Detroit journalist Charlie LeDuff, whose recent book, “Detroit: An American Autopsy,” offers a streetwise view of crime, corruption and hidden heroism in his hometown, has one fan in high places: Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.

Snyder read the book and now “it’s required reading for the staff,” said his spokeswoman Sara Wurfel.

Well, not really required, yet he did recommend they read LeDuff’s gritty, profane and very personal account of Detroit’s decline as an industrial center, Wurfel said. LeDuff shared a Pulitzer Prize at the New York Times before returning to work in Detroit media. Among his YouTubed exploits as a TV reporter was golfing the 18-mile length of Detroit — “par 3,168″ — to illustrate its decay and its hope.

Snyder is immersed in Detroit in another way: He has appointed an emergency manager with sweeping authority to restructure city finances and services — a move denounced by some Detroiters as undemocratic and even racist.

“He said Charlie’s book gave a truly personal, humanizing account of Detroit, it’s history, challenges and potential,” Wurfel said.

LeDuff is flattered.

“If anyone told me 15 years ago anyone would listen to what I would say, I’d have said they’re crazy,” he said. “It matters, that’s cool.”

Original post is Detroit ‘Autopsy:’ Suggested Reading by Political Capital.

Photograph by J.D. Pooley/Getty Images

The General Motors (GM) world headquarters in Detroit, Michigan.

Scratch the 2024 Olympic Games from Detroit’s list of concerns.

Mayor Dave Bing announced that the Motor City can’t afford to host an event that would require at least $3 billion to operate.

Detroit’s deficit hit nearly $327 million in 2012, and is on the verge of a state financial takeover.

“With our rich history of hosting major events and Detroit’s prime location on an international border, we recognize that this makes Detroit an appealing candidate to potentially host the 2014 Olympics and Paralympics,” Bing said in an e-mailed statement. “Unfortunately, due to the timing and uncertainty of Detroit’s long term financial stability, we must respectfully decline to participate.”

Detroit knows big events. It has hosted two Super Bowls — in 2006 and 1982, in Pontiac.

Detroit was among 35 cities invited in February to bid on the 2024 games by the United States Olympic Committee. The letter to the cities suggests the USOC will try to avoid a $10 million upfront cost that cities in the past paid to compete for the games.

Original post is Detroit’s ’24 Olympics Bid: Never Mind by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg

Haley Barbour

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour is not a supporter of Republican proposals to allocate electoral votes in some states by congressional district rather than winner-take-all.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he says in an interview on “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend on Bloomberg Television.
“I don’t think anybody can predict with any form of precision who it’ll help from this election to the next.”

Republican lawmakers in several states won by Democratic President Barack Obama, including Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, are discussing awarding electoral votes by congressional district rather than giving them all to the candidate who wins the most votes statewide.

Since those congressional districts were drawn by Republican-controlled state legislatures to favor Republicans, such a proposal would give the Republican presidential candidate some electoral votes in states that otherwise have voted for the Democratic candidate. In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell and key Republican legislators have come out against the proposal.

Original post is Barbour: Dividing Electoral Votes Wrong by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Myrtle Nora arranges flag buntings outside the Capitol prior to the second inauguration of President Barack Obama in Washington.

Guess where pay in the U.S. is up the most over the past decade.

Guessed Washington?

Guessed right.

From 2001 through 2011, the average annual wages in the nation’s capital rose by 4.1 percent a year — from $49,420 a year to $74,540 a year — according to an analysis by the Bloomberg Rankings team.

Its 10-year “State Wage Escalator” is built on cross-industry estimates and extracted from the annual mean wage for occupations within the states.

Wyoming ran second, with a 3.63 percent annual increase — yet the average annual wage in 2011 — $42,510 — stood well behind Washington, D.C.’s runaway average of $74,540 last year.

Virginia ranked second, at 3.42 percent — and the presence of federal contractors in the Washington-neighbor should be noted. Then came North Dakota, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, California, Massachusetts and New Mexico.

The national average of 2.89 percent annual growth yielded an average annual wage of $45,646 last year.

Bringing up the bottom: Michigan, at 1.86 percent. Ohio and Indiana followed close behind — signs of what happened to Midwest manufacturing during the past decade. Michigan’s average wage of $43,700 last year was $30,000 less than Washington’s.

Original post is Washington Wages: Leading the Nation by Political Capital.

Photograph by Lana Harris/AP Photo

Sen. Daniel Inouye holds up a photo of himself on July 31, 1987 in Washington.

That’s how many days the late Senator Daniel K. Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who died Dec. 17, served in Congress.

Inouye entered the House of Representatives when Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959. He was elected to the Senate in 1962 and re-elected eight times, most recently in 2010.

