Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee showed up near Flint MI on January 11 to greet supporters shouting "Go, Mike, go!". Wearing a Red Wings hockey team jacket, Huckabee joined fellow musicians on his bass guitar at the Birch Run Expo Center, which is within sight of a popular outlet mall in Birch Run MI. Responding to cheers and the "Michigan for Huckabee" signs, the jovial politician asked supporters to use their enthusiasm to "help something happen Tuesday that a lot of people don't think can happen." Michigan voters will go to the polls on Tuesday, January 15 to choose canddidate in the Republican and Democratic party primaries.
"I like you too!" said the former governor of Arkansas and preacher, who reminded the crowd of Flint's past glory as an automotive powerhouse that drew many of his compatriots from Arkansas to work in the now-defunct factories of General Motors. Said Huckabee, in a state where unemployment is high and hopes are low, "There was a time when Michigan was a have where people could work hard and put food on their family's table and produdly know that job would be there next week because people were buying acars and buying things made in this great state". Some in the crowd shouted back "not any more!" Supporters cheered for his anti-abortion stance.
Striking a populist tone, Huckabee referred to the fact that he was the first in the male line of his family to graduate high school saying "...if a guy like me can be president your child can, too". Guns are an issue too, in a state with a long tradition of hunting and where Detroit, for example, earned a reputation for gun violence.
Flint, which is described by some as the Buckle of the Rust Belt, was cited last year in one study as the most violent city in the US. However, homicides dropped from 55 in 2006 to 30 in 2007. According to the Flint Journal, which quoted County Prosecutor David Leyton as saying that cooperation between the various law enforcement agencies has meant more arrests and convictions of violent criminals. The newspaper quoted Leyton as saying "If they are not out on the streets, they can't create mischief." The newspaper said that Leyton suggested that criminals causing the most violent crime are dead or behind bars.
Even so, one Baptist minister credits an increase in the number of concealed weapon permits issued to county residents for the drop in violent crime. Pastor Barry Parker of First Baptist Church in Clio MI, for example, received a concealed weapon permit last year and encouraged his flock to also do so. The law permitting concealed weapons (CCW) went into effect in 2001 and there are now 155,000 permit holders in the state. The crime rate for the state has dropped since then overall, prompting some to say that pistol-packing citizens are to be credited for taking a bite out of crime. The concealed weapons law, says Parker "I believe makes the community safer". Pastor Parker's congregation has members who tote weapons to church on Sunday. Sheriff Robert J. Pickell, a Roman Catholic who is also active in spiritual ministry to the incarcerated, pooh-poohed concerns on the part of those who worry that more guns equals more violence "Everyone predicted a shoot-out at the OK Corral...It never happened."
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