We are close.

After a couple days in Michigan, it’s tough to detect the same excitement that was in the general electorate of Iowa and New Hampshire. In the neighborhood I am staying in, I see only one yard sign, and it’s the one on my cousin’s lawn for Romney.

Around town you see a few Ron Paul signs a couple Romney signs, but beyond that, sign sightings are far and few between. The front pages of the local papers are filled with news about the Auto Show (who refused to give me credentials today- Drats!) and little bit of news on the primary. I assume tomorrow may be different.

I had an interesting talk with a local lady here who is self employed. She is a McCain supporter, who likes Romney as well. She works cleaning houses, pays over a $1000 a month for health insurance for herself, and takes care of two elderly parents who are both in bad health. When I asked why she liked McCain her answer was because he’s been around for a longtime, and it would be good to have some experience. When I asked why with all her concerns about Health Care she wasn’t on board with Romney, she had no idea Mitt had done anything on Healthcare. This lady was very emphatic about voting as well.

It surprised me actually. She had also complained about getting negative mailers from McCain that seemed bent on “trashing Romney” but she still liked him. Like it or hate it, the average voter is not informed. I don’t mean to imply if she had only been informed she would have switched to Mitt, I mean to say I was certainly surprised that for someone who was so concerned about health care, she had no idea about the candidates respective positions on the issue.

The other point is messaging. Romney seems to be winning. A friend of mine talked to one of the pollsters here in Michigan, whose polls have been widely discussed the last couple days. This pollster will tell you that McCain had a good day Friday, then after that, it has been all Romney since. Tomorrow his poll will drop off Friday’s numbers and it will be interesting to see where the numbers land.

But the fact remains, McCain has run a negative message here. Not so much because of his attacks on other candidates, but the fact his message for Michigan is telling 50 year-old out of work assembly-line workers that they need to retrain to another profession. It’s not going to fly. Now maybe McCain is being honest. When you consider his economic ideas and abilities he probably is. The same argument for McCain’s honesty on this issue is equally applicable. After hearing Mitt’s detailed speech outlining his plans for Washington’s response to Michigan’s problems it was quite obvious, if the Automobile industry could be saved, it wasn’t going to happen under a guy who wants to regulate with CAFÉ standards and retrain workers in another industry. McCain’s honesty on this issue does not preclude Romney being honest.

So what will tomorrow hold? I am hopeful. I think Romney will probably win. I think indies will break for McCain, but I think the late undecideds will go in Mitt’s favor. Why? Because if you were looking at layoff, who would you want? A guy whose promises and plans result in certain failure or the guy who promises success with a plan to achieve it?