Posted on 05/19/2004 10:05:51 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
7th District GOP race pits five conservatives against a moderate
By DEE-ANN DURBIN
The Associated Press
5/19/2004, 11:45 p.m. ET
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (AP) — Michigan's 7th congressional district stretches from Washtenaw County in the east to Battle Creek in the west. On the way, it takes in the city of Jackson, the farms of Hillsdale County and every kind of Republican voter, from religious conservatives to ticket-splitting moderates.
This summer, six candidates are aiming to win the hearts of the district's Republicans and find out just how conservative the voters are in this longtime GOP stronghold.
Five of the candidates are fiscal and social conservatives who oppose abortion rights. Among them is attorney Brad Smith, the son of U.S. Rep. Nick Smith, who now holds the seat, and state Rep. Clark Bisbee of Jackson, who has won key endorsements from Right to Life of Michigan and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
The sixth candidate, former state Sen. John "Joe" Schwarz of Battle Creek, is a surgeon and a moderate who supports abortion rights.
Nick Smith, a Republican farmer from Addison, has earned a reputation as a hard-nosed, anti-tax crusader who opposed most federal spending bills and is stepping down because of self-imposed term limits. Three Democrats are running for his seat, but since the district is traditionally Republican, the winner of the Aug. 3 GOP primary is likely to win the November election.
Schwarz, who lost to Nick Smith in a 1992 congressional race, believes he'll have an edge because of the number of social conservatives in the race.
"If there were only one abortion and Second Amendment person and one moderate person in the race, the abortion and Second Amendment person would win," he said. "But there's five of them, and they're going to split that vote."
That was precisely the concern of Right to Life, which endorsed Bisbee on April 26. Right to Life doesn't usually endorse in primaries with more than one anti-abortion candidate, but hoped its clout would convince some candidates to drop out of this race.
"Our desire was to unite the pro-life vote," said Larry Galmish, political director of Right to Life of Michigan.
The attempt backfired. Angered by the choice of Bisbee, a travel agent and five-year veteran of the state House whose fund-raising had been weak, the four other conservatives decided to stay in the race.
"I was in the Legislature for 16 years, had a 100 percent pro-life record and co-sponsored pro-life legislation," said former state Rep. Tim Walberg of Tipton, who now works for Moody Bible Institute. "Clark Bisbee was not a leader on this issue."
Former state Rep. Paul DeWeese, an emergency room physician from Eaton Rapids, said he was outraged he wasn't chosen after serving as an expert witness for Right to Life in several court cases.
DeWeese and state Rep. Gene DeRossett, R-Manchester, say the Michigan Chamber of Commerce pressured Right to Life to select Bisbee because he had a stronger voting record on certain business issues. For example, DeRossett and DeWeese opposed a Chamber-backed measure that would have required unemployed workers to wait a week before receiving their checks. The Chamber endorsed Bisbee on May 10.
"It got political, and being political, it didn't accomplish what they had hoped," DeRossett said.
Galmish denies the chamber was involved in Right to Life's decision, but acknowledges that the organization didn't want five anti-abortion candidates in the race.
Bisbee says the endorsement came down to numbers. His base of Jackson County has more voters than any other area in the district, he says, including Schwarz's territory in Calhoun County.
"If I'm not the candidate and Joe comes into Jackson, all of a sudden we have an unacceptable candidate," Bisbee said.
Bisbee said the Right to Life and Chamber of Commerce endorsements gave him a huge boost and will bring in campaign money. As of April 15, he had less cash on hand than DeRossett, DeWeese and Brad Smith. Schwarz, who began his campaign in January, had raised the most since the beginning of this year.
Brad Smith is expecting to have significant resources after winning the endorsement of the Washington-based Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group. He says the group could raise up to $400,000 for his campaign. He also believes his family name will help him lock up the nomination.
DeRossett, who left a contracting business when he entered the state House in 1998, believes gun rights supporters will decide the election and will support him because he won the endorsement of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners. Bisbee dismisses that endorsement, calling MCRGO "a radical gun group."
Schwarz says the Iraq war and the economy — not gun rights — are the major issues on voters' minds. But he also believes he can win over gun rights supporters because he is the only candidate who served in the Vietnam War.
"I can break down and reassemble any 9 mm weapon ever made, so don't give me this malarkey about being soft on the Second Amendment," Schwarz said.
In the end, the winning candidate could get less than one-quarter of the 60,000 or so votes that are likely to be cast. Observers say that will make it a nail-biter.
