my home state lets me down again.

Well, my home state has let me down again. Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton won the Michigan primary on Tuesday. They picked the candidate I like the least from each party. Hillary's win was not particularly impressive since she was the only major candidate on the ballot and the second place finisher was "uncommited". I don't necessarily oppose these two for ideological reasons (too liberal, too conservative, etc.), I see these two as people who will say or do anything to get power. The Romney win bothers me for several reasons.
-The campaign he ran in Michigan focused heavily on being the "native son". It worked because, as a person who lived in Michigan for 24 years, Michigan always seemed to be a place that was particularly quick to latch on to people with Michigan connections, however tangential. (This could be the case everywhere, but I haven't noticed the phenomenon nearly as strongly here in Colorado.)
-He was willing to pander in the most shameless manner. When McCain honestly pointed out that the auto industry jobs are gone forever, Romney went on the attack claiming that he will bring those jobs back. This is a fantasy. The woes of Michigan over the last 30 years are an object lesson of the disastrous results of having an entire economy based on one industry. The sooner the state can move past this the sooner it will recover some lost prosperity.
-The specifics of how he's going to bring back the big 3 also don't measure up. Basically he wants to ease fuel economy on new vehicles and target massive tax breaks at the big 3, so they'll have more money to invest in factories and the like. Let me say this, no company bases these kinds of investments on taxes. What the auto manufacturers (and most businesses) need is very simple. Two things that would bale them out more than anything else are 1) a solution to the rising health care cost for employees and pensioners alike. I'm not saying it has to be national single-payer health care per se, but something has to be done. If you look at the money these companies pay in taxes versus health care costs the numbers aren't even close. 2) They need more people buying their products. Lower taxes won't do a bit of good to spur investments if you have a factory full of vehicles (or any other product) that aren't selling (or not selling enough) This is why targeting the tax cuts at the middle class (who are most likely to spend the money) would have provided a much better stimulus than targeting it at the top bracket.
-Another issue is this. I don't think Romney has a chance of beating any of the 3 democrats in the general election. Generally if you're in a (hopefully short) recession, nominating a blue-blood wall street tycoon won't play all that well in Peoria. Especially when its a guy who wants to double Guantanamo and likes to go around praising the corporations like drug companies that people (rightly or wrongly) believe are turning record profits at the expense of the middle class. So I'm begging my fellow voters: Please don't make me have to choose between Mitt and Hillary in November.