McCain-Romney Michigan Showdown

This article was written by Mark Hemmingway.

It's no surprise political prognosticators are starting to look elsewhere for early clues about the race in 2008. Michigan's status as an important early primary state has been overlooked — until now. The Democratic National Committee is currently considering moving its Michigan primary to occur in between Iowa and New Hampshire.

And Republicans have taken notice of the battleground state as well. As Michigan State Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis told the Detroit Free Press in February, "We're much more representative of the country than either Iowa or New Hampshire. Anyone emerging out of Michigan as a winner will have a clearer picture of how viable a candidate they are." Adds Michigan political consultant Craig Ruff, "It's the first state with a significant industrial base to vote, so a lot of the candidates view us as kind of a bellwether."

In fact, as Republican insiders and political consultants break out the laminated maps and dry erase markers, it's becoming clear that the entire Republican nomination strategy may come to hinge on the battle in Michigan.

McCain vs. Romney

This view has a lot to do with the two frontrunners, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. McCain, who has a rocky relationship with the Republican base dating back to 2000, has been vigorously mending fences with social conservatives. He's also rounding up old Bushies, such as 2004 national political director Terry Nelson and media adviser Mark McKinnon, for his campaign. So far it's working. McCain has emerged as the clear favorite among Bush's top fundraisers — the "Pioneers" and "Rangers" — who are lining up to "max out" their political action committee donations for him.

Romney, the Mormon from Massachusetts, has an equally interesting story. He's armed with movie star good looks and loads of charisma. He has a critically acclaimed health-care plan. And his appearances in early primary states are already drawing rave reviews. The great question mark on primary day? Romney's religion is slightly less popular among Christian conservatives than Brokeback Mountain. Luckily for him, he's drawn John McCain as his opponent. Those same Christian conservatives who make up the Republican base may dislike McCain even more than Mormonism.

Besides, in the political poker of presidential politics Romney has an ace in the hole. The fact that he is governor of Massachusetts may prove to be far less significant in electoral terms than the fact that, as the son of revered Michigan governor George Romney, he is seen by many as the state's prodigal son. According to Thomas Ginster, longtime aide to another revered Michigan governor, John Engler, "Anybody over forty years old here remembers his dad; one of the main state government buildings here is called the Romney building. It's just a household name. I think Romney will do better in Michigan than he would in Massachusetts."

Right now, the Michigan Republican party is charging hard to move up the date of its presidential primary. If it has its way, the electoral powerhouse of Michigan will hold the first major primary after New Hampshire, the same day as South Carolina. If McCain can sweep New Hampshire and Michigan — states he won in 2000 — and rack up South Carolina, the nomination is a lock.

But if Romney can pull off an upset either in New Hampshire, next door to his own Massachusetts, or in his home state of Michigan, he'll survive past South Carolina, where he's likely to get a thumbs down from Christian conservatives. The fight for the nomination could last all the way to Super Tuesday.

If Romney loses in New Hampshire, the media will pronounce his campaign on life-support. If McCain (who won the state by a hefty margin last time) loses in New Hampshire, we'll be reading all the same stories about a reeling frontrunner that we did about Bush in 2000, and the media will put the same heat on McCain to win Michigan.

Both candidates realize how important Michigan is, and they're acting accordingly. Romney's national campaign headquarters is currently under construction in Oakland County. McCain is also active on the ground; his PAC recently announced it was giving over $120,000 to county and local parties in Michigan.

And that's all well and good. Michigan's importance to the selection of the Republican candidate is not to be underestimated. However, political observers are pulling out the lawn chairs and popcorn for two additional reasons: One is that the Republican primary may be decided by an arcane rules battle in the next year that may determine the outcome of the election before the first vote is cast. The second reason is that a backroom brawl at the 1998 state party convention produced a schism so big that even eight years later the Michigan GOP is a hellbroth of shattered allegiances and personal rivalries involving nearly every major player in the party over the last twenty years — including the Romney family.

This schism has produced two factions warring for the heart and soul of the Michigan GOP. The 2008 presidential primary may well determine which faction wins — as well as which candidate moves closer to the national party's nomination.

The Yobs vs. the Sterling Corporation

In March, the New Republic reported that the senator from Arizona was already charging hard to secure support in Michigan for the primaries: "Local conservative poo-bahs who backed Bush in early primary states, such as Chuck Yob in Michigan, are now saying sweet things about McCain."

