Tag Archives: Michigan

Could Santorum Actually Win Michigan?

Posted on by
1

The GOP Primary race is heating up, and while Mitt Romney is still way out in front of the pack in terms of the delegate count, one candidate in particular is making another surge.

Rick Santorum?

Seriously, Santorum is still in this and he’s looking better and better with each passing day. After being left for dead after his bubble burst – as every candidate’s bubble has – Santorum has not given up. As of the latest delegate count he has 72 delegates, although that’s not a hard total. Santorum had a spectacular week winning Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado, unfortunately all three of those elections were non-binding, Colorado and Minnesota will award delegates at the state convention, and Missouri simply held a testing the waters primary, and will having a caucus in March.

Which means while Santorum can feel good about technically winning those states, he hasn’t really won them. It’s a delegate race, and Missouri could easily switch, and delegate distribution at the state convention in Minnesota and Colorado could go Romney’s way if he is the only man in the race in a few months.

That all means the upcoming race in Michigan is even more important. There is a considerable number of delegates at stake, 30 total, and the idea of any other candidate stealing what is essentially Romney’s home turf away from him, would be a huge game changer.

But can Santorum actually win? Could he really take the Great Lakes State?

A recent poll from PPP says yes, showing the former Pennsylvania Senator up 15%, meanwhile two previous polls taken in early February show Romney up 15%. So I guess the question is, did one week, mainly CPAC and his three wins, really sway that many Michiganders?

Let’s take a look at the 2008 results and analyze some of Romney’s weak spots last time around.

In 2008 there were clear geographic distinctions between McCain and Romney. Romney took most of the eastern portion of the state. These counties are the most densely populated and many of them have some of the highest income earners in the state. Particularly Oakland county, one of the richest counties not only in the state but the country, leaned Romney by 20%. Meanwhile some of the most rural lower income counties, particularly in the southwest portion of the state along the border of Indiana (St. Joseph, Branch, and Hillsdale) went McCain. Overall, of those earning less than $50,000 a year, McCain only lost by 1%. However those earning more than $50,000 a year went Romney by a nine percent margin. Of those that thought the US economy was poor, 34% voted for McCain, while 27% voted for Romney.

This is an interesting statistic. Seems that in 2008 those that you could deem “struggling” economically, were more prone to believe McCain was the answer. Michigan in 2008 was essentially the entire country of the last several years, Michigan has been in a recession for some time and when the 2008 primary was held they were certainly hurting, despite the fact that the economic meltdown wouldn’t come until the general election.

For the most part, McCain won the western portion of the state, save for Kent and Ottawa counties, two of the most conservative counties in the state. Which is interesting. In 2008 Romney was seen as the “conservative alternative” to McCain, or at least more conservative than McCain, while this year people are searching for a “conservative alternative” to Romney. Are Ottawa and Kent counties, which collectively made up 12% of GOP primary voters, looking for the conservative option this year? If so, they might view Santorum as that choice. It also helps that Santorum has strong religious ties, which is another important attribute to these two counties. If Santorum is going to win Michigan, he’ll have to take Ottawa and Kent counties, and those voters will have to look to him as the conservative alternative to Romney.

Like I mentioned above, those two counties are also strongly rooted in religion, which is why in 2008 Mike Huckabee did best in those two counties. Santorum is religious. That could certainly boost him on the west side of the state.

It’s also important to remember that while Romney calls Michigan home for election purposes, it’s not really home. Michiganders don’t seem to have any special connection to Romney and that seems to be the way Romney feels as well. I don’t think there’s much voting going on for Romney simply because he was born in the state and his father was governor.

So can Santorum win Michigan? He certainly can, so long as he wins Ottawa County and Kent County. If he can take those two, that’s a sign the state is looking for a conservative alternative instead of a familiar face.

–jb

Big Ten Championship Game Thoughts

Posted on by
2

I don’t normally write sports on this blog, but I love sports, I’m passionate about college football, and there was a great came in the Big Ten last night that is carrying some controversy and I’d like to take the time to clear the air on a couple of aspects of it.

If you didn’t watch the Big Ten Championship game last night between Wisconsin and Michigan State – please do, it replays at 9pm tonight on the Big Ten Network. It was a fantastic game, just as exciting as the first meeting, and I’m not sure I’ve seen two teams as evenly matched as Wisconsin and Michigan State – that includes LSU and Alabama.

Both teams are clearly the best in the Big Ten, however only one of them will go to a BCS bowl. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

I want to begin by addressing the controversial call at the end of the game that sealed the deal for Wisconsin; the running into the kicker. Here is a replay if you missed it:

Running into the kicker is a minor penalty. It is described in the NCAA Rule Book Rule 9 Section 1 Article 16 a.2…

Running into the kicker or holder is a live-ball foul that occurs when the kicker or holder is displaced from his kicking or holding position but is not roughed.

