen­er­al Assem­bly. Today the Oba­ma cam­paign has rough­ly three staff mem­bers at its Indi­anapo­lis head­quar­ters and rough­ly a dozen reg­u­lar vol­un­teers, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic offi­cial said in Feb­ru­ary. ​“Oba­ma has pret­ty much giv­en up on Indi­ana,” says Bri­an Var­gus, polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty-Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty Indianapolis. 

Paul Trencher, the cam­paign man­ag­er for Con­gress­man Joe Don­nel­ly (D‑2nd Dis­trict) in his bid to unseat Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Richard Lugar, said Democ­rats could make up ground by ral­ly­ing around recent­ly passed ​“right to work” leg­is­la­tion cham­pi­oned by Gov. Daniels. Unions say this pits work­ers against each oth­er, and dilutes labor pow­er. ​“For years, Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates have been ahead of rank-and-file labor on guns, on choice – these are con­ser­v­a­tive men,” Trencher said. ​“But some of the rank and file are final­ly real­iz­ing that eco­nom­ic issues are where their con­cerns need to be in 2012. These (Repub­li­can) folks are inter­est­ed in bust­ing unions. And they did it.”

If Oba­ma does try for Indi­ana again, Democ­rats will run a cam­paign based on labor issues, said Indi­ana Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Spokesman Ben Ray, adding that polling in Ohio sug­gests doing so could increase by rough­ly 10 per­cent­age points the 55 per­cent of labor house­holds who typ­i­cal­ly vote Democratic.

But Repub­li­cans are not going to wait and see what the Oba­ma cam­paign does. ​“We want to cor­rect the mis­take that was made in 2008,” says Pete Seat, a spokesman for the Indi­ana GOP.

To win Indi­ana, the cam­paign must ​“crack the code” of work­ing-class Rust Belt fam­i­lies, a major donor famil­iar with the campaign’s strat­e­gy dis­cus­sions said. ​“I drove by a truck in Indi­ana that had union bumper stick­ers all over its back, but in the mid­dle was a stick­er that was a play on Obama’s ​“Hope” mes­sage. It said, ​‘Dope,’” the donor said. ​“If you can cap­ture the heart of Indi­ana – and that guy with bumper stick­ers and his wife and kids – you are now in a posi­tion to trans­late that into west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia, Wis­con­sin and Iowa. 

“But,” he added, ​“that fam­i­ly is complicated.”