Cain & The Obamas play Motown (The Michigan View 10.26.11)

Posted by hpayne on October 27, 2011

She came. She collected. She left.

Just five days after Herman Cain’s empathetic campaign visit to Detroit in which he brought a message of change to Detroit’s entrepreneurs, Michelle Obama’s glitzy campaign fundraiser with Detroit One Percenters offered a dramatic contrast in how Republicans and Democrats view America’s urban ills.

In a hurting city with a top-rung murder rate, 50 percent adult illiteracy and an 80 percent illegitimacy rate, only GOPers seem to care. Democrats accept the status quo.

Like her husband before her, Michele Obama’sĀ came to Detroit to meet with Democratic Party honchos in order to ensure that the money spigot remains open. In recent visits to Detroit (Labor Day) and Lake Orion (GM plant), President Obama parachuted in from 30,000 feet, held a small rally with Big Auto and Big Labor leaders, then went straight back to the airport. No stops in battle-weary Northeast Detroit. No tours of the once-thriving Hamilton Avenue. No acknowledgement of Detroit’s mean streets.

For her part, the First Lady’s motorcade slipped into the parking garage of Detroit’s luxurious Book Cadillac Hotel Tuesday. There she milked One Percenter Democrats at a campaign fundraiser, then left for another fundraiser in Chicago. Occupy Detroit protestors huddled in Grand Circus Park just two blocks – two blocks! – away from the majestic hotel. Yet, despite her administration’s vocal support for the 99 Percenters, the First Lady did not visit them. Indeed, she didn’t even give them a nod in her speech.

The bejeweled First Lady has devoted herself to the idle hobbies of the rich: organic foods and glitzy fashion. In her Book Cadillac comments, she praised naming female justices to the Supreme Court and somethingĀ called the Lilly Ledbetter Act – a notorious sop to the Democrats’ trial lawyer lobby.

The issues couldn’t be more irrelevant to the problems of besieged, poverty-stricken Detroit families. The devastation wrought by 80 percent illegitimacy rates is invisible to her.

By contrast, Herman Cain chose as the backdrop of his visit – not a swanky hotel – but Detroit’s infamous symbol of destruction: The Michigan Central Depot. His audience was not narrow special interests, but Detroit entrepreneurs. His message: I am here to help.

Cain talked about making Detroit more pro-business with “community zones” and his 9-9-9 plan. His message follows on Republican reformers like Governor John Engler who reduced city taxes – or Rick Snyder who has tried to restore sanity to a broken welfare system. In short, Democrats talk of candy for the politically-connected. GOPers talk of cutting taxes for all.

The Obamas claim to represent the Party of Compassion. But their haughty Detroit visits tell a different tale.

 

 

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