Chuck Yob, the longtime Republican national committeeman from Michigan and arguably the biggest political kingmaker in the state, is doing more than "saying sweet things" about McCain. He's been at McCain's side escorting him all over the state. McCain has even hired Chuck's son, John, to run his Michigan campaign. John Yob talks constantly with McCain and his team.

Naturally, Romney is active, too, in his home state. He has a formidable organization behind him; his Michigan campaign is being run by the Sterling Corporation, a political consulting firm in Lansing and the Yobs' chief competition as political consultants.

The Sterling Corporation is almost indistinguishable from the Republican party itself — the state party chair, Saul Anuzis, used to be a partner in the firm. Not surprisingly, the lion's share of business from the state GOP now goes to the Sterling Corporation.

It's no mystery how the two campaigns feel about each other. "Chuck Yob? Yeah, I don't know how to spell horse's patoot, but you could probably write that down," says Fred Wszolek, a partner at the Sterling Corporation.
While he is beloved by the state party's grassroots, this is not an uncommon reaction to the mention of Chuck Yob.

Why is Yob so controversial? To really get Michigan's political landscape, you have to go back eight years, to the 1998 race for Michigan attorney general. In one fell swoop Yob defeated Governor John Engler in a major political battle, screwed Mitt Romney's brother Scott out of an easy election to state office, and came to be blamed for costing Republicans the next governor's election.

Smietanka vs. Romney

In 1998, Michigan was a Republican success story. Though it's a swing state, the GOP controlled the legislature and John Engler was riding high as one of the most popular governors in America.

That year, Republicans held every statewide office save one. Frank "The Eternal General" Kelley, a Democrat, had been Michigan's attorney general for 37 years — so long he still holds the record as both the youngest and oldest attorney general in state history.

In 1994, Kelley had been opposed for reelection by John "The Tank" Smietanka, a former U.S. attorney and GOP party loyalist who'd gladly accepted his role as a sacrificial lamb against Kelley.

So when the indomitable Kelley's next election came around four years later, the Republicans were happy for Smietanka to take him on again — they weren't going to win anyway. Chuck Yob began talking to Gov. Engler about working with representatives of various districts to secure The Tank's eventual nomination for attorney general at the state party convention.

As it happens, working the state convention is Yob's particular area of expertise. According to Ginster, the Engler aide, "He is like a god with a small-g there. You have to come in and kiss the ring if you want to be nominated. They have a machine when it comes to these conventions."

The convention itself is a throwback to the politics of yore. "A convention has a couple of thousand delegates. They're all party regulars, party faithful — it's literally the old smoke-filled room," says Bill Ballenger, editor of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics.

Everything was going according to plan when the unthinkable happened. Two months before the state convention, the elderly Frank Kelley, facing the prospect of bypass surgery, dropped out of the race. All of a sudden the Republicans had a legitimate shot at winning the attorney general's office for the first time in four decades.

This cast Smietanka's nomination in a whole new light. As a loyal apparatchik, he was a fine standard-bearer for the party when he had no chance of winning. But if what was needed was a viable contender for the post of attorney general, "Tank" was more of a verb than a noun.

"The Tank is a good guy, he just had a difficult time as a candidate. He had a hard time on the stump, as well as raising funds," says Ginster, who may be being charitable. The story is often told about the time The Tank, campaigning against Kelley, hitched a ride across the state on a bus-stop tour with Engler. The Tax Cut Express had stopped at the Flapjack Shack somewhere in northwest Michigan for a tightly scheduled 15-minute breakfast meet-and-greet with the locals. Smietanka mistakenly thought it was his time to eat, so he sat down and ordered food. He ended up leaving behind an untouched double stack of pancakes. A dazed Smietanka, with a napkin still tucked into his shirt, was rushed to the parking lot as the bus was leaving--all while being filmed by a local TV crew.

As far as Engler was concerned, now that the race was winnable, nominating Smietanka would be political suicide. Governor Engler sprang into action and pulled a rabbit out of a hat. He convinced Scott Romney--successful lawyer and businessman, brother of Mitt and bearer of the Golden Political Name--to run for attorney general.