I think that’s actually a perfect description of what happened in the above clip. The punter was still in his kicking formation, a Michigan State player ran into him displacing him from that position and knocking him over. It was a five yard penalty – rather minor, but ultimately a good call. These penalties are in place to protect the kicker – because as you can see from the clip above their formation is a rather vulnerable one. If they’re hit they could get seriously injured. I’ve heard some say the kicker purposefully held his position to draw the penalty, maybe he did, but it doesn’t matter, that’s the kicker’s space and he can hold that pose as long as he’d like. Furthermore, it’s the defender’s responsibility to avoid the collision, not the kicker’s.

Now, why was Isiah Lewis even near the punter? Consider the situation. You’re down three, the punter is lined up at his own 12 yard line, the kick was fielded at MSU’s 34 yard line. So even if a fair catch is called, you have good field position, and you have a field goal kicker with a career long of 50 yards – meaning you have to get to you opponents 33 yard line. So basically you just need to pick up 33 yards. Your offense has played exceptionally well, you have a senior quarterback, and some very good wide receivers. You’ve been in this situation before. Not to mention you have a great returner in Keeshawn Martin. In addition, it’s 4th and 5, which means there’s no margin for error because even a minor penalty, like running into the kicker, results in a first down.

So with all that in mind, why on God’s green earth are you even attempting to block this punt. Sure it would be an exciting way to win the game, it would have been HUGE. But there was too much risk – and too much working in your favor to aggressively go after it. So Isiah Lewis shouldn’t have been anywhere near the punter to begin with. That call to go after the punt was just bad coaching.

Now we get to the meat and potatoes; the bowl game. MSU feels they should be in a BCS bowl, Kirk Cousins made that painfully obvious when he said, “Michigan sat home tonight on the couch and watched us. We played our hearts out — you saw it. I don’t see how you get punished for playing and someone else gets to sit on the couch and get what they want. If this is the way the system is, I guess it’s a broken system.”

For starters, players should keep their mouths shut on this issue. Your response should be “that’s not for us to decide, we’ll play hard wherever we land.” I have no problem with the coach saying “we deserve a BCS spot,” but the players need to be better disciplined. Esepcially if you’re going to take a shot at Michigan for being “on the couch” and watching you. It was the same off the cuff slip that provided Michigan State with motivation to beat Michigan the past four years (little brother comment anyone?) Mike Hart made the same mistake; as a player keep your mouth shut and let the disciplined coaching staff do the talking.

With that said, I’m not going to argue the BCS system is flawless. It needs fixin’ – but we must play with the hand we’re dealt, and the fact is Michigan State is not being penalized for playing yesterday, they’re being penalized for losing yesterday. There’s a big difference.

Michigan State can’t sit there and whine about not going to a BCS bowl when they have three losses, regardless of when those losses occurred. Fact is, had they taken care of businesses against Notre Dame or Nebraska, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. If that had taken care of business last night, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. And they didn’t just lose to those two squads in the regular season, they got beat by an average of 24 points. Michigan’s two losses (to MSU and Iowa) came by an average of 11 points. It’s also worth noting that Michigan State lost to two teams that Michigan beat – although along the same lines Michigan State beat Iowa, so it pretty much cancels each other out.

However, the BCS computer rankings are more than that – they also take into account the win and loss record of your opponents. Without including Wisconsin twice (so essentially regular season games), Michigan State’s opponents went 71-73 (.493) on the year. Michigan’s opponents went 82-63 (.566). Michigan State played four teams that ended the season with a record below .500, Michigan played one. The two teams that beat MSU ended up going 17-7, the two teams that beat Michigan went 17-8. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that Michigan played the tougher schedule.

Yes, Michigan State beat Michigan, but that’s not everything (although for Michigan State fans it certainly seems that way), if MSU had four losses and Michigan was 10-2 would we be making the same argument about how the Spartans beat the Wolverines and therefore should get the BCS nod? Absolutely not. I understand the frustration, getting to the Big Ten Championship game is a great feat, and they weren’t blown out, it was a close game, but to say Michigan doesn’t deserve a BCS birth simply because MSU beat them, is a weak argument – and that’s why the BCS computers take all this information into account.

With that said, if MSU were to get a BCS at-large bid, I wouldn’t think it was undeserved or Michigan should have gotten one instead. I think both teams are worthy of a BCS bid. Both teams had exceptional seasons in their own right, both teams would represent the Big Ten well, but with the system we currently have, Michigan will probably get the nod before Michigan State.

–jb

Just as I suspected

Posted on by

On the show today I mentioned how in Ann Arbor we broke the record for snowfall. I didn’t have a confirmation on that until I read this article.

The record is broken at 85 inches with April still left. And in Michigan April is not off limits for snow. On average we get 2.5 inches of it. So there’s still time to add on to the snow total. In March alone, a month where Ann Arbor averages 8.3 inches, we got dumped with 16.7 inches.

The best part? This breaks the record that was set in 2004-2005.

So the proof against global warming was, and still is, literally falling into the laps of the liberals and they still can’t seem to get it straight.

To add on to that Milwaukee has reported 95.4 inches of snow this season, good for the second highest total for a season. Wisconsin as a state has already broken the record.

By the way, let me be the first to wish you all a happy Easter. It’s two in the morning and while I am a little lethargic I’m not sluggish enough to go to bed quite yet.

Enjoy the snow!

–jb