With apologies to "Star Trek," let me just say this about John McCain's presidential aspirations: "It's dead, Jim".

Over the weekend, David Freddoso at NRO traveled to the Michigan GOP confab at Mackinac Island where just hours earlier John McCain lost his Michigan chairman. Yes they were both there:


That's a pretty big hit. Some of us recall that in 2000 John McCain won a surprising and huge victory in the Michigan primary If he has any hope at all (and he doesn't) he needs to do the same thing in 2008. That's not going to happen when your main man in Michigan decides to jump ship. But then again, McCain was able to convince a lot of Democrats and independents to come over and vote GOP (and for him) instead of the boring and decided Democratic nomination. This year, Hillary Clinton is not quite anointed yet, and Democrats will probably choose to vote on the Democratic side.

See more at the Detroit News.

He has to fly commercial?! It's definitely over.

NRO reports on the Straw Poll result from the Mackinac conference conducted this weekend:

Romney - 39.12%
McCain - 26.56%
Paul - 10.83%
Giuliani - 10.62%
F. Thompson - 7.15%
Huckabee - 2.55%
Hunter - 1.23%
Tancredo - 0
Brownback - 0.31%

While local Michigan blog both-right reports on a poll of Michigan likely voters

Giuliani 27%
Romney 13%
Thompson 13%
McCain 6%
Huckabee 5%
Brownback 4%
Tancredo 0%
Hunter 7%
Paul 2%

Huge differences. Keep in mind that the straw poll is of party activists that paid to attend a conference, while the voters are just voters. So, we can tell that in Michigan, (and other places) there is a huge difference between what the party establishment wants, and what the rank-and-file want. Mitt Romney spent a lot of time in Michigan, his dad was governor, he has a lot of organizing money so it's not surprising he would do well.

- John McCain's support is nonexistent outside of the establishment
- In fact it's so bad that Duncan Hunter is doing better.
- Mike Huckabee is not breaking through anything, in fact did not attend.
- Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani both do much better with the voters than the establishment.

Michigan has moved up it's primary and will be a significant factor in choosing the next president. McCain and Huckabee need to worry about that. The others, not so much.

The race for the Republican nomination for president is a field that is still too tough to call. Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are in the lead and very close to one another in most polls. Mitt Romney and John McCain are well behind Giuliani and Thompson, but they are not so far beyond that they can not make a great leap forward. (No relation to Chairman Mao's Great Leap Forward.) Of course, there is also the possibility that Giuliani and Thompson may drop in the polls at some point in the future. As such, the primary states are taking on critical importance in the eyes of the candidates.

According to The Politico, Michigan has taken on significant importance in the eyes of the nominee hopefuls and with the January 15 (early) primary rapidly approaching the Republican contenders is spending more and more time there. Michigan is a huge state and has the potential to be a swing state despite being very blue.

The Politico's take on the contenders' positions in the race is as follows:

Romney has the best organization, Giuliani is late putting his team together but appears strong in the polls, Thompson is as much x-factor as he is a threat and McCain is in a precarious position.

You can't get a more accurate assessment than that.

Howard Dean and the DNC aren't the only ones upset about early primaries. The GOP is preparing to also sanction the states that elect to move their primaries to earlier dates contrary to the party's clearly defined directives, according to the Palm Beach Post:

"The rules that were adopted at the convention in 2004 are clear and will be applied equally to every state," said Amber Wilkerson, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman. Under committee rules, the state parties must file a report by Sept. 4 detailing when and how convention delegates will be selected. The committee will publish a "Call to the Convention" before the end of the year detailing how many delegates each state will receive. States that inform the party before the "Call to the Convention" that they plan to hold their primaries before Feb. 5 or after July 28 would lose half their GOP delegates; states that make the indication later would lose 90 percent of their delegates.

That means that the GOP will also move to punish other early states, including Wyoming, which just moved its primary to January 5, 2008. That makes it the winner in the "who's first" primary sweepstakes for the time being.

