TROY – A new survey shows Michigan voters are strongly supportive of protectionist legislation to stem the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas and blame world wide free trade for this serious economic threat rather than President Bush, Gov. Granholm or Congress.

In a survey of 600 likely voters conducted over the telephone from Feb. 26-March 1 by Mitchell Research & Communications and commissioned by Corp! magazine voters were polled to weigh how heavily the negative attack ads run by President Bush and by Sen. John Kerry, the most likely Democratic Party contender for president, were resonating in Michigan.

Voters were asked: Michigan has lost hundreds
of thousands of manufacturing jobs and high tech service jobs
to foreign countries. Of the following, who or what do you think is most
responsible for these job losses due to outsourcing to foreign countries?

Overall, the survey shows voters were twice as likely to blame world wide free trade (37 percent) than either President Bush (20 percent) or Congress (18 percent) for the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries. Only 2 percent blamed
Gov. Granholm and 3 percent blamed the Michigan Legislature.

Although these percentages would seem to indicate voters have a balanced
viewpoint of the job loss, a more comprehensive analysis shows that
deep division exists between Republicans and Democrats, men and
women, by age, race, religion, union membership, and area.
While 38 percent of the Democrats blame President Bush, only 2
percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Independents blame him.

More than twice as many Republicans (53 percent), and almost twice as many
Independents (40 percent) blame free trade than Democrats (24 percent).
Women with a job outside the home (27percent) and women who stay at
home (29 percent) are more than twice as likely to blame the President
than men (12 percent).

Men (41 percent) are much more likely to blame free trade than women
home (36 percent) or women who work outside the home (30 percent).
Younger (65 percent of 18-29 year olds) and middle age voters (42 percent
of 40-60 year olds) are more likely to blame “free trade” for job losses while
voters 60+ (24 percent) are more likely to blame Bush than other age groups.
African-Americans (44 percent) are almost three times more likely to
blame Bush than white voters (17 percent).

Roman Catholics (24 percent) are more likely to blame Bush than Protestants
(15 percent) while Protestants (41 percent) are more likely to blame
free trade than Catholics (34 percent.). Union households (26 percent) are more likely to blame Bush than nonunion households (18 percent).

Voters in the City of Detroit (38 percent) are about twice as likely to
blame Bush than voters in the Detroit suburbs (21 percent) or in out state
Michigan (17 percent).

These divisions can be seen in the other questions as well. Democrats had a “field day” criticizing remarks made by President Bush’s Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors about outsourcing. The Chairman said: Outsourcing of jobs is just a new way of doing international trade. More things are tradable than were tradable in the past, and thats a good thing. That doesnt mean there are not dislocations; trade always means there are dislocations. And we need to help workers find jobs and make sure to create jobs here.

The entire survey can be found in the April 30 edition of Corp! magazine.