Engler had to scramble to put together an organization to support Romney on short notice. "It was The West Wing, season six," says Jordan Gehrke, a D.C.-based political consultant from Michigan who was at the '98 convention. Still, Engler managed to recruit Ginster and a number of key personnel to get Scott Romney's nomination off the ground.

Yob vs. Engler

Now, all of this maneuvering would have been entirely unnecessary if Chuck Yob had been on board with Romney's nomination; however, he had already publicly endorsed Smietanka, and Yob is nothing if not loyal.

The showdown between Yob and Engler at the '98 state convention is now the stuff of legend. Gehrke sums up the situation heading in:

The story that's told today is that Smietanka's running early and there's nobody in the race and Chuck Yob says to Engler, "Governor, I'm going to run Smietanka unless you tell me different," and the Governor says, "No, go ahead." About three weeks or a month later Engler calls him and says, "Hey, you gotta dump Smietanka; we're going to go with Scott Romney. He's the guy, you gotta endorse him." Chuck says, "Governor, I can't do that; I just went out publicly with John Smietanka." Engler supposedly started screaming on the other end and effectively says, "You're going to do what I tell you." Yob basically told him, "Screw you, we're going to beat you," and it was on.

One day before the district caucuses at the convention, some suspiciously timed information emerged. Some years back, Smietanka had not paid his child support for a few months. In his defense, he was no deadbeat--he'd lost his job when President Clinton had unexpectedly fired U.S. attorneys en masse. He'd long since repaid his debt from being out of work. Unfortunately, Smietanka would be facing an attractive woman in the general; he couldn't have soccer moms thinking he was a loser dad.

Engler's men and Yob's machine worked the convention furiously for their respective candidates trying to secure the necessary votes. Engler operatives called in every favor and twisted every arm for Romney that they could. It was so stressful when it was announced that Smietanka had the votes, according to eyewitnesses, that Chuck Yob stood straight up out of his seat and crossed both his arms, clutching his chest as if he was having a heart attack. Then he tore across the room to rub it in to one of Romney's supporters.

"Yob took on a sitting governor and beat him in the convention. It made Yob a living legend," says Gehrke.

Smietanka vs. Granholm

Of course, Smietanka's victory at the convention is only half the story. Part of the reason Republicans were chomping at the bit to get back the attorney general's office was that the Democrats were fielding an unknown and beatable candidate from Wayne County. Some hot blonde named Jennifer Granholm.

But the child support allegations cast a pall over Smietanka for the rest of the race. Aside from his lackluster campaign skills, Smietanka grew increasingly embattled as the campaign progressed; he even refused to shake Granholm's hand during their only debate. Granholm won a tight race.

It's generally acknowledged that had Romney run against Granholm, his name recognition would have brought him an easy victory. But Smietanka's nomination launched one of the most meteoric political ascendancies in recent history. In four years, Granholm went from unknown attorney to state attorney general to governor.

For this Engler is owed some credit: He alone saw Granholm coming. "Basically, the governor saw Attorney General Granholm as the threat, and he was right--charismatic, feminine, and had everything going for her," says a former state Republican legislator who worked on the Scott Romney campaign. He asked not to be identified.

The state GOP still hasn't totally recovered from the '98 attorney general election. "I think in hindsight everybody will agree that Engler was right and Yob was wrong and the Republicans ended up with a weak nominee who then lost to Granholm, and now where are they?" says Ballenger.

Even eight years later, Yob is blamed for the loss in 1998, and the wounds are still tender in the Michigan GOP. Says Ballenger, "If McCain has hired John Yob, that might cause him some problems in Michigan because there're going to be a lot of people in the Republican organization who are just automatically going to not want to support McCain as much as they might otherwise, simply because they know the Yobs are working for him."

Michigan GOP vs. Michigan GOP

It's a little unfair to blame Yob for losing the governorship in 2002--Smietanka may have been a weak candidate, but it was a tight race that might have been won had Romney supporters not poisoned the well with the child support allegations. Regardless, Yob's willingness to take on the state party makes him a favorite punching bag for the state Republican establishment--the Sterling Corporation included.

The struggle between the two groups represents a battle between old and new. The Sterling Corporation is almost a modern full-service PR firm, albeit a very politically connected one. Chuck and John Yob are a family political machine who don't even have a website.

