Candidates who promise that Washington can transform a shrinking industrial base are simply off-base, Grimes said.
"The manufacturing jobs and the auto industry are gone and they are never coming back," Grimes said. "I've seen both Huckabee and Romney make comments about letting people believe they can somehow change Washington and bring back some of those manufacturing jobs. That's ludicrous, and it's doing a disservice to the residents of Michigan."
But some Republican voters who ventured out in light snow Monday to see their favorites still held out hope. Elizabeth Fenstermaker, who attended a McCain event with her husband and their two children, said the family worried constantly that they would have to move to another part of the country where jobs were more secure.
"Everything is connected, it seems like in Michigan, so when one huge industry that our state relied on was plummeting, it affects everything else," said Fenstermaker, 29, who lives in Otsego. One byproduct of the auto industry's decline, she said, is fewer orders at the furniture company where her husband works. She worries about his job if the decline continues.
"[The economy] is huge," she said, "especially for us."
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stephen.braun@latimes.com
scott.martelle@latimes.com
Braun reported from Romulus and Martelle from Bloomfield Hills. Maeve Reston in Kalamazoo contributed to this report.
