Tales from the 7th District

Published on August 13, 2004 By Stroughzer In Politics

With many of the congressional districts in this country gerrymandered to be safe for the incumbant, there are only a handful of seats that are really up for grabs. The 7th here in Michigan is designed to be a safe Republican District. Because our congressman Nick Smith is retiring, the GOP nomination was up for grabs. Because winning the Republican primary here is like winning the Western Conference Finals in the NBA (pre Pistons smackdown), there were plenty of republicans who coveted the nomination.

In all six people ran in the primary. The field was made up of five conservatives (Clark Bisbee, Brad Smith, Tim Walberg, Paul DeWeese, and Gene DeRosset), and one John McCain type moderate, Joe Schwarz. Schwarz had entered the race last, however he quickly became the front runner in the polls. He is very popular in both Calhoun and Eaton counties, which he represented in the State Senate. Among the conservative group Nick Smith's son Brad Smith and Clark Bisbee were in a close race for second with the others drawing in single digits. Even though he was leading, Schwarz was only drawing 23% of the vote. If some of the conservative candidates droped out, then Schwarz would have had little chance of winning. So very quickly, an "Anybody but Joe" campaign quickly started. Two important special interest groups Right to Life and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce agreed to get behind Bisbee hoping that the other candidates would drop out and fall into line. However it had the opposite effect as the other conservatives were pissed they didn't recieve the key endorsements. As a result, the pissing match over gays, guns, and abortion began.

A couple weeks before the election the polls tightened considerably. Brad Smith now appeared to be the man for the conservatives as he was now tied with Schwarz at 22%. The election was still very much wide open. Seventeen percent of Republicans were still undecided and the poll did not count Democrats and independants, who could also vote in this open primary. With the race heating up, the attacks did as well. They all began to attack Schwarz's stance on the marriage amendment, which he opposed. Gene DeRosset started putting out ads that flipped between a video of a happy heterosexual marriage and a picture of two dudes in tuxedos. Brad Smith was busy getting most of his money from out of state, specifically from Club for Growth, an anti-tax group. His theme was "Fight Back" which was kind of odd considering the Republicans are running all three branches of government. While the others focused on the holy trinity of conservatism, Joe concentrated on the economy, health care (He's a doctor), and defense (served in Navy and CIA). He was endorsed by the League of Conservation Voters, MEA, Main Street Republicans, The Lansing State Journal, Detroit Free Press, and the Battle Creek Enquirer.

When election night came no one knew what to expect. In the end Schwarz ended up winning with 28% of the vote. Election results can be found here. Suffice to say, this pissed off the conservatives who quickly became fans of runoff election. There are a lot of sour grapes in the GOP right now. I say to them that you shot yourselves in the foot. Instead of trying to win the election all you did was rant and rave about gays, guns, abortion, and who voted for what tax cut. Everyone wanted to show themselves to be the most conservative and as a result, you lost sight of the prize. You made your bed, now lay in it.

I'll talk a little bit about my involvement in the race a little later on, so stay tuned.

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