DETROIT, MI – Remember President Henry Ford? How about Presidents Hiram Johnson, or Jerry Brown or Bernie Sanders?
If you don’t, that’s not surprising. None of those men was elected or even got their party’s nomination for President. In fact, Henry Ford didn’t belong to a party, and wasn’t even running. But what he had in common with all the names above is that he won a Michigan presidential primary. Ford, in fact, won it twice: As a Republican in 1916, and in 1924, as a Democrat.
All of which is to say that as a reliable indicator of national sentiment, Michigan voters aren’t so hot.
That’s often the case with other states, too. One of the great legends in politics is the story of how a little-known senator, Minnesota’s Eugene McCarthy, took on President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, and made such a stunning showing that LBJ ended his reelection campaign.
Well, as with most legends, that’s partly true. Senator McCarthy did do far better in New Hampshire than was predicted, but here’s what everyone forgets: First of all, President Johnson very clearly won, with 49.6 percent to less than 42 percent for his rival. But more importantly, the president wasn’t even on the ballot. Those supporting him had to write in his name, which is always a challenge.
Actually, that result could have been spun as a notable victory for the president — but that’s not how it was seen. Few people thought that Eugene McCarthy had any chance of being nominated even after New Hampshire, and he wasn’t. But LBJ did drop out on March 31, likely from a combination of factors, not just that primary.
And while Lyndon Johnson lost the New Hampshire primary by winning it that year, Bill Clinton years later won it by losing it. His campaign was on the ropes in early 1992, after revelations about his draft-dodging during the Vietnam War and charges of a dalliance by and with one Gennifer Flowers.
But Bill and his wife Hillary turned things around with a masterful televised interview, and while he lost the primary to the late Paul Tsongas of neighboring Massachusetts, he was a convincing second, and soon on his way to the Democratic nomination.
Michigan has had a few significant primary results over the years. President Gerald Ford was losing ground to Ronald Reagan in their struggle for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, until Ford beat Reagan almost two to one in his home state primary that year. That enabled him to recover momentum and narrowly win the nomination in the end.
Four years later, it was George H.W. Bush’s turn to humiliate Ronald Reagan in Michigan’s Republican primary. His victory came too late to deny Reagan the nomination, but likely helped secure the vice-presidency for Bush; the Reagan team thought he might be able to help win over voters in industrial states like Michigan.
Whether or not that was true, it undoubtedly led to not just one, but two Bushes becoming president in later years.
More often, however, Michigan’s primary has produced results that either seemed irrelevant or embarrassing, such as when Alabama segregationist Gov. George Wallace won the 1972 Democratic primary by an immense landslide. That likely happened largely because of an outpouring of sympathy; Wallace had been shot and gravely injured the night before. Also, since Michigan has no registration by party, Republicans, who did not have a competitive primary that year, were free to vote in the Democratic one.
That was back when the Michigan primary was in May. Since then, the date has bounced around as legislators have tried to make it more relevant. Four years ago, the Michigan primary was in March. This year, it’s February 27.
Sixteen years ago, Michigan managed to have its most embarrassing primary of all time. The state changed the date of the primary to January 15, so that it could be the first in the nation; there was also speculation it was done to give a boost to Hillary Clinton, who was thought the certain Democratic nominee that year.
However, this turned into disaster when the Democratic National Committee stripped the state of all its convention delegates for violating the rules and holding the primary too early.
Republicans stripped the state of half its delegates. Mitt Romney, who was born in Michigan won that primary over John McCain. But this wasn’t Romney’s year, and he dropped out of the race long before the national convention.
And Hillary Clinton did easily win that Michigan primary, perhaps in large part because most other candidates neither came to the state nor campaigned. Guess who didn’t appear on the ballot and didn’t get a single vote? One Barack Obama.
Guess who turned out to be the Democratic nominee that year, and the eventual winner of the presidency? Both parties did restore Michigan’s convention delegates later, once it was meaningless, but so was the state’s influence over the nominees that year.
So will Michigan’s primary this year be an important milestone, or more or less meaningless? My guess is … we’ll see.
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(Editor’s Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
