One bright spot amongst the dismal returns Tuesday night was the passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. It won by a definitive 58-42 margin. It won all but three counties: Wayne, Washtenaw, and Ingham. You can see the county results here. It got almost as many votes as Granholm, and a larger percentage.
What makes this victory so amazing is that it came in spite of the opposition of virtually every powerful and influential institution in the state. The entire Democratic party, much of the Republican leadership, labor unions, colleges, big business, "religious leaders," all the newspapers, and more came out against the MCRI. And we beat them all.
One of the ironies of the campaign was that the ads for One United Michigan warned people, "don't be fooled by a big-money media campaign from California." What campaign? The MCRI was outspent 3-1. Its victory proves how much people hate racial preferences.
I can't say that I was overly impressed with the few pro-MCRI ads. Still, Ward Connerly and Jennifer Gratz deserve credit for leading this campaign to victory.
It's still a mystery to me why so many Republicans thought they had to oppose the MCRI. Maybe if they had supported it, they wouldn't have lost as badly. Then again, given how the election turned out, "Republicans oppose it too" may have turned into a selling point.
Henry Payne and Roger Clegg add their thoughts.
1 comment:
Good for you, white male.
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