Michigan Politics

Home to Mike Rogers. He was first elected in 2000 in a VERY close race against then State Senator, now House Minority Leader Dianne Byrum. The difference was 111 votes, and there was the usual fishiness associated. However you look at it, the district was redrawn in 2002 to give Rogers a cushion so the Dems abandoned the seat, running Frank McAlpine in 2002, who managed to garner just 30% of the vote, and Bob Alexander in 2004, who fared better, but only won 37% of the vote. The district includes all of Livingston, Ingham and Clinton counties as well as major parts of Oakland and Shiawassee counties. The number of votes in the last two election cycles are as follows, with 2002 numbers in ():

County ................Total Votes ......Percent Rogers Support
Ingham: ......... 127007 (89774) ........ 49% (59%)
Livingston: ..... 90329 (58060) ........ 71% (77%)
Clinton: .......... 36566 (25604) ........ 67% (74%)
Oakland: ........ 69801 (45792) ....... 66% (70%)
Shiawassee: ... 16720 (11367) ....... 64% (69%)

Bush v Kerry in the district went 53.6 to 46.1, only a 7.5% margin.

The big thing to notice here is the large, across the board drop in his support. There are several contributing factors. First would be the candidate, Alexander and McAlpine are both good guys, and would make for good reps, but they both ran bad campaigns, McAlpine's was the worst but Alexander suffered from attitude issues. Here is a good example. If you didn't just watch the whole thing, go and watch through the 2-4-minute marks, after Rogers brings up 9-11. The way Bob deals with it is just depressing. Anyhows, Kerry did well in Michigan and Rogers is quite close to Bush, I don't think he has ever opposed him. The war was also a factor; Rogers has close ties with the war and its planning, or lack their of. He ialso does a horrendous job pretending to care about any issue that isn't security related, if you don't believe me, send him a letter.

Also interesting to note is the ammount of weight Rogers has gained during his tenure in Washington. One of the reasons he won his seat in 2000 was his boyish FBI looks. It seems like these days he's been creating lots of food service jobs in DC. What I'm trying to say here, is that a good candidate could easily trounce this guy. He isn't used to dealing with people who won't back down from what he has to say. A good campaign would focus on his ties to Bush, DeLay, Abrahamoff, the planning around the war, CAFTA... etc. If only I were 25....