Word: westlanders
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...Westland is a pleasant city of about 90,000 middle-class folk who work close to home - mainly in the car business - and rarely find a reason to make the half hour's drive east across suburban Wayne County to Detroit. I originally went to Westland because it's the land of the Reagan Democrat and in 1996 its 55,000 registered voters mirrored the statewide presidential vote. How Westland went was how Michigan went - and this year Michigan is crucial...
...Westland turned out to be a humbling experience for a reporter armed with all the national campaign issue charts and graphs. Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill was right. All politics are local...
When people bother to claim a party affiliation in Westland, it's about even Steven between the Republicans and Democrats. Former Democratic governor Jim Blanchard says: "You national media people still looking for those Reagan Democrats? They're either Republicans now or they're dead." He's right. Ed McNamara, who runs the Wayne County Democratic machine from Detroit, figures up to 40 percent of the union workers voted Republican in 1996. The average - yep, average - wage for the United Auto Workers member in Michigan is $60,000. The honest among them admit this is now the upper-middle-class...
Margaret Harlow and her husband own their own tire and service garage and are very active in the Westland business community. They call themselves independent voters, but this year he's voting for Gore because of the vice president's stand on the environment. "Short-term he's bad for the auto business. Long-term he's a vote for my grandchildrens' future." Margaret's a little embarrassed. She's voting for Gore because Bush blinks too much and she doesn't trust him. No need to be embarrassed. That's the same reason the mayor is voting for Gore...
...Westland has an aging population. Eleven percent are over 65 and as high as 35-40 percent are over 55. So I spent a morning this week at the Friendship Center. It's a large, new facility for seniors that has won a national award from HUD for community outreach. There wasn't one senior I spoke with who had honed in on the differences between Gore and Bush on Social Security, Medicare or prescription drugs. They did think Gore was going to help them sooner, but they were all voting for the vice president because he has more experience...