I think he’s one of the ‘pro-life’ ones, a Stupak clone but in a safer district, Saginaw area.
He’s retiring, his nephew is running in his place. I wonder what the nephew had to do to get his blessing....
Kildee voted consistently pro-life pretty much until Obamacare. But voting pro-life was pretty much Kildee’s only conservative issue position.
In 2002, Kildee was placed in the same district with Democat Congressman Jim Barcia of Bay City, who was far more conservative than Kildee. Barcia ran for the state senate instead, in deference to the much more senior Kildee (who would have been very hard to beat in the primary, and appeared likely to retire within a few years anyhow). Had this story come out 10 years ago (and assuming it’s true) Barcia would still be in Congress, hopefully continuing to vote with the GOP in many key votes. Barcia has expressed interest in running for Congress in 2012 in Kildee’s Dem-leaning MI-05, and if the longshot GOP candidate (a party switcher from Flint) can’t win, I hope that Barcia wins.