Update on Michigan

News reports say that Obama will be visiting Michigan on Wednesday–with a visit to the heart of Republican territory in Grand Rapids, and a visit to the home of the Reagan Democrats in Macomb County. I would say that’s a pretty strong signal that the general election campaign started this week. I’m rather pleased with Obama’s choice of places to visit, too. Obama supporters in W Michigan did very well by him at District Conventions in April, which suggests he’s got a lot of strong support in Western Michigan. And while Obama can expect strong support from Washtenaw County and Detroit come November (both of which voted for Uncommitted in January), Obama will need to do some work with those Reagan Democrats. So why not go to the home of the Reagan Democrats and explain why McCain won’t improve the economy?

In other news that everyone still claiming Obama won’t seat MI’s delegation seems to have missed, Hillary rejected MI’s latest compromise solution.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday rejected a compromise plan to seat Michigan’s delegates to the national convention that would give 69 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Barack Obama.

"This proposal does not honor the 600,000 votes that were cast in Michigan’s January primary. Those votes must be counted," Clinton spokesman Isaac Baker said.

The Michigan Democratic Party had approved the plan and intended to submit it to the Democratic National Committee meeting on May 31. Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer said in a statement that the plan was a "good step toward a solution that unites Democrats and ensures that our state will not face a McCain presidency."

This solution is, numerically, not far off the proposal I suggested. More important, though, is the fact that it was supported by MI’s Democratic Party, even loaded as it is with big Hillary supporters. Even Joel Ferguson (the DNC member who originally submitted a crazy plan punishing elected delegates but not supers), as I understand it, has accepted this proposal.

So what the traditional news isn’t telling you, and Terry McAuliffe isn’t telling you, but I’m gonna tell you is that MI has, for all intents and purposes, been resolved. Hillary supporters have effectively told her that they’re not going to support her scorched earth plans for seating MI. So even though Hillary’s still saying MI hasn’t been resolved, it doesn’t matter–because the people who need to support any scorched earth campaign have already told Hillary they’re not joining her. I presume that’s one of the reasons Obama will be here on Wednesday.

There’s one more tidbit I wanted to share, from a discussion of what the DNC rules committee memebrs–as distinct from the muckymucks in MI who support Clinton but support seating MI’s delegation more–want to do:

But the punishment that the rules committee secretly favors is to take away all superdelegates (54) from both states, since it is elected officials like Michigan’s Sen. Carl Levin and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, along with Sen. Bill Nelson from Florida, who encouraged these outlaw primaries.

Huh. Turns out my proposal might end up being the winning proposal after all.