Bush won Macomb in 04 actually.
I hope you guys are right with the optimistic assessment. I vacillate between believing Bosama is certain to win and that he is certain to lose.
You’re right, President Bush carried Macomb with 50.24% in 2004; also, the first President Bush carried the county with 42.32% in 1992 (Perot got 19.46%). I’m hoping for John McCain to approach G.H.W. Bush’s 60.33% in Macomb from 1988 (although he certainly won’t come close to President Reagan’s 66.20% in 1984).
On a related note, President Bush carried Monroe County (south of Detroit’s Wayne County) with 50.54%, the first time a Republican had done so since 1988. I think that Monroe’s blue-collar, socially conservative whites will move even more strongly towards McCain (or, more to the point, away from Obama) and perhaps may even give the GOP presidential candidate his first 60% score in the county since Warren G. Harding in 1920 (!).