ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And I'm Melissa Block.
Mitt Romney is the projected winner of Michigan's Republican Primary, and Hillary Clinton is the winner on the Democratic side, in a race where she was the only major candidate on the ballot. We'll explain why in a few minutes, but first to Mitt Romney.
After Disappointments in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney gets a much needed primary victory that comes in a state where he spent much of his childhood and where his father was a popular governor.
Joining us now is NPR's Don Gonyea. He's at Romney campaign headquarters in Detroit. And Don, that has to be a very happy scene there tonight?
DON GONYEA: Why, there had a lot of hugging, a lot of patting one another on the back and you can also feel the relief, Melissa. I mean, the polls going into this weekend show Michigan to be very, very close. At that heat, had Mitt Romney lost here. It's hard (unintelligible) he would have really made the case. But for being able to win anywhere and (unintelligible).
BLOCK: What, in the end, do you think worked for Mitt Romney in Michigan and did he changed his message or his tone from the earlier contest in Iowa and New Hampshire?
GONYEA: You know what he did, he changed the focus. He was very much lack the social conservative here. He was Mitt Romney, a bit of (unintelligible) talking about his long business resume but also weaving into that, his family experience in the auto industry. His father, of course, was not only a governor of Michigan but an American motors executive back in the 1960s.
And Romney focused on that and talked about how - because he grew up here, that the automobile (unintelligible) and he took a very positive approach saying yes, the industry is troubled; yes, there are big problems but he went so far as to say that those jobs that have been lost - thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector in the state can come back. So, he was positive, without offering specific plan and that's apparently what Michigan voters wanted to hear on the Republican side.
BLOCK: And not a whole lot of time to savor that victory. He's onto the next.
GONYEA: Exactly. He's off to Nevada and nearly spending time in South Carolina as well so, but he got a win under his belt which is something he really desperately needed for his campaign especially here in Michigan, which is considered friendly territory for him.
BLOCK: Okay. Thanks, Don. That's NPR's Don Gonyea at Romney campaign headquarters in Detroit.
And now to NPR's David Greene who's traveling with the McCain campaign. And David, you've already moved on to South Carolina?
DAVID GREENE: We sure have, and that says something about what John McCain was thinking and then trying to send a message that if things didn't work out as he hoped in Michigan that he was ready to hit the ground. And, you know, there are lot of McCain supporters here in. And the first thing they said was welcome to South Carolina for the first in the south primary, so they're trying to move forward, not necessarily talk about Michigan.
You know, Melissa, this is not a script that John McCain would have written. I mean, he wanted to come out of New Hampshire with a momentum that he had and really carry that but it seems like he learned a lesson than a lot of Republicans are learning. It's very hard to sustain any sort of momentum in this sort of wild GOP race that we have right now.
BLOCK: And he's looking ahead to South Carolina. What is the strategy there?
GREENE: Well, they say - his aide say there's a very large military community in South Carolina and so his record on foreign policy and foreign affairs, they hope will play very well. But there are some questions, you know? John McCain, their different questions about how much money he has to sustain a financial campaign. They haven't talked about their most recent contribution and so we'll see what happens, but they say they're ready to go and that they learned to let them from when John McCain lost to George W. Bush here in 2000.
BLOCK: Okay. That's NPR David Greene traveling with the John McCain campaign at the Hibernian Society in Charleston, South Carolina, and to our (unintelligible) John McCain finished second tonight behind Mitt Romney in the GOP primary in Michigan.
And now to NPR's political editor, Ron Elving. Hi, Ron.
RON ELVING: Good to be with you, Melissa.
BLOCK: Let's talk about this result in Michigan changes the GOP race. What do you think?
ELVING: I think the GOP race becomes more wide open than ever, which is saying something. We now have four, five, possibly even six candidates we have to keep in consideration. Right now, in Florida, there are five Republican candidates all in double digits, none with more than 20 percent.
When you consider that, on the February 5th date, with 20-some events going on in one day, clearly, these candidates are going to scatter out across the country, all the regions, they're all going to have winds in some places. Many Republican states are still winner take all. We're going to have an absolute riot of delegate counting and delegate charting that's going to probably go beyond February 5th now and possibly go all the way to the convention in the summertime.
BLOCK: We haven't mentioned Mike Huckabee, Ron. He finished third in Michigan. He's giving his concession speech right now predicted to get, at this point, about 17 percent of the vote. What is this result mean for him?
ELVING: Well, that's not a humiliation. That's a fairly decent third place finish when you consider the strength of Mitt Romney in this particular state, and that John McCain is leading in all the national polls of Republicans. So, Huckabee doesn't have to hang his head. He can go on to Nevada and compete and then on Saturday as well in South Carolina - a very important primary for him. I don't think he's really lost a lot of ground with this third place finish. I think he can come back and possibly win in South Carolina, putting himself in a strong position for Florida on the 29th of the month.
BLOCK: Ron, let's talk about the race on the Democratic side. Hillary Clinton, a big victor but it's really meaningless because she was the only major candidate on the ballot. Barack Obama and John Edwards weren't even listed. What - tell us what that's all about.
ELVING: Well, there were no delegates at stake in Michigan on the Democratic side today. This really was meaningless vote. The candidates have not campaigned here. As you said, Hillary Clinton's the only major name on the ballot. And we're still going to get about a third of the people preferring to be uncommitted so no actual delegates, no real strength. This is a casualty, really, this event today of the long-running war between the Michigan Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party.
Michigan jumped out of February where it was supposed to have its primary jumped way up into January, challenged the national party and the death penalty was essentially assessed against them by the National Democratic Party.
BLOCK: Okay, NPR's political editor Ron Elving talking about the results in the Michigan primary. Again, Mitt Romney, the projected winner there.
Ron, thanks a lot.
ELVING: Thank you Melissa.