Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Watch and participate in a live chat throughout the day and night as voters head to the polls to vote on Republican presidential candidates and local issues.
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Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Today is primary day in Michigan, when voters mark their ballots with their choice for who should run for president of the United States in November. Republican hopefuls Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum headed into Tuesday's primary race neck and neck, trailed by several other candidates on the GOP ticket. President Barack Obama is the sole candidate on the Democrats' ballot. The Dems will caucus for their candidate May 5. There are some local issues on the ballots, too, such as a school bond proposal in Ferndale and a millage request in Clawson. We want to know how you voted and why and what's going on at the polls, campaign headquarters and at results-watching parties. Give us your thoughts, talk amongst yourselves, share some photos in …
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Obama spots add to TV blitz; Troy primary night party set; candidate's Brighton tale stars 'frugal dad.'
Patch presents a Michigan presidential campaign roundup. Mitt Romney earns a point for openness, but risks losing it for over-sharing. "I like the fact that most of the cars I see (locally) are Detroit-made automobiles," he told Detroit Economic Club members on Friday. "I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck. Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs, actually." He was referring to his wife's 2007 and 2010 SRX models at their Massachusetts and California homes, aides explained. (Speech excerpt video embedded at right.) The off-script remark created a bull's-eye too inviting to ignore. "That's rich, literally," ex-Detroiter Charles Blow writes in his New York Times column. That was one poke among plenty, a headline sampling shows: Slate blogger …
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Romney gets lackluster endorsement from Free Press while Detroit News calls foul on editing of editorial by Romney staff; Paul reaches out with commercials and college campus visits.
Patch presents Michigan presidential campaign roundups before the Republican primary Tuesday. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has won the endorsement of the Detroit Free Press, but it's a reluctant one. The headline: "Mitt Romney is best – but we urge him to recapture collaborative spirit." After citing all the things about Romney it doesn't like, the Free Press says: "Romney, unlike the zealous Rick Santorum, the impulsive Newt Gingrich and the backward-thinking Ron Paul, is preferable to the rest of the field." A trio of statewide surveys gives cliché-cherishing writers a chance to reuse "razor-thin," "down to the wire" or "dead heat." We'll go with tight: "Michigan is neck-and-neck," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist …
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Leading Republican primary candidates are spending big money ahead of state primary Tuesday.
Patch presents Michigan presidential campaign roundups before the Republican primary Feb. 28. A new NBC News/Marist poll shows Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum locked in a statistical tie. In Michigan – which has turned into a make-or-break contest for Romney – the former Massachusetts governor gets the support of 37 percent of likely GOP primary voters, including those who are leaning toward a particular candidate, the poll shows. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, has 35 percent support, followed by Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 13 percent and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 8 percent. “Michigan is neck and neck,” said pollster Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion…
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Coverage excerpts show how the Romney-Santorum drama is being interpreted.
Michigan is the main stage of presidential politics now and today's headline events star Mitt Romney and Rick Snyder in Farmington Hills and Rick Santorum in Detroit. Here's a sampling of fresh national and local observations:
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Catch up on a news-filled week as the presidential race focuses on our state.
Patch will present Michigan presidential campaign roundups before the Republican primary Feb. 28. Gov. Rick Snyder will endorse Mitt Romney as their party's presidential nominee Thursday in remarks to the and in a Detroit News op-ed commentary, the newspaper reports. "Our next president must understand how markets work and know how to get our nation back on track. Mitt Romney is the man for the job," the first-term governor writes in the The News, which posted an article about his endorsement at 8:42 p.m. Wednesday. Rick Santorum punches back. A feisty new commercial for the former Pennsylania senator shows a Mitt Romney look-alike using a machine gun to spray mud at a moving cutout of Santorum. "Mitt Romney’s negative attack machine is …
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Republican presidential candidate's tough talk comes two weeks before Michigan's Feb. 28 primary.
Political hot buttons don't get much more inflammatory in Michigan than opposing federal help for automakers. That doesn't stop Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney from pressing his criticism of lifelines that helped General Motors and Chrysler – "crony capitalism on a grand scale," in his view. "Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry," Romney writes today in a Detroit News commentary. "All the defects in President Obama's management of the American economy are evident in what he did." Romney, born in Detroit and raised in Bloomfield Hills as an auto executive's son, earlier shared that belief in a 2008 New York Times guest …
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Feb. 28 primary gains importance in fluid race; Santorum has Oakland event Feb. 16.
Next up on the calendar for the newly altered Republican campaign are Michigan and Arizona, sites of Feb. 28 presidential primaries. That means more political ads, more local media coverage and Metro Detroit candidate appearances. Rick Santorum, freshly energized by three wins Tuesday, flies in next week for a Novi fund-raising dinner. Mitt Romney speaks at Ford Field in Detroit on Feb. 24 and surely will attend other events in the state where he grew up. "We're hoping to do something with Romney here in Oakland," said county party chairman Jim Thienel, a Royal Oak business owner. "We would be thrilled to do a fund-raising dinner." He suggested that last week to David Fischer, a state campaign finance co-chairman, Thienel told Patch on …
Herb Helzer
5:59 pm on Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Right, because the President's salary ($400,000, or slightly more than Willard "Mitt" Romney made from speeches in 2010) is why we have a budget deficit. more ›