FridayFocus

Campaign 2000

With 1 year left until election, candidates focus on Michigan

Democrats and Republicans rarely find themselves in agreement - especially in an election year.

But as both parties look to Nov. 7, 2000, when voters will choose the 43rd President of the United States, they agree Michigan is one state that can't be overlooked.

AP PHOTO Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley made their first joint appearance last week for a forum at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.

"Michigan is clearly going to be an important player," said Betsy DeVos, chair of the state Republican Party. "It could potentially be a turning point for one candidate or another."

With 368 days to go until the polls open, candidates have already been adding Michigan cities to their travel schedules. Republican presidential hopefuls Steve Forbes, Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer attended the Michigan Republican Party's biennial conference on Mackinac Island in September, and Forbes returned to the state for a campaign stop on campus last week.

An early primary and strong GOP leadership are enough to put Michigan in the cross-hairs for Republican candidates, but Democrats are confident they will carry the state's 18 electoral votes next November on the way to retaining the White House.

"This will be a big battleground state," said Mark Brewer, chair of the state Democratic Party. "The way Michigan goes is the way the country goes in the presidential election."

Primary primer

"Michigan will be one of a handful of states that you have to carry to be president," Brewer said.

The move puts Michigan in the unfamiliar role of being the first major industrial state to hold a primary - one of only seven before the 11 "Super Tuesday" primaries scheduled for March 7.

"This is the biggest state before New York and California," Forbes said. "I'll be back many times between now and Feb. 22."

Many of the Republican candidates lagging in the polls hope to use the first several primaries to give credibility to their campaigns.

"You get to be early, you get to be important," said Jeff Bell, senior consultant for Bauer's campaign. "If we survive New Hampshire and South Carolina, Michigan is a good place to clinch the deal and pick up some momentum."

State Democrats, led by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, pushed to move their caucus date to Feb. 12, but the Democratic National Committee rejected that move last month.

"We don't think it's fair that Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first," Brewer said. "We think we're much more representative of the country."

Although the state isn't likely to play as big a role for Democrats with the party's March 11 caucus, both Vice President Al Gore and former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley are looking to gather support that they hope to take into the November elections.

"We have very strong support from the Democratic leaders in Michigan, who are going to be helping us out there," said Gore spokesperson Roger Salazar. "We're obviously not going to take anything for granted."

Hot on the campaign trail

Through the third quarter of this year, Republicans spent nearly $71 million on their campaigns. The $96 million shelled out by both parties combined is nearly 50 percent more than candidates spent during the same period before the 1996 elections.

The GOP lost a leading candidate last month when former cabinet member Elizabeth Dole dropped out of the race, ending her bid to become the country's first female chief executive. Pat Buchanan's bolt to the Reform Party has left Republican candidates clawing for any votes he may have left behind.

"I think it underscores the need for the Republican Party to have a visible message," Forbes said during his visit to campus.

With President Clinton closing out his second term in office, the nation is faced with putting a new face in the White House. The shock waves from Clinton's historic impeachment trial are still reverberating as the candidates - including Gore - distance themselves from one of the nation's most infamous sex scandals.

"Democratic voters show some reluctance to vote for someone associated with the Clinton administration," said Graham Teall, chair of Bradley for President Volunteers of Washtenaw County.

W is for winner?

"Bush has got the state pretty much locked up," said EPIC/MRA vice president Ed Sarpolous.

Third-term Republican Gov. John Engler has stepped in as Bush's state campaign chair and then carried most other state party members to the campaign on his coattails.

"We have almost all of the political leadership in the state lined up behind Gov. Bush," said Engler spokesperson John Truscott. "There has been no trouble raising money or getting endorsements."

Truscott said Engler maintains a constant line of communication with Bush's campaign. The Texas governor has made several trips to Michigan in recent months and is scheduled to attend a Veterans' Day event in Macomb County on Thursday.

"We feel like we have strong organization in Michigan, led by Gov. Engler," Bush campaign press secretary Mindy Tucker said. "We think that people in Michigan are responding positively to Gov. Bush's message."

Regardless of whether Bush carries the GOP primaries in the remaining states, DeVos said the party looks poised to come out on top in November.

"I am confident that whomever ends up as our nominee," she said, "Republicans will be in a good position for winning back the White House."

Power struggles

U.S. Rep. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) is challenging first-term Republican U.S. Sen. Spence Abraham in the hopes of putting both of Michigan's Senate seats in the hands of Democrats. Stabenow said she anticipates the battle to be the most closely watched Senate race in the nation, in part because Michigan has never sent a female senator to Washington.

"This will really be making history in Michigan," Stabenow said. "There's been such a groundswell of support. To be in a dead heat with the incumbent senator is extraordinary."

But Abraham spokesperson Joe Davis said the senator's first term speaks for itself when comparing the two candidates.

"We think we have a good record. We're anxious to talk about how that stacks up to Mrs. Stabenow's," he said. "Hopefully people will recognize that we've got a good record and we're confident that we'll get sent back to the Senate for a second term."

In the state Legislature, Democrats are only four seats away from regaining a House majority.

"The Democrats are shut out of policy making in Lansing right now and we want to take back control there," Brewer said.

But DeVos said she expects voters to send most of the 41 GOP representatives first elected in 1998 back to Lansing.

"I am very confident that the support is going to be there to return those freshmen who were elected last time," she said. "I think that Republicans are going to do very well next year."

AP PHOTO Texas Gov. George W. Bush reaches to shake the hand of a student at Colebrook Academy in Colebrook, N.H., on Tuesday.

JEREMY MENCHIK/Daily Republican candidate Steve Forbes speaks at the Michigan Union last week during a campaign trip through southern Michigan.

11-05-99