Observers seem to think that the Yobs' comparative lack of resources against Sterling will be a liability. The Yobs are primarily known in Michigan for their ability to win state party convention battles--not statewide primaries. "Remember, running a campaign in a state convention is much, much different than running a presidential primary," says Ballenger.

So why would McCain attach himself to Chuck Yob, a Bush supporter in 2000 and a man who's actively disliked by a sizable percentage of the state's Republican power brokers? Probably because in order to carry Michigan, McCain needs someone who can take on the entire state party--and win.

Going back to 2000, when McCain won the Michigan primary, there's been a raging debate about the state's primary rules. "The reason [McCain] won last time--it was an anomaly, and it was an anomaly because there was an open primary in Michigan, and the Democrats had their caucus on a different date, and the Republicans had an open primary," says Ginster. "Then Engler, who was a lightning rod conservative, came out and said Michigan was going to be the firewall for Dubya, and so all the independents and Oakland County women and Democrats came out."

In fact, the turnout was unprecedented for a Republican primary. "It was a lot more than the Republicans coming to vote, so that's what put McCain over the top. The teachers' unions just wanted to stick it to Engler. And that's why he [McCain] won," says Ginster. And this was in spite of the fact that McCain's effort in Michigan was lacking. "His organization at the time was a joke. . . . He had no endorsements, nothing going for him. It was just 'stick it to Engler,'" says Ginster.

The outcome of the 2000 primary incensed the state party. Engler's failure to deliver Michigan for Bush largely killed his chances at a prominent position in the Bush administration. "The way the Republicans had set up the rules in Michigan in 2000, it totally blew up in their face. . . . If you just looked at the people who were self-identified Republicans in the Republican primary, Bush won amongst those," says Ballenger.

Arguing that the primary results weren't representative of Michigan Republicans, Engler and the state party tried to rejigger the rules after the fact to send mainly Bush delegates to the national convention instead of mainly McCain delegates. Of course, this had to be approved by the district caucuses at the state convention in August.

"It didn't really make any difference because Bush won the nomination nationally and McCain had conceded. But McCain was very proud of his victory in Michigan, and he wanted the people that supported him to be rewarded with delegates. He protested, and he was quite bitter about it," says Ballenger.

McCain got a taste of Yob's power at the state convention firsthand in 2000. The senator made a personal phone call to Yob. Despite being a Bush supporter, Yob agreed with McCain and used his influence at the state convention to stop Engler's plan to usurp McCain's delegates.

Now, with the 2008 primary fast approaching, GOP chair Anuzis and the Sterling Corporation have been busy trying to batten down the hatches, closing the primary. "A presidential primary is Katie-bar-the-door, and the rules they've got in place in Michigan are incredible," says Ballenger. "Unless they're changed--and they might be--it's an open primary."

An open primary bodes very well for McCain, who demonstrated his appeal among the state's independents and Democrats in 2000. It would be especially bad for Romney, since the DNC is talking of moving up its Michigan primary. Once again, Republicans could end up with an open primary on a different date from the Democratic primary. Mitt Romney's association with the Republican party chair also makes him the establishment candidate--Democrats could show up in droves, this time not just to stick it to Engler but to stick it to the Republican party.

Still, with Anuzis at the head of the party, Romney is well positioned to get tighter primary rules in place before the election. Unfortunately, all rule changes are ultimately decided at a GOP state committee meeting. Committee members are elected at the state convention--the same place where Yob is a "god with a small g."

"That will play out over the next six to eight months--we're supposed to be paying attention to the governor's race and the senator's race, but there's a lot of jockeying over this rules thing, and it's the most fun the state committee has had in years," says Fred Wszolek. "This is actually something consequential, and state committee members love arcane rules fights."

Given that the battle will be fought on the Yobs' turf, it's certain that this is the most fun Chuck and John Yob have had in years--perhaps since 1998.

So while camera crews descend on Iowa and New Hampshire in the next year, those interested in the 2008 presidential election might be better off keeping an eye trained on the Michigan GOP's smoke-filled rooms, where a handful of the party faithful will enter into an "arcane rules debate," the resolution of which will be driven by personal rivalries and allegiances. Given Michigan's significance in the next election, they may inadvertently decide the leader of the free world before a single vote is cast.

Mark Hemmingway is a correspondent for Market News International and a writer in Washington, D.C.
By Mark Hemmingway
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