Comments were pretty positive on my post yesterday about the House race in my district, so I’m going to start posting fairly regularly as long as I can find new material. If I don’t have new material, I’ll just make a thread so you can tell us about your local race. To kick things off, Reader Jeff wrote about his local race, MI-3. Here’s Jeff’s report, edited slightly to fuse two emails into one:
In MI-3, district boundaries have also changed a bit, making it a slightly more (in theory) Democratic district than it was in 2010. We’ve got Justin Amash, a far right-wing club-for-growth type (who oddly enough was on the right side of SOPA, of all things) wrapping up his first term with TERRIBLE re-elect numbers – and so little popularity with the local republican establishment that BOTH of the Democratic primary candidates are attracting quiet but positive attention from prominent Republicans who would like to be rid of him.
In the Democratic primary, we’ve got Trevor Thomas, a young, gay, pro-choice progressive activist who just finished working on the effort to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, squaring off against Steve Pestka, a former state legislator and judge, and a fairly wealthy businessman, who is (unfortunately, from where I’m sitting) both anti-choice and the favorite of the local Democratic establishment, such as it is.
Both candidates have poll numbers showing that they can beat Amash, but it’ll be an interesting primary, with an older, straight, wealthy, pro-life career politician (Peska) vs a young, gay, middle-to-working-class, tech-savvy activist, and we’re already starting to see some interesting endorsements and such (Sen. Levin did a fundraiser for Pestka, former Governor Granholm has endorsed Thomas).
Here are the candidate websites. I would particularly encourage you to look at the video on the front page of Thomas’ site, if you have time and inclination.
http://www.trevorforcongress.com/
http://votepestka.com/
Cole is probably going to bring Tunch to my house and have that damn cat murder me in my sleep for adding another tag, but I’ll be tagging these posts “Local Races” as we go along. My email is at the right if you want to send in a report on an interesting race in your area.
MikeJ
On the one hand, MI-3 has had a republican since 1993. On the other hand, Obama won Kent co. by 1000 votes (out of 300k cast) and lost Iona by 1000 out of 30l and Barry by 3000 out of 30k.
Good organizing and GOTV in Grand Rapids could flip it but they did vote for the loon once already.
Neither of the Dems have filed any reports with the FEC, and neither comes into the race with any money socked away. After 1Q reports are in we’ll have a better idea where things stand, but the primary isn’t until Aug. 7.
JasonF
We’ve got a good one here in IL-10. It’s Mark Kirk’s old seat, but in 2010, Kirk got elected to the Senate and Bob Dold won. Dold has been a typical Republican back bencher, and we need to get him out of there in November. Which is doable — thanks to redistricting, the Demcrats should be able to pick this one up.
but who’s going to run against Dold? Today is primary day here in Illinois, and we’ve got a four way race. Two of the candidates are clearly not going to win, so it’s going to come down to Brad S unsized or Ilya Sheyman. Schneider is a centrist Democrat. He’s decidedly middle of the road. He’s not going to be Ben Nelson or Joe Manchin, but he is going to be one of these guys who only goes along with the Democrats when you can convince him he’s got political cover to be liberal. Put it this way — he’s got Stenny Hoyer’s endorsement. One of the big attacks on him is that he’s contributed money to Republicans over the years. His defense is that he only did that because of their support for Israel, and tht he agrees with the Democrats on all the big issues.
On the other hand, there’s Ilya Sheyman. Sheyman is a solid liberal. Before running for Congress, he was a community organizer with MoveOn.org. The knock on him, according to his detractors, is that he’s too liberal, even for the redrawn district, and that if we nominate him, we’re handing the race back to Dold. That said, I have seen no head-to-head polling, and I suspect the Schneider campaign would have released some polls if it truly were the case that Schneider beats Dold but Sheyman doesn’t. The other knock on Sheyman is that he’s only 25 years old.
Primary day is today, so by this time tomorrow, we’ll probably know who is going up against Dold. Either way, the Democrat has my support, but if it turns out to be Sheyman, it’s going to be an interesting race with lots of outside money pouring in.
c u n d gulag
I really like this, mistermix.
We need to focus as much as we can on taking back the House and keeping the Senate, as we do on the Obama v. Knuckle-dragging Cave-dweller.
