Detroit and smaller factory towns across southeastern Michigan have been ravaged by plant shutdowns and the layoffs of nearly half a million workers since the mid-1980s. In places such as Flint and Pontiac, massive old auto plants have become ghost dumps, abandoned to decay.
Adding to the state's stark economic portrait, growing numbers of unemployed Michigan workers have fled to other states. Since July 2006, the state's population has dropped by 30,000, said Charles L. Ballard, a Michigan State University economics professor.
"I understand the rhetorical approach Gov. Romney's trying, but he's just wrong," Ballard said. "Sen. McCain is speaking to the realities, but I'm not sure if he even understands how perilous it is."
Parts of the Detroit area are reeling from the housing foreclosure woes that have led to massive banking losses on Wall Street and raised fears about a nationwide recession.
Macomb County, a northern suburb that once led the state in housing starts, "has now done a 180 and leads in foreclosures," said James Carabelli, the county's GOP chairman and a Romney supporter.
But as Romney, McCain and Huckabee have crossed the state from Detroit's sparsely populated downtown to the thriving western Michigan communities of Grand Rapids and Holland, the rivals have concentrated more on Michigan's devastated industrial landscape than on America's looming banking crisis and whispers of recession.
During his speech in Detroit on Monday, Romney made a slight linkage between the two economic crises. "If we are going to be the world's greatest economic power," he said, "we must invest in our future."
He promised a "fivefold increase -- from $4 billion to $20 billion -- in our national investment in energy research, fuel technology, materials science and automotive technology."
But mostly, Romney talked about rebuilding the auto industry and forcing Washington to "stop loading Detroit down with unfunded mandates" that "kill competitiveness."
McCain, who warned last week about factory jobs that would never return, chimed in Monday with his own appreciation for Detroit's glory years. He promised to "regain Michigan's position as the best in the world. We will create new jobs."
But later on his campaign bus, McCain questioned Romney's ability to deliver, saying: "If he claims he creates jobs, he didn't while he was governor of Massachusetts."