Only Robert C. Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who died in 2010, served longer in the Senate than Inouye. And only Byrd, Michigan Democrat John D. Dingell and the late Arizona Democratic Sen. Carl Hayden served longer in Congress. Dingell was first elected to the House in 1955 and was re-elected Nov. 6.

Inouye’s body will lie in state today in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, an honor that’s been extended to about 30 individuals, including former presidents. Henry Clay, a former senator and House speaker, was the first person so honored, in 1852.

Original post is Bloomberg by the Numbers: 19,478 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Michigan State Police in riot gear push back protestors who are blocking a street during a rally at the state Capitol to protest a vote on Right-to-Work legislation on Dec. 11, 2012 in Lansing.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s popularity has taken a beating since he backed a right-to-work bill during the legislature’s recent lame duck session.

Republican Snyder’s approval rating dipped to 38 percent, with 56 percent of voters disapproving of his job performance, according to a poll by Public Policy Polling.

That’s down from 47 percent who viewed him favorably the week before the Nov. 6 election in a PPP survey. (President Barack Obama got a thumbs-up from 53 percent in the poll.)

“Just last month we were talking about how much Rick Snyder’s popularity had improved over the last year,” PPP President Dean Debnam said in a news release. “In the last week he’s thrown that all away and now ranks as one of the most unpopular governors in the country.”

Snyder, 54, was elected in 2010.

Michigan, a cradle of union strength, became the 24th state to prohibit payment of union dues as a condition of employment when Snyder signed legislation he had said was not on his agenda. The bill prompted a protest by some 11,000 union supporters at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing on Dec. 11, as the Republican-controlled legislature approved the measure.

A majority of Michigan voters oppose right-to-work laws, 51 percent to 41 percent, according to the poll.

Tuesday, Snyder vetoed a bill that would have allowed concealed weapons in schools, churches, stadiums and other public areas. The bill was passed by the legislature less than 24 hours before the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

The poll of 650 Michigan voters was conducted Dec. 13-16. Its margin of error is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Original post is Michigan’s Snyder Less Popular After Right-to-Work Bill by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg

Demonstrators crowd in to the rotunda inside the Capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, on Dec. 11, 2012.

As an estimated 10,000 people surrounded the Michigan Statehouse today, an Americans for Prosperity white tent was ripped down and tables overturned, with supporters of labor awaiting action on right-to-work laws inside.

The Capitol in Lansing was ringed with protestors, the stairs at the front blocked by people holding signs such as this one: “Snyder is a turncoat.”

If the Republican-dominated legislature approves the bills and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signs them as promised, Michigan would become the 24th state to enact such legislation, and the second this year after Indiana.

The change would be a practical and symbolic rout in a stronghold of organized labor.

After the tent fell, some state police arrived with batons — refraining from hitting anyone, yet holding them high, forcing people to move. Snow fell at one point, a building thermometer reading 32 degrees Farenheit.

Adoption of these laws, labor leaders and allies said, would lead to further political turmoil.

“There will be blood,” Rep. Douglas Geiss, a Democrat from Taylor, said in debate before a vote.

Bill Bagwell, a 55-year-old United Auto Workers member from Westland, said the measure would create friction at his General Motors Co. plant in Ypsilanti. Members who pay union dues would detest those who enjoy the benefits of the contract but don’t contribute, he said.

“It’ll create civil war,” Bagwell said.

See the full story on Michigan’s labor dispute at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Union Member: `Civil War’ in Michigan’s Right to Work Debate by Political Capital.

Photograph by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama during a tour of the Daimler Detroit Diesel Plant in Redford, Michigan, on Dec. 10, 2012, prior to speaking on the economy and fiscal cliff negotiations.

“I want us to bring down our deficits, but I want to do it in a balanced and responsible way,” the president said today at a truck engine manufacturing plant in Michigan.

The president was addressing United Auto Workers members at a plant owned by Daimler AG’s Detroit Diesel unit in Redford, Michigan,  yet he was seeking a far broader national audience as he campaigns for tax increases for the nation’s top earners as part of an agreement with congressional leaders to avert automatic tax increases for all and spending cuts set to take effect Jan. 1 if Congress doesn’t act.

In the bargain, Obama promises to protect 98 percent of the nation’s taxpayers from those Bush-era tax cuts set to expire at year’s end.

“America only succeeds and thrives when we’ve got a strong and growing middle class,” Obama said in full campaign mode at the diesel plant. “That idea is what built America. That’s what built Michigan.”

Since 1938, he said, Detroit Diesel has not only been building good engines — it’s also given people an employment that provides them and their families a better life and “a shot at the American dream.”

