http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071111/COL04/711110607/1007/NEWS05
Democrats poised to cut voters out of presidential choice
November 11, 2007
BY BRIAN DICKERSON
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
If you've been ignoring the presidential race up to this point, it may already be too late to start paying attention.
Because -- barring an 11th-hour surrender by Democratic lawmakers eager to scuttle a Jan. 15 primary their governor wants to preserve -- the vast majority of Michigan voters won't participate in selecting either major party's 2008 nominee.
Until last week, Democrats and Republicans in Michigan appeared united in their determination to hold a January primary.
Eager for a share of the national media attention lavished on early presidential contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, state lawmakers agreed in August to move Michigan's primary up over the objections of both national parties. They held their ground even when four Democratic presidential candidates dropped out and both national parties vowed to retaliate by refusing to seat Michigan delegates at their nominating conventions.
A homegrown mess
But the plan to steal the early primary states' thunder hit a snag last week when a Lansing trial judge ruled that one provision of the law establishing Michigan's primary date was unconstitutional. The Republican-controlled state Senate quickly responded with a new bill that fixed the constitutional defect and empowered Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land to restore the names of the four Democratic dropouts to the Michigan primary ballot.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who has championed the Jan. 15 primary from the start despite the objections of her state party's chairman, Mark Brewer, urged Democratic lawmakers to join in the resuscitation effort.
House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford Township, told me he personally favors a primary. But he said many of his Democratic colleagues would prefer a caucus.
Some legislators back former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who scarcely registers in polls of likely primary voters but might fare better in a caucus, where union supporters would theoretically wield more clout. Others object to the public cost of a primary election, which the state Elections Bureau estimates at $10.4 million or more.
Still others worry that a January primary would provide an opportunity for petitioners seeking to recall various state legislators to gather signatures at negligible cost.
A House divided
Dillon, who is trying to unite his fractious caucus around a solution to last month's service tax debacle, said he's "reluctant to force a primary vote down their throats with the delegation divided.
"I guess I'd say I have bigger fish to fry," he said.
Yet failure to resuscitate the Jan. 15 primary will likely exclude millions of Michigan voters from the presidential nominating process.
Only 148,000 voters participated in the Democrats' 2004 caucus. Republicans' Plan B for a scuttled primary would leave their presidential contest in the hands of about 60,000 precinct delegates -- less than one-tenth of the number of voters who participated in the party's last open primary.
Land's office anticipates that as many as 2.5 million voters would turn out for a primary election featuring candidates from both parties.
"A primary gets the most people involved," notes Democratic powerbroker Debbie Dingell. "We've got to get more people to care."
But the way things are headed, most Michiganders will be spectators when the parties pick their standard-bearers.
Contact BRIAN DICKERSON at 248-351-3697 or bdickerson@freepress.com.
