ROMULUS, MICH — . -- Michigan takes its turn today as a presidential primary battleground after a week of sharpening arguments by Republican contenders over how to revive a state laid low by disappearing auto factories and jobs.
With only the Republican primary a contest of consequence because of an earlier withdrawal by most of the Democratic contenders, the GOP's leading rivals have carefully tweaked their campaign messages to emphasize economic concerns.
The two candidates with the most at stake in Michigan's primary, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, have sniped at each other over the last several days over how best to cure Michigan's ills -- and in the process, shed some light on how they might tackle signs of a looming national recession.
McCain is trying to build on his comeback win in New Hampshire. For Romney, a loss in his birth state could be crippling after defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire.
While McCain has taken a blunt economic tack, warning that some jobs "are not coming back" and stressing job retraining and new business opportunities, Romney has hewed to a sunnier insistence that old industries can be restored.
"The pessimists are wrong," Romney told the Detroit Economic Club on Monday. "The auto industry and all its jobs do not have to be lost."
Even former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has campaigned more in Michigan in recent days than he was expected to, has broadened his appeal to evangelical religious voters with a conservative pitch to replace the federal income tax with a "fair" national retail sales tax.
Some economic experts here question whether any of the Republican solutions would have a real effect on a state that was once the center of the world's automobile industry but now struggles with an unemployment rate of 7.4%, the worst in the nation.
Even McCain's effort at realism -- which he drew back from Monday with more hopeful comments -- does not reckon with the grim scale of Michigan's plight, economists said.
"It's real bad," said Donald R. Grimes, a University of Michigan economic researcher and a moderate Republican. "All the people who talk about a one-state recession, I think they have understated the depths of the economy. I would have used the word 'depression.' I believe this is worse than anything we experienced in the 1930s in terms of the length of time the state has been going down."
