Posted on 05/26/2012 1:51:29 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) may not have collected enough signatures to make it on to the Michigan primary ballot, throwing his chances at reelection into question.
The five-term lawmaker -- and one time longshot presidential candidiate -- announced Friday that he had been informed by his campaign that he may have submitted an insufficient number of signatures to garner a spot on the August primary ballot.
McCotter said his staff will "thoroughly review" the petitions for their "sufficiency or insufficiency."
Taking into account the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the campaign will announce their findings on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
McCotter just had to run for President and be a political footnote. I hope it was worth it.
I’m sure the signature issue will work out. I find it hard to believe that it won’t be corrected. As far as McCotter’s Presidential run, look what you ended up with. His candidacy was accurately described as “death by media”. The media controlled debates cited polls for inclusion but refused to include McCotter in the polls. He should have been taken much more seriously and certainly would have raised the level of debate. His knowledge of both foreign and domestic policy are unmatched.
If McCotter can’t get his name on the GOP primary ballot due ro a technicality (he clearly got signatures from over 1,000 district residents, but the law says they won’t count any sigs for persons who signed more than once—meaning that if John Thomas signed two peritions for McCotter, it counts as 0 signatures, which is stupid), he can always run as a write-in candidate in the primary, where he’d almost certainly win and then waltz to reelection with his name on the ballot in the general. Something similar happened to Democrat Charlie Wilson (not the TX Dem about whom they made a movie)in OH-06 in 2006; Wilson didn’t get enough sigs from district residents to get his name on the primary ballot (he got a bunch of sigs from the parts of Portsmouth that were outside the CD), but he won the Dem primary as a write-in and then won the general election.
He submitted 2000 signatures, and more than 1000 of them are duplicates? Honestly, how can they be so incompetent?
It’s not like there is a shortage of voters in Michigan.
As someone who is running for office i can tell you with great certainty that if he says there are not enough signatures there are probably not enough.
It’s not just signatures, it’s GOOD SIGNATURES. Big difference. You need registered Republicans or Independents(in my State.) They have to be registered at the address they signed and they couldn’t have signed anyone else’s petitions before yours. You woukd be surprised how many signatures are not good when you go through them.
It doesn’t just “work itself out.”
We’ve got a grade A secretary of state in Michigan now and she’s not going to play around with the rules for anybody. If she says there’s a problem with the signatures, I tend to believe her.
For Congress, 1000 signatures are required. Duplicates are not allowed, and that includes those who sign another petition for the same office. The information also must be filled out correctly. Name, signature, address, zip code, and date. Circulators can not sign and date before the last signature is dated.
There's no registration requirement here outside of registered voters, but all signatures must be from the district - the new district.
The rules aren't new, and I'm just absolutely amazed if a five term incumbent, who was also a previous state senator, screwed this up. He turned in 2000 petitions, so there had to be major incompetence go get 1001+ signatures disqualified.
I assume the filing deadline has passed if McCotter can’t just get more signatures, so if Trott runs in the primary it would have to be as a write-in.
Has anyone in the district heard of Bentivolio? Doesn’t sound to me like it would be that difficult for McCotter to win the nomination handily as a write-in. McCotter certainly would be able to finance a voter-education campaign.
As for having over 1,000 (out of 2,000) sigs thrown out, I agree, that shows major incompetence from the McCotter campaign—more to the point, it’s clear that the campaign didn’t take the process seriously. Maybe there were 500 people who signed twice each, which would result in 1,000 sigs getting thrown out.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I hear there’s a couple of openings at MSNBC & Current TV for incompetent narcissist taking head.
Bentivolio got 4971 votes in a state senate race that's about 1/3 the size of a congressional district. He apparently has a following among tea party and some Ron Paul folks as well. What he doesn't have is money. I think it's safe to say that he'd get 15,000 maybe 25,000 just by having his name on the ballot with no other republican names there. McCotter got 65,000 votes in the primary. Neighboring Mike Rogers, 78,000. Those are unopposed, in the primary.
Would Thad get 25,000 write-ins? I doubt it, even if he gets 10,000 in Livonia. Trott? No way. Only insiders know Trott. If McCotter and Trott both run? Not a chance.
You’d be surprised by how lightly some candidates take the signature process. I am challenging one of my primary challengers. We only needed to get 38 signatures. THAT’S IT! And this guy turned in 53 and 23 are not good. I am putting the challenge in next week and he will get the boot. He’s going to be hopping mad, but tough. Those are the rules and we all knew them going in.
You’d be surprised by how lightly some candidates take the signature process. I am challenging one of my primary challengers. We only needed to get 38 signatures. THAT’S IT! And this guy turned in 53 and 23 are not good. I am putting the challenge in next week and he will get the boot. He’s going to be hopping mad, but tough. Those are the rules and we all knew them going in.
Maybe its a sign for Thad to move to a new phase and become a conservative talker. He really does give a great speech.
We’ll see. This should not be as high a turnout a primary as that 2010 state senate election because in 2010 you had a rip-roaring, very competitive gubernatorial primary among several prominent Republicans, including Oakland County’s own Mike Bouchard. The 2012 GOP Senate primary is rather ho-hum, with Hoekstra seemingly having the nomination in the bag. I think that if McCotter can’t get 1,000 sigs certified he’ll blanket the district with ads, and the state party and NRCCC will do so as well, knowing that McCotter would win the general-election handily, while schoolteacher Bentivolio would not have an easy time against a well funded Democrat such as Dr. Taj.
Bentivolio has the advantage of having his name on the ballot and has some Tea Party support, but most Tea Party members in MI-11 like McCotter and many would write him in if they were informed that he was running as a write-in. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I don’t think that Benavinte can stop McCotter from winning the nomination.
As for Trott, it wouldn’t make any sense for him to file as a write-in if McCotter is running as a write-in, but if McCotter doesn’t run maybe Trott would try (although he’d have a much tougher time than McCotter in winning the primary).
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