But Ryan Sager writes in The New York Sun that GOP officials still believe that regardless of any possible sanctions (i.e. removal of half of the GOP delegates), Florida's primary on January 28, 2008 will still be the "make or break" contest for Republicans. The winner of that (now looking like Rudy Giuliani) will carry the momentum and advantage of winning a large cosmopolitan state into the primaries on Super Tuesday (February 5).

By the way, the latest primary schedule can be found here to the left of Susan Page's article on the chaos of the 2008 primary season. It's current as of 8/30/07 at 5:02pm. But I'm already hearing rumors that earlier today Michigan's House just voted to move it's primary up to the middle of January! Sheesh....

We have come a long, long way since the invention of the telegraph. In today's day and age, information travels faster than it has ever traveled before and the impact of this on politics has been tremendous. But is this entirely a good thing?

As a result of the expedition of the dissemination of news to the public, politicians have seen their campaigns accelerated and this has led to a number of states attempting to move their primaries up. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing remains a point of debate. As Yahoo News points out, in Michigan, the State Senate has approved a measure to move the state's presidential primary nominations to January 15. However, this is not a "done deal" as of yet.

"Republicans control the state Senate, Democrats the House, so changes in the measure are likely. State Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer said the Senate bill contains language that doesn't comply with national party rules and therefore is unacceptable."

Ted Nugent is again talking about running for governor of Michigan.

"That would be beautiful," Nugent said when asked if he would run for governor of Michigan in 2010. "I have threatened to do so and I was sincere."

Some of Nugent's antics make even Schwarzenegger's past outspokenness appear measured by comparison.

"Michigan was once a great state. Michigan was a state that rewarded the entrepreneur and the most productive, work-ethic families of the state. Now the pimps and the whores and the welfare brats are basically the state's babies."

This isn't the first time he's talked about this. Back in 2005, there was some talk, but no action. So don't hold your breath, or get too excited if you're a Nugent fan. But I have to admit, with one-liners like that, his candidacy would surely get the 2010 MI governor's race a whole lot of media attention.

And don't count it completely out. Since Granholm won in 2006 over Amway bigwig Dick Devos (yes, that Amway), Michigan is continuing on its path of a one-state recession. If this continues on until 2010, Michigan will be ready for someone else, anyone else. Ted Nugent would immediately have a lot of cache with the gun owner population and the Generation X Michigan kids who grew up listening to his music. If he put together enough serious policies that wouldn't scare people off, he would be a serious threat, and be fun to watch.

In November, Michigan Approved MCRI, the Ward Connerly ban on Racial Preferences in Michigan. But never mind the voters, it's an inconvenience to the Universities:

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Michigan's top universities can continue using race and gender in their admissions decisions for next year's incoming students, despite a voter-approved ban on affirmative action that was supposed to take effect this weekend.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson acted at the request of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University. The schools said it would be too disruptive to do away with affirmative action immediately because they have already begun accepting students for next fall.

The judge gave the universities until July 1 to follow the new rules.

From the Detroit News:

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, said Monday he'll seek election to his sixth term in 2008.
"We have to change the direction" on the Iraq war and the economy, Levin, 72, told a group of reporters. "I'm in a good position to help shape that change."
William Rustem, an analyst with Public Sector Consultants in Lansing, said Levin's decision makes it much tougher for Republicans such as Reps. Candice Miller of Harrison Township and Mike Rogers of Brighton to run for the seat. Both had been considered likely candidates if Levin decided to retire, but may decide against challenging Levin.

This is a major save for the Democrats and hurts the Republicans chances of flipping the senate in 2008. Miller and Rogers stayed out of the 2006 election against the much weaker senator Stabenow in hopes for an open seat in 2008. Let this be a lesson to the GOP. Always run your strongest candidates. And in following this advice, they should run their strongest candidate against Levin. If you can't knock him off, at least see if you can scare him a little.

Rove had some interesting things to say in this interview with Hugh Hewitt. Obviously he's putting out the whole "optimistic" vibe. Big Time. But when he delves into specifics on the senate races, there's some interesting items he picks out. On the Michigan senate race:

There's a pollster named Steve Mitchell, who does polling almost exclusively in Michigan, the Epic Poll, and he called the 2000 Presidential race on the button, he called the 2002 gubernatorial race on the button. He called the 2004 Presidential race on the button. And he's shown in the last week a dramatic close by the Republican candidates for both governor and Senator....

