In the seriously confusing race to replace Michigan Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, reindeer herder Kerry Bentivolio won the Republican primary yesterday for the special election to complete the term McCotter ditched. Not many people bothered to vote. From the Detroit Free Press:
"My workers were texting me all day that they were so bored," said Livonia City Clerk Terry Marecki, who said she initially thought about 10% of the city's voters would cast ballots Wednesday, but ended up with only about 7%.
"I told them to bring their Kindles and their magazines to the precincts."
In Novi, City Clerk Maryanne Cornelius said about 6% of the city's voters turned out for the special election, most by absentee ballot.
"It's been such a slow day," she said. "It's so sad."
Bentivolio finished 1,400 votes ahead of former State Senator Nancy Cassis. Bentivolio got nearly $50,000 in help from the super PAC Liberty for All, which supports Ron Paul. That help included the mailer below (the real Nancy Cassis not pictured).
Now Bentivolio moves on to the November 6 election, when he will run both to replace McCotter temporarily and for a full two-year term. McCotter quit after his nominating petitions turned out to be a (potentially criminal) cut-and-paste job. The special election is expected to cost local government $650,000. Yesterday the state of Michigan told Oakland County the expense was "really unfortunate," but, basically, get over it.
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It must be terribly frustrating to the Mich. GOP to not have one of their pre-corrupted clones running. Here is hoping that the 'reindeer man' can maintain his values.
Someone with "values" running as a Republican? Surely you jest!
I know, you're name's not Shirley.
The Counties should bill McCotter for the election expense.
In lieu of jail for election fraud, not a bad idea.
I miss his crazy sing songing on TRMS; Rachel was the first show to break McCotter, and she used to revel in his freakiness! Buck boy, the replacement, looks like crazy Carl from NY is loose again.....
I'm certain if it was $650K to do something actually useful, like keep six teachers in the local schools, that the State of Michigan would be appointing an "emergency manager" to get control of the "out of control spending and debt."
Republicans are such transparent slime.
Sow or Boar, the choice was theirs to make.
How many people did you expect to turn out, for a primary of a special election, to determine who will warm a seat for six weeks? It's ridiculous.
I don't know why McCotter decided he couldn't wait until August at least to resign--then there would be no special election to replace him. I assume someone twisted his arm in an attempt to give Cassis a chance to bump off Bentivolio or something. (?)
I'm sure he would prefer we all started to refer to him as a retired teacher, and stop sharing photos of him with his reindeer, but that's the only entertaining thing about this mess.