Over the weekend, ice and snow belted mid-Michigan, leaving people wondering when spring would come. Spring did spring this weekend, metaphorically speaking. New growth and green were finally spotted sprouting in that rotten old tangle of the Michigan Democratic Party.
It’s been an open question going back more than a decade whether labor’s clout internal to party decision making is matched by its ability to deliver votes on election day. Beyond decades of institutional inertia, was there any good reason to let the party be a tool for union bosses.
The last several general election cycles have been hard on labor. They’ve lost everything. They bet big first on Virg Bernero and then Mark Schauer and came up short both times. Their convoluted attempt to enshrine collective bargaining into the state constitution ended in a right to work law. Still, they maintained a hammerlock on the nominating process.
Sunday, that finally all ended. Last year, Detroit-area attorney Dana Nessel announced her candidacy for state attorney general. Nessel is the attorney largely responsible for making same-sex marriage legal. Understandably, her candidacy immediately created a massive swell of enthusiasm among people for whom the issue has always been “Why isn’t this happening?”
Organized labor had other ideas. Pat Miles, Nessel’s primary opponent, was running a largely moribund campaign, until he received the backing of labor. Many observers thought it might be game, set and match in his favor because of labor’s history of delivering convention delegates.
Over the weekend, that proved to be false. Even as the rest of the state was worried about digging out, Nessel supporters poured into Cobo to cast a vote in her favor. At the end of the day, attendance was twice and three times as big as it’d been for other similar conventions.
The natural question was about whether labor was finally losing its oomph within the party. Given the last 10 years’ history, it’s a legitimate question. But, it’s probably a bit off. It’s less about one interest group in decline, and more a conflict between generations. Boomers versus millennials, for control of the party.
Labor’s clout has roots in numbers going back decades. Even as those numbers have declined because manufacturing has shrunk, it has used them to effectively stifle insurgencies. This was true back in 2010, when labor had largely given up on winning the gubernatorial race and backed Virg Bernero because he would do less to challenge labor’s internal power than Andy Dillon.
Stretched out over a long-enough timeline, the result was this weekend. Labor spending more of its capital to hold on to power than to grow it finally coming into conflict with growing numbers of people dissatisfied with what it delivers for them. Given the cold, grim realities of the math, it’s a conflict that youth can win by standing still.
Probably the conflict is not over. Power is rarely willingly shared and youthful zeal can lead to mistakes of its own. But, if Sunday’s energy can be converted to a long-term commitment — a legitimate open question — then Democrats might have finally found the answer to their enthusiasm gap: just show up already.
If that turns out to be the case, then the party’s prospects, which usually rank right below Charlie Brown finally kicking the football, brighten dramatically. On the other hand, probably wise to not discount the fine old Democratic Party tradition of being able to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
Eric Baerren is a Morning Sun columnist. He can be reached at ebaerren@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ebaerren.