Two write-in candidates make bid for GOP nod in Aug. 7 primary
By Kathy Barks Hoffman
AP Political Writer
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The incumbent wanted to run again but abruptly resigned. The lone Republican on the ballot is a little-known former school teacher who raises reindeer. Top GOP officials are backing a write-in candidate. One of two people running as Democrats says President Barack Obama should be impeached.
And to think that just months ago, the race for Michigan’s 11th Congressional District was shaping up to be uneventful.
What started as a likely re-election cakewalk for Republican U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Livonia changed in a hurry last month when he abruptly stepped down after faulty — and possibly fraudulent — petition signatures barred him from the ballot.
One Republican consultant said McCotter seemed to “self-destruct,” even though his party carved out a district specifically designed to help him win re-election.
“This is just so screwed up. Nobody could have ever dreamt that this would happen,” said Tom Shields, of Marketing Resource Group in Lansing.
In the Aug. 7 primary election, Milford tea party supporter Kerry Bentivolio ended up being the only Republican who qualified for the ballot after his long-shot bid to beat a popular incumbent turned to gold with McCotter’s resignation.
But many elected officials in Wayne and Oakland counties uncertain about the political newcomer decided instead to unite behind former state Sen. Nancy Cassis of Novi as a write-in candidate, a move that caused Bentivolio to cry foul.
“I will not be controlled by the political class who think they know better than average people who are struggling to make ends meet,” the 60-year-old said in a fundraising email. “The insiders don’t like that I’m the only one on the ballot because they can’t control me by dangling dollars attached to big government interests in front of my face.”
Cassis labels Bentivolio an extremist who starred in a low-budget Michigan-made satiric movie released last year that blamed former President George W. Bush for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The 68-year-old says the seat shouldn’t be represented by a “Republican who believes President Bush and Vice President (Dick) Cheney were responsible for the 9-11 terrorist attack on America.”
Also launching a GOP write-in campaign is Drexel Morton, a Lutheran pastor and political newcomer from Wayne County’s Canton Township who says the country needs people more willing to work across the political aisle to get things done.
Shields said Bentivolio has to be given the edge at this point.
“It’s a monstrous task to win as a write-in candidate in these types of elections without a lot more time and a lot more funding,” he said.
Cassis has put $200,000 of her own money into the race and estimates she’ll need at least 40,000 votes to win, all cast by people who must remember to write her name on the ballot.
“Doing a write-in campaign is an uphill battle,” she said, “(but) I’m a darn good campaigner. I work very, very hard.”
Democrats who once thought they had little chance to oust McCotter now hope that physician and Canton Township Trustee Syed Taj will put up a credible fight in the general election. But Taj first has to win the Democratic primary against Bill Roberts of Wayne County’s Redford Township, a Lyndon LaRouche supporter who thinks Obama should be impeached, largely for foreign policy reasons.
Syed said he has worked well with Republican trustees to attract jobs and development to Canton Township and deal with tighter budgets in recent years. He’s focused now on beating Roberts in the primary, but figures he can raise $1 million to mount a credible general election campaign.
“My job is to keep knocking the doors, which we’re doing almost everything every single day,” Taj said, noting he’s also making frequent calls to donors. As a physician who worked with seniors on Medicare, Taj said he’ll push for health care and education improvements if elected.
Bentivolio and Cassis also have filed to run in the special Sept. 5 primary election to fill the rest of McCotter’s current term, along with three Livonia residents: Steve King, Kenneth Crider and Carolyn Kavanagh. Taj has decided to stick to the race for the two-year term, leaving labor activist Dave Curson, of Belleville, as the lone Democrat in the special election.
Some GOP officials are trying to get the party to settle on a primary winner and avoid burdening local governments with the $650,000 cost of a special election. But those efforts haven’t been successful so far.
Curson and the winner of the Sept. 5 GOP primary will run against each other in a special election on Nov. 6, the same day as the election to fill the two-year term.
On that busy Election Day, voters in the current 11th District that stretches through Oakland and western Wayne counties will select who will serve the final months of this year’s term, while those in the newly redrawn 11th District will select who will serve the next two-year term. Some residents will vote in both races.
“It’s completely bizarre,” Shields said.
