All those statistics mean worrisome times for some, and an opportunity for the Democrats seeking to replace Bush. Michigan will hold its Democratic presidential caucuses on Feb. 7, and no clear front-runner has emerged.
One who is worried is John Banach, a designer in the drive-train division of General Motors. His wife works for American Airlines. Pocketing cash from an automated teller machine at an upscale mall in Sterling Heights, a suburb of Detroit, Banach bitterly recounts how American executives helped themselves to generous bonuses at the same time that salaried workers faced pay cuts. He blames Bush for letting big business throw so much weight around.
"It just seems they're going a little bit overboard," says Banach, who was a big fan of Ronald Reagan and voted for both Bushes for president.
But the weak economy and the mire in Iraq have soured Banach on the president so much that he is now considering a vote for Kerry. He likes the senator's stance on the war because it matches his own: support for the invasion but concern about the way events have unfolded since. Brushing aside charges that Kerry has flip-flopped, Banach says: "He was for it for a good reason. Now he's against it for a good reason."
Still, for all those like Banach with doubts about the economy and growing worries about Iraq, Bush continues to enjoy considerable goodwill here for avoiding the sort of personal scandals that tainted President Clinton.
Doug Reedy, 43, an auto industry engineer, says tough times have forced him to cut back on personal spending and skip vacations the last two years. Even so, he keeps a Bush sticker on the back of his bright-red minivan. "I feel he has a lot of integrity," Reed says. "Plus, I like the fact he's God-fearing."
Eleanor Lechman agrees, saying Bush has brought honor back to the Oval Office. "You want your children to respect the president of the United States," the 76-year-old retiree says between errands at one of the strip malls that pave Detroit's suburbs. "That was kind of hard when Clinton was president."
For a time, the city of Warren and others in Macomb County, Mich., constituted one of the nation's most closely watched political laboratories. Books were written about the area's transformation from a Democratic bastion that gave John F. Kennedy the most support of any suburb in the country into a redoubt of the disaffected who shed party loyalties to vote for Reagan.
