Hey, I'm a popular guy!

You're not going to believe this. You really aren't. But it's true.

I'm popular! Yay, me!!!

You may be asking yourself, "Self, why is this mild-mannered, ordinary, boring writer-type person suddenly so much in demand?" So I will share with you the secret of my success.

I'm popular (short-term) because I live in Michigan, I'm a registered voter, and Michigan holds a presidential primary this Tuesday.

Only thing is, it's just a Republican primary ... and I'm not a Republican. But that doesn't matter. Even if Barack Obama isn't shoveling out my sidewalk or Hillary Clinton isn't carrying in my groceries, I still have all those Republicans eager to do my bidding. If it's OK with them, it's OK with me.

I should explain first about the primary, so I'll quote from the story I wrote in last week's paper.

    State officials decided to move [the primary] up to Jan. 15 this year in hopes that Michigan would be among the first states in the nation to voice their choice in the 2008 nominating process.

    The primary was approved by the Legislature late last August and signed into law by Gov. Granholm on Sept. 4. But it hasn’t gone without challenge.

    On Nov. 9, the primary was struck down by an Ingham County circuit judge. The state Supreme Court reversed that ruling on a 4-3 vote on Nov. 21.

    But neither of the political parties wanted Michigan to leapfrog states like Iowa and New Hampshire. The Republican National Committee decided on Nov. 5 that Michigan will lose 30 of its 60 delegates at the 2008 national convention.

    Not to be outdone, the Democratic National Committee decided on Dec. 1 that the Jan. 15 primary violates party rules—and that Michigan (and Florida, which did the same thing) would be stripped of its entire 156-member delegation to this summer’s convention.

As a result, both Obama and John Edwards (among others) pulled their names off the Michigan ballot, which will only list Clinton, Christopher Dodd, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich and "uncommitted."

All the Republicans are listed, though, so the media is paying some attention to Michigan. And though I haven't seen a single satellite truck roaming the many backroads of the rural U.P. countryside, some of the candidates are after my vote.

One night last week, while watching a movie with my wife, the phone rang. The (recorded) voice said they wanted me to take a 45-second poll. OK, what do you want to know? It was on behalf of Gov. Mike Huckabee, and even after I identified myself as a Democrat, it said things like "Did you know that you will be able to vote in the Republican primary?"

This "poll" went on to "ask" me if I was aware that Huckabee is the only Republican candidate endorsed by a certain manufacturing group. It went on like that for a while, most questions starting "Are you aware that ...", until I finally said, "Are you aware that we're well over 45 seconds now?" and hung up.

The next day, I was at my home computer in the late afternoon when the phone rang. It was Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas. The Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas. Well, his recorded voice, anyway. The senator told me that he wants me to vote for John McCain during the primary on Tuesday. Even though Brownback's opinions on various social issues facing this country are poles apart from mine, I feel flattered that Brownback (or his digitized voice) thinks so highly of my political acumen that he would ask me to do this favor for him on Tuesday.

Not that I'm going to. But it's nice to be popular, don't you think?

Imagine how big my head would be if I lived in Iowa or New Hampshire!