Mike Allen notes that the NRSC has thrown about $900,000 in Michigan behind Michael Bouchard's underdog campaign against incumbent Democrat senator Debbie Stabenow.

Michael Bouchard has refused to be buried and although he's still at least 7 points behind in public polling, he's stayed close the entire race in a state where public polling consistently under reports GOP strength.

"Mike CAN win with the right resources and that's why we are coming in," says NRSC Communications Director Brian Nick. "He's running on the fact that the economy is the worst in the country and that Stabenow is ineffective. It's resonating, big time." The new ads started yesterday. The committee had previously given Bouchard $1.2 million. Democrats say it's too late, and that Stabenow has used her cash advantage to build a lead and define Bouchard

Bouchard had the help of Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker at a Detroit area rally and has been running some really great ads featuring his daughter Mikayla. See here and here.

Can he do it? There are four races that I am marking as an upset opportunity. Steele in MD, Kean in NJ, DeWine in OH and Bouchard in MI. Ranked in order of most likely upset? MD, OH, MI, NJ. I believe that among these four there will be at least one upset.

In June, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Gratz vs. Bollinger. The Court agreed with Jennifer Gratz that it was improper to give minorities a 20 point (out of 100) bump in their admissions score simply because they were an under-represented minority. This bump was given regardless of wealth or background. The case was the result of her being denied acceptance into college in 1995.

Well, Jennifer Gratz is back. This time, she is taking her case to the people. Maybe she feels that they will resolve her problem quicker than the U.S. judicial system did. She is the author of the ballot initiative known as Proposition 2. This proposition "would amend Michigan's Constitution to bar public institutions from considering race or sex in public education, employment or contracting." On November 7, the voters of Michigan will decide whether to agree with Ms. Gratz.

Proposition 2 is opposed by the liberal community. However, there are Republicans on both sides of the fence for this issue. There are also blacks on both sides of the fence. A reading of the New York Times article would lead one to believe that there will be a big turnout as a result of this issue being on the ballot. Michigan is about 80% white. It might be interesting to see how this effects the Senate race. The most recent polls show that Debbie Stabenow has more than a 10% lead over Mike Bouchard. It might be worthwhile to keep an eye on this race during the night to see if Proposition 2 has a negative impact on Stabenow.

Democrats have been very vocal this campaign season, saying over an over that they should be given power. They certainly have plenty of negative things to say about the Republican Party, but don't see to have any positive things to say about themselves. Nor do they have an agenda of their own for the American people to accept or reject.

Republicans, on the other hand, speak on the issues like taxes and the economy, the war on terror, etc. But, of course, while it's important to explain why you or your party is right choice (something Democrats fail to do) there's certainly room for explaining why your opponents are the wrong choice. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) have used Web sites as part of their strategy to highlight the records Democrat opponents in key Senate races. Here's a few of them.

• For the voters in Virginia, where Senator George Allen is being challenged by James Webb, the NRSC launched Spinning A Webb.
• For the voters in New Jersey, where Tom Kean is hoping to unseat the corrupt Bob Menendez, the NRSC launched Bob's Baggage.
• For the voters in Ohio, where Senator Mike DeWine is being challenged by Sherrod Brown, the NRSC launched Far Out Brown.
• For the voters in Montana, where Senator Conrad Burns is being challenged by John Tester, the NRSC launched Tic Tac Tester.
• For the voters in Tennessee, where Republican Bob Corker is running against Harold Ford, Jr., the NRSC launched Fancy Ford.
• For the voters in Missouri, where Senator Jim Talent is being challenged by Claire McCaskill, the NRSC launched Clueless Claire.
• For the voters in Pennsylvania, where Senator Rick Santorum is being challenged by Bobby Casey, Jr., the NRSC launched Casey's Hypocrisy.

There are also a bunch of sites about Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow, who is being challenged by Republican Mike Bouchard.