Perry competing on Romney’s turf

Rivals Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have made a sport of invading one another’s turf in their quest for the Republican presidential nomination, and on Saturday their paths converged in Romney’s boyhood home state of Michigan — an economically struggling state won easily by Barack Obama four years ago that is almost certain to be in play in 2012.

A biennial gathering of Michigan Republicans brought Romney and Perry almost to the Canadian border Saturday, to this tiny island of horse-drawn carriages, Victorian mansions and sweeping pillared porches — a onetime fur trading post where the only vehicle allowed is an ambulance.

Perry plans to compete in this delegate-rich state, but Romney made it clear that he was staking his claim to Michigan, where his father served three terms as governor in the 1960s.

“It feels very much like home, coming to the place where you’re born and raised,” he told a breakfast crowd in the town of St. Ignace, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Later, on the short ferry ride to the GOP gathering on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron, he manned the steering wheel and reminisced about childhood fishing trips with his father and an early date with his future wife, Ann, whom he brought here for a chaperoned stay at the governor’s summer residence on her 16th birthday.

Romney told supporters at the breakfast that he was reminded of his parents at every turn — down to “that click, click, click of highway roads here in Michigan” — and his wife noted that it was his father’s service that had inspired him to enter politics.

“Because of my mom and dad’s reputation and good name,” he said on the ferry, “I think Michigan will be a competitive state and I plan on winning in Michigan if I’m the nominee.”

He continued the theme at the Republicans’ dinner: “There’s only one thing Michigan doesn’t have, and that is there has never been a president of the United States who was born in Michigan. And I’m hoping to rectify that,” he said.

Perhaps treading carefully because of the Romney family history, Perry backed away from his harsh criticisms of Romney as a political opportunist. Though he received a warm welcome from Republicans on Mackinac, there was no question that he was the outsider here; he admitted in his luncheon speech that he’d been warned not to mispronounce the island’s name (it’s Mack-i-naw).

Rather than drawing distinctions with Romney, Perry focused on his promise to remove “the double boots of overtaxation and overregulation” from voters’ necks. Before leaving the island after just a few hours, Perry made just one passing reference to Romney — stating the party should not select a nominee “who will blur the lines between themselves and President Obama.”

“I will draw a sharp line between President Obama and myself,” Perry said. Quoting former President Reagan, he added, “It is time for bold, bright colors, not pastels, and that is where we are again in this great country.”

After Obama’s 16-point victory in Michigan over Republican nominee John McCain in 2008 — the largest margin for a Democrat since 1964 — some might have expected Republicans to be pessimistic about their chances in the state.

But Michigan is still reeling from a decade of steep job losses in manufacturing — particularly in the auto sector that forms the core of the state’s economy — and the state’s unemployment rate remains among the highest in the nation at 11.2%.

That has created deep frustration with Obama, as well as with leaders in Lansing, the state capital, and Washington. Voters registered their impatience in 2010, replacing termed-out Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm with a Republican venture capitalist who won nearly all of Michigan’s 83 counties against a weak and underfunded Democratic opponent.

With those gains in mind, lawmakers in the Republican-controlled Legislature have tried to position Michigan in an influential spot among the early primary states. They agreed last week to set the state’s primary for Feb. 28, even if it means they will be stripped of delegates under party rules.

“A lot of people believed in the promise that Barack Obama was pitching, and it hasn’t panned out,” Republican State Committeeman Saul Anuzis said.

Anuzis is among a number of Michigan Republicans who believe Romney — rather than Perry — could present a serious challenge to Obama in the general election. The Romney name is a “political institution” that Michiganders associate with “good times and good memories,” he said. And as the auto industry struggles to recover, the fact that Romney grew up as the son of the chief executive of an auto manufacturer (George Romney ran American Motors before running for governor) could offer him “a natural affinity” with voters, Anuzis said.

In interviews, voters in the battleground counties around Detroit were familiar with Romney, who defeated McCain here during his first run for president in 2008. But many voters were still struggling to name another Republican candidate at this early point in the race.

Some voters also said that they had seen few discernible changes after turning from Democrats to Republicans in 2010, and that they weren’t sure a change in the White House would make much difference either.

“Everything has gone downhill so bad, so fast. It doesn’t matter what candidate gets in there,” said Dave Sage, who described himself as a “middle-of-the-road independent” from Linden. “The older I get, the more I dislike any candidate out on the fringe. I want somebody who can really work with anybody, and I’m not seeing anybody like that.”

maeve.reston@latimes.com