Michigan Post-Mortem

The results from yesterday's primary election in Michigan are an indication that we are headed to another Bush v. Gore-type standoff in the fall. Trump won, and he won by double digits -- 36.5% to Cruz's 24.9% and Kasich's 24.3%. But added together, his opponents won nearly 300,000 more votes in the Wolverine State than the celebrity billionaire. This points to something that Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin noted in their post-election frontpager this morning, "Bernie Sanders Wins Michigan Primary; Donald Trump Takes 3 States." Trump's negatives are on the rise:

Even before the votes were counted Tuesday, there were new signs that resistance to Mr. Trump’s candidacy within his own party was growing. The number of Republicans viewing him unfavorably spiked to 46 percent in a Washington Post-ABC poll released Tuesday, the highest figure recorded in that survey since Mr. Trump entered the race last year.

This percentage will likely grow as next Tuesday's GOP Battle of Armageddon takes shape. The Republican strategy is to block Trump from running the table next Tuesday. If Trump manages to win in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, his chances of avoiding a brokered convention and cinching the nomination are great. To prevent this, the Republican Party is concentrating its anti-Trump attack in Florida and Illinois. The problem for the GOP is twofold: 1) Rubio has collapsed as a viable alternative; and 2) Ted Cruz remains the most dominant "next man up."

With the Rubio charade thankfully retired by voters in Mississippi and Michigan, I'm sure that Republican power brokers would love everyone to get behind Ohio governor John Kasich. But Ted Cruz blocks the way with his Super PAC millions.

So the dynamic -- Cruz a solid number two stifling the emergence of an acceptable mainstream alternative -- that has led to the rise of Trump remains in place. Barring a surprise showing from Kasich, Trump sweeps next week. Let the coronation begin.

On the Democratic side, Bernie won a solid come-from-behind victory in Michigan. He did it by outworking Hillary on the ground and, like Trump, by hammering home the message of how trade agreements backed by ruling elites like the Clintons gutted the industrial backbone of the country. According to Yamiche Alcindor and Patrick Healy in "Trade and Jobs Key to Victory For Bernie Sanders":

Mr. Sanders pulled off a startling upset in Michigan on Tuesday by traveling to communities far from Detroit and by hammering Mrs. Clinton on an issue that resonated in this still-struggling state: her past support for trade deals that workers here believe robbed them of manufacturing jobs. Almost three-fifths of voters said that trade with other countries was more likely to take away jobs, according to exit polls by Edison Research, and those voters favored Mr. Sanders by a margin of more than 10 points.

This is good news for Sanders going into next week's contests in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. (Bernie seems to be largely conceding Florida and North Carolina.) Hillary managed to win more delegates last night because she trounced Sanders in Mississippi. And even if Sanders manages to win all three industrial states next week, but Clinton continues to rack up lopsided wins in heavily African American Democratic districts, Hillary will likely come away with more delegates.

But that shouldn't be the thing that concerns us. After next week the remaining segments of Hillary's Dixie firewall are all finished and the calendar is much more favorable to Bernie. The march to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia will be weary and woeful for Hillary. She will arrive in the City of Brotherly Love exactly what she is -- a bloated political cadaver kept in a state of animation by untold millions in corporate cash.

The American people are in for a real treat this July. We will bear witness as the duopoly attempts to subvert the results of the primary election season.

Low Union Density = Republican Majority

Looking at the map of the United States there is a strong correlation between union density, right to work and presidential voting.  Historically the right-to-work states are the Confederate States of America plus the Great Plains and Mountain West (minus Montana, Colorado and New Mexico).  These are all states generally speaking that have the lowest union density and vote for the Republican presidential candidate.

There are anomalies.  For instance, Nevada is a right-to-work state and is in the top 15 in terms of union density, outstripping traditionally strong union states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.  But this can probably be explained by the importance of Las Vegas to the state's economy and the historic role of organized labor in the development of that city.  (Another anomaly is Alaska, which has one of the highest rates of union membership, is not right to work and hasn't gone to a Democrat since LBJ in 1964.  Not to be glib but having traveled to Alaska it is easy to conclude that it is a world unto itself.  There is a heavy military as well as oil industry footprint.)

All in all it's a reliable formula.  You want to drop union density?  Pass a right-to-work law and gradually the state will turn Red on the electoral map.  Thinking about my own office workers bargaining unit, if people were given the option not to pay dues, at first there might be only one or two who would choose not to; but over time that number would certainly increase.  Idaho passed right to work in the 1980s and its unions have steadily eroded.  Last year the Idaho legislature amended the law to make it tougher, banning even the use of market recovery money.  Market recovery is when unions subsidize a signatory contractor so that it can be competitive in the bidding process with non-union companies.

Reading Monica Davey's story this morning about Michigan going right to work, her description of how the Republican Governor Rick Snyder immediately and on the down-low signed the bills into law and then announced it to the media after the fact, the whole thing -- state troopers facing off against union protesters outside -- has the vibe of a putsch.

Tea Party Success = Anti-Union Legislation

Right-to-work legislation advances in Michigan, according to a story today by Steven Yaccino and Monica Davey.  The gist of it is that the Republican majority in the State House will shrink by 10 in January, which is probably below the margin needed to pass whatever ends up getting reconciled with the Senate.  So a push is on to get something done before the new legislature is seated.

It is unbelievable to think that Michigan -- home of the UAW and Jimmy Hoffa; the birthplace, one could argue, of postwar American prosperity -- could become a right-to-work state.  But it's part of recent trend in the Rust Belt.  Indiana passed a right-to-work law this year.  Last year Wisconsin took away collective bargaining rights from its public sector workers.  (Workers in Ohio beat back a similar attempt by putting it to a statewide vote.)  The surge in anti-union legislation is a result of Tea Party success in the 2010 election.  Fearful of being forced to purchase insurance for health care, reeling from the recession, embittered by seeing a black man living with his black wife in the White House, crackers got themselves to the polls in numbers great enough to shift legislative control to Republican majorities in 22 separate state chambers.

I work for a union local.  For a living I go through boxes of old documents and sort what should be digitized and then shredded from what should be saved permanently and re-boxed from what should be discarded entirely.  Each day I see proof of a different era, a time when organized labor was part of the Establishment.  There was collaboration between unions on a common agenda.  Now, from my vantage point on the lowest rung of the totem pole, it seems to be every man for himself, sink or swim, treading water from day to day.