"We're a long way away, and anything can happen," said Bill Ballenger, editor of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics. "I think it's going to go right down to the wire."
Bisbee voted against concealed carry. And MCRGO radical? You got to be kidding me. They aren't radical enough.
I used to be MCRGO's PAC treasurer under their former(and much more pro-2a) leadership. They were very straightforward during my time as PAC treasurer. Endorsements were strictly made on merit during my time there. New "Leadership" took over in June of 2002. They made a lot of backroom deals in 2002, and sold out some good people. Eventually I gave them my resignation as PAC treasurer over the endorsements(and later resigned my membership over internal politics there). There's been a lot of faction splits there in the past two years and at least three spinoffs of that organization. MCRGO is a lot of things, but radical is NOT one of them. They aren't pro-2a enough for my tastes. (BTW - That takes nothing away from Gene DeRossett who IS very solid on this issue)
Oh yeah, until members raised cain, the 2002 PAC originally endorsed Bisbee after his vote AGAINST concealed carry. Real radical huh?
"I can break down and reassemble any 9 mm weapon ever made, so don't give me this malarkey about being soft on the Second Amendment," Schwarz said.
You're right Joe. You're not soft on the 2nd amendment. You're the only candidate for governor in 2002 who said there was no individual right to keep and bear arms. You called those who were pro concealed carry bubbas who strap on a 9mm. Hell, even Jenny Granholm never went that far and she even has a better voting record than you(antique bill).
Schwarz is in Chuck Schumer's league.
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If you want to back a pro-2a supporter, Paul DeWeese, Tim Walberg, and Gene DeRossett are all solid and safe choices. Brad Smith has no record on this issue outside of what he says. He may be bad or he may be great. Bisbee voted against conceal carry. He talks a great game, but check his record. Joe Schwarz would be right there with Debbie Stabenow, Carl Lenin, John Conyers, and Chuck Schumer.
I should mention that Nugent endorsed DeRossett as well.
We have "Stop Kerry" stickers. I think it's time for "Stop Bisbee" and "Stop Schwarz".
Dan, this looks very bad. How the heck are conservatives supposed to stop both Schwarz *and* Bisbee? Let's say that 75% of GOP primary voters in the district are conservatives and 25% are moderates (actually, that sounds like our best-case scenario, but let's stipulate these numbers). Schwarz should get the lion's share of the moderate votes, although he would lose some to each of the conservatives in their respective home bases. Schwarz would also get some conservative votes within his state senate district. So let's assume that Schwarz will get 25% (a conservative estimate if you ask me). So the remaining 75% of the vote, mostly conservatives but some moderates in the home turf of each conservative candidate, could well be split among 5 candidates.
Even if there is a Stop Bisbee movement to go with the Stop Schwarz movement, it will probably mean that 50% of the vote will be split among the 4 non-Bisbee conservatives, since Bisbee should get around 25% due to his endorsements and base in Jackson. Unless one of those 4 non-Bisbee conservative is annointed and endorsed by the other 3, I think the most likely scenario would be that the nomination would be a horserace between Schwarz and Bisbee, and Schwarz could very well win. As terrible as it sounds, unless 3 of the 4 non-Bisbee conservatives drop out and endorse the 4th one (which does not appear likely), our best bet may be to hold our noses and support Bisbee to ensure that Schwarz doesn't win.
Given the weak Dem field, Bisbee should be able to win the general election with ease, and we can then pick a single conservative to run against him in the GOP primary in 2006 (we would have two years to have selected one candidate to take on Bisbee). I wish we could avoid having to undertake this approach, but as long as 4 conservatives split the non-Bisbee and non-Schwarz vote, there is no way any of them can win in 2004.
There was a 6 way primary for my state rep seat in 02. No one ran away with it, and few predicted that Joe Hune would win it. He won by 2 votes and had 1/2 the money one of the other candidates had. He was up against two township supers, a county commiss, a newspaper editor, and an attorney. All ran as conservatives, but one of the candidates was viewed as a closet leftist, and one of the township supers was exposed as a RINO(he's not running again either).
The same thing happened in New Hampshire: we wound up with a draft dodging pusssssssssy named Jeb Bradley.
That said, at the state convention, I didn't see any visable support for any of the candidates except Gene DeRossett. I saw a lot of DeRossett stickers there. Granted, that's not a scientific gage, but gives a clue to where a lot of the establishment and/or grass roots stand.
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