Word: michigan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Romney, the Harvard M.B.A. and longtime venture capitalist, has always been more comfortable talking about economics and solutions than social issues or foreign policy. With its punishing 7.4% unemployment and its automobile industry in a tailspin, Michigan was as friendly an environment as he was likely to find. It is one of only two states in the country that lost population last year, as job seekers fled elsewhere, and the only one in the country with a shrinking gross domestic product. Macomb County, whose swing voters were the original "Reagan Democrats," once led the state in housing starts...
...precise nature of the economic anxiety that is keeping Americans awake at night can be very different, depending on who they are and where they live. Job losses are dragging down real estate prices in industrial-belt states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. But the reverse is true in states like California, Florida and Nevada, where the collapse of a speculative real estate market is threatening jobs. In the Northeast, voters are more concerned about the impact of soaring energy prices on the cost of their home heating oil. That makes it harder for presidential candidates to wrap their arms...
...then there were the candidate's boyhood roots. Romney grew up in opulent Bloomfield Hills, outside Detroit, at a time when Michigan was one of the most prosperous states in the nation. His famously moderate Republican father George had been elected governor three times in the 1960s and had run against Richard Nixon for the G.O.P. presidential nomination in 1968. Even after 40 years, the family name retained some brand value. At every stop he made in his Mitt Mobile (a souped-up RV), Romney drew on his memories of those days and reminded voters that if elected President...
...Anxiety Attack The question Romney faces now is whether to stick to his new economic message as the race heads south - and whether it has any purchase outside of Michigan...
...were not putting much stock in the numbers. For weeks, opinions in South Carolina have been bouncing around, first with a bump for McCain after New Hampshire, then with a bump for Thompson after last week's debate, and more recently some slippage for McCain after his loss in Michigan. "It's muddy," said David Woodard, who polls the state at Clemson University...