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MICHIGAN: IT AIN'T LAST WEEK ANYMORE [Henry Payne 10/23 05:59 PM]

On October 15, Michigan was Kerry country. What a difference a week makes.

The first sign of trouble came a week ago Friday, when a Knight-Ridder poll unexpectedly showed Kerry’s once-comfortable lead slipping to just a single point over President George Bush, 47-46 percent. Still, the New York Times’ R. W. Apple reported Thursday, Oct. 20th, the Kerry campaign felt so confident of victory here that Kerry had not visited the state since Sept. 15 and had no plans to do so before Election Day. Citing numerous academic and election experts, Apple found that the race for Michigan was all but over.

Then came the shocker.

A poll conducted for The Detroit News this week by Mitchell Research showed Bush surging ahead by three points. The numbers have forced the Kerry campaign to take notice. Reversing course, the Senator will be in the state Monday evening seeking to shore up his southeast Michigan base.

Kerry plans to campaign at a rally at Macomb County Community College in Warren. Macomb, once blue-collar Reagan country, has not voted Republican since Bush Sr. took it in 1988. Democratic activists have swarmed Macomb in recent days, sending elected officials, union members and Catholic activists door-to-door promoting Kerry to undecideds.

Even Ed Sarpolus, head of EPIC/MRA research that still polls Kerry ahead by seven, concedes Michigan is up for grabs again: “What the poll suggests is that it’s still a tough fight here in Michigan,” he says.

Next week, Bush will also be paying Michigan a visit -his 11th this year. He will campaign Wednesday and Thursday in wealthy, once-Republican Oakland County (which went Democrat for the first time in 2000), while on Thursday he returns to Saginaw, a traditionally blue-collar Democratic area whose Catholic demographic tend to be socially conservative, an asset in a year when gay marriage is on the state ballot.