Daimler today was announcing a new $120-million investment in the plant at Redford, promising 115 new jobs.  Obama toured the heavy duty engines line, with Plant Manager and Vice President of Operations Jeff Allen and UAW Northwest Local 163 Detroit Diesel Engine Unit Shop Chairman Mark “Gibby” Gibson leading the way. Obama joked later about wanting to try some of the “cool” machines — talked out of that, he suggested, by the Secret Service.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard the talk lately about some big deadlines we’re facing in a few weeks,” Obama said. “If Congress doesn’t act soon, meaning the next few weeks, starting on Jan. 1, everyone’s going to see their income taxes go up.”

The audience booed on cue.

“We can solve this problem,” Obama said — suggesting that 98 percent of Americans, “and probably 100 percent of you,” won’t see higher taxes if the tax relief approved in 2001 and 2003 is extended for households earning less than $250,000 a year.

“We ask the wealthier Americans to pay a slightly higher tax rate — and that’s a principle I won’t compromise on.”

Original post is Obama: `Won’t Compromise’ on Taxes for the Highest-Earners by Political Capital.

President Barack Obama has given House Republicans an opening:

While protecting the tax rates for 98 percent of Americans at year’s end, allow the rates for top-earners to rise to pre-Bush levels and then return in the next session of Congress to examine the bigger picture of tax reform, eliminating exemptions and possibly lowering the high-end rates then.  He said so in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday.

House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp says his fellow Republicans are still looking for a “comprehensive” agreement to avert the automatic tax increase and spending cuts set to take effect Jan. 1.

“I think we’re all still looking for a comprehensive solution here that includes all of the factors that are in place,” the Michigan Republican said on his way into a party conference meeting today, “and there’s many, and so I think at this point its still how do we get to a comprehensive solution.”

Does the standoff on tax rates for the top 2 percent of income-earners bode an unbreakable stalemate?

“No I don’t think so at this point yet,” Camp said. “Obviously you have to think about all the options potentially. I think people are thinking about it, but I think we want to see if we can get a comprehensive answer at this point.”

Original post is Camp: `Comprehensive’ Deal Sought by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Guralnick/The Detroit News/AP Photo

Volunteer Nsombe Iamodou works the phone bank at the campaign headquarters of President Barack Obama in Detroit the day before the election, on Nov. 5, 2012.

President Barack Obama’s bid for votes in Detroit could have gone bankrupt  in the Nov. 6 election. He still would have beaten Republican Mitt Romney in Michigan.

In fact, the president would have won Michigan excluding all of Wayne County, which includes Detroit, and next-door Oakland County, which has voted Democratic in five straight presidential elections after decades of Republican dominance.

Obama won Michigan, which has 16 electoral votes, by margins of 449,313 votes and 9.5 percentage points, according to an official tally of votes released yesterday by the state elections board. Obama won Wayne by 382,032 votes and 47 points, and carried Oakland, where Romney grew up, by 52,488 votes and eight points.

While Obama’s Michigan vote share fell to 54.2 percent on Nov. 6 from 57.4 percent in 2008, the president still won the state handily. Obama’s showing in Michigan in 2008 was the best by a Democrat presidential candidate in 44 years. His drop-offs from four years ago were especially modest in major population centers.

In Wayne, Obama fell by just 1.1 points, to 73 percent from 74.1 percent in 2008, his smallest drop in the state. In Macomb County north of Detroit, Obama fell by just 1.9 points, to 51.5 percent from 53.4 percent. In Genesee County, which envelops Flint, Obama also fell by just 1.9 points, to 63.6 percent from 65.5 percent.

The president took 63 percent in Ingham County, which includes the state capital of Lansing and Michigan State University in East Lansing, and 67 percent in Washtenaw County, which takes in the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Some Republican officials said in the waning days of the campaign that Michigan was politically competitive, partly because of Romney’s ties to the state where he was born and raised and his father served as governor. Restore Our Future, the main pro-Romney super-political action committee, supplied 1,627 Michigan ads in the 14-day period ended Nov. 6, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG. Seven other anti-Obama groups, including the nonprofit organizations Americans for Prosperity and American Future Fund, paid for a combined 974 spots. Obama’s campaign ran 425 spots in Michigan from Nov. 1-6, CMAG data show.

As it turned out, the Michigan race wasn’t close. The president’s 9.5 point win exceeded Romney’s margin of victory in Georgia and Arizona. Democrats have won six consecutive presidential elections in Michigan, matching the number of times that the state voted Democratic in the 34 elections between 1856 and 1988.

Original post is Michigan: Obama Would Have Won Without Detroit by Political Capital.