If I had a job, I would be contributing to these fine folks taking on the reactionary religious rubes in the Republican Party.
Nenevah
@JasonF:
Friend of mine has been working on Sheyman’s campaign said Sheyman had those same numbers. Schneider beats Dold by double digits, Sheyman loses by “like 5”
He’s confident Sheyman could win it in the end with Obama on the ballot, but there it is.
Elizabelle
Blurb on Justin Amash from Time’s “40 under 40”, apparently from 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2023831_2023829_2025197,00.html
Disgusting how many of the up and comers are Tea Partiers.
The Other Bob
“…former Governor Granholm has endorsed Thomas.”
That is interesting because Granholm appointed Pestka for Judge.
I know several campaign folks in MI who know Pestka well and like him. Trevor Thomas has much better progressive positions, but Pestka is a well-liked guy, so will be tough to beat within the party ranks.
The Other Bob
@Elizabelle:
It was 2010. If there was a 2008 up and comers list it probably looked way different.
jibeaux
Tunch takes orders from no man.
Maude
I think it’s categories he was on about.
TBogg said to use lotsa tags. I’d go by him.
It’s going to be about 70 here today. Reached 75 yesterday.
Steeplejack
@Elizabelle:
But, hey, I thought the demographic time bomb was going to sweep them all away.
The crazy will always be with us, which means we can’t sit around and expect it to die out on its own.
AA+ Bonds
Im glad you post these, keep it up :)
Somerville
Please, please everybody – STOP using the phrase “pro-life” when describing anti-abortion campaigners. “Pro-life” simply shifts the playing field to their side.
The opposite of “Pro-choice” is “anti-abortion”. Think like the righties. Choose your words carefully and never ever use their word or phrase of choice – except in a negative manner.
Fwiffo
Levin drags a lot more water in the state than Granholm, IMHO (whether or not I agree with him on any particular issue.)
HelpThe99ers
@Somerville: not to get too off-topic, but I think a better choice would be “forced-birth” – the right loves framing phrases like those (“forced union” as the opposite of “right to work”, for example) and in this case, it’s entirely accurate.
Bruuuuce
@Somerville: I might even argue for using “pro-liberty” rather than “pro-choice”, in an attempt to wrench that word back from the narrowminded who use it as a holy invocation. Vice versa, “anti-woman” is even better than “anti-abortion”, considering the expansion of the War on Women over the past few months.
rea
@The Other Bob: Granholm may have appointed Pestak judge, but Thomas was on her staff.
I’m surprised to see Thomas has the endorsement of Bob Eleveld, a very conservative Republican who was McCain’s statewide chairperson a while back. His website also talks a lot about Thomas following in the tradition of . . . Jerry Ford. But, this is what passes for progressivism in West Michigan.
JGabriel
I have a feeling most of these entries on local races won’t get a lot of comments, but I hope they continue anyway.
For instance, I may not have have much to say about MI-3, but I’m still interested in getting the precis and info — and reading the responses from the smaller fraction of the BJ commentariat who will be knowledgeable about any particular local race.
.
JGabriel
mistermix @ top:
I like the idea of getting info on local races from the commentariat.
For example, perhaps JasonF’s and Nenevah‘s comments on IL-10 could be highlighted and front-paged for the local races category as well.
Or, since that race will be over by tomorrow, maybe follow-up with them for the general.
.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@MikeJ:
That’s a bit misleading.The last time a Democrat represented MI-3 was before the districts were redrawn. That Democrat was Howard Wolpe, and the district was in and around Kalamazoo. The vast majority of MI-3 as it is now used to be MI-5: Jerry Ford’s old district. In reality, Democrats have held the seat in this district for 5 years since 1895. The last Democrat to represent us was Dick Vanderveen, who replaced Ford in a special election after the latter was tapped as the Veep. Vanderveen won in the next general election (’74), but lost in ’76.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
BTW, I prefer Thomas to Pestka, but I think Pestka stands a much better of winning the race. The GOP establishment here, while definitely not in love with Amash, is still chocked full of conservative mainline Christians (Catholic, Reformed, Christian Reformed) who, given the choice between what they see as two bad options, would rather vote Tea Party than vote gay.
racing
Not to nit pick, but according to the license in the center of the page she’s going to be 85 this December. Quite a competitor!