I've been doing some homework on the three guys running for the Michigan Republican Senate nomination; it could prove to be a very interesting race with a lot of subplots.
Right now, Oakland County (northern Detroit suburbs) sheriff Mike Bouchard has an early lead over megachurch pastor and former Detroit city councilman Keith Butler and Acton Institute economist Jerry Zandstra. All three are conservatives of various stripes, but each has their own strengths.
Bouchard has a criminal justice background; when I first saw his resume as a term-limited state senator turned sheriff, I thought that he might have been looking at the next available elected position, but he's got a criminal justice degree from MSU. He was in the leadership of the state Senate, which is a good selling point. However, he seems a bit too much of a generic conservative Republican to be appealing to swing voters. Bouchard seems to be the default pick, but a generic Republican's not going to beat an incumbent Democrat unless he brings something extra to the party.
Bouchard will be majoring in law-and-order, but that reminds me of the Dan Lungren-Gray Davis race of 1998; then-state AG Lungren was selling law-and-order, but Californians weren't buying. Law and order's even harder to sell in a congressional race, where there's less practical things that can be done on a national level.
Butler's best selling point for the general election is that he's black and articulate; you don't grow a church to 20,000 parishioners without being a good speaker. He's bluntly conservative, being a fan of a flat tax; somehow, I'm picturing an Alan Keyes with better control of his fastball. He'll pick off some black swing voters, but might scare off some moderate swing voters on both his ideology and his Word of Faith theology. Right now, Butler is my choice, but I'm interested in seeing how Zandstra plays in prime time.
Zandstra was a pastor at Hillside Community Church in Grand Rapids, so the early thought that ran through my head was that a white Reformed West Michigan pastor would split the theocon vote with the black Pentecostal Detroiter Butler. Of the three, he's the only guy in outstate Michigan, so he'll have an edge with voters outside of metro Detroit.
However, Zandstra's more of an economic conservative than a theocon; his day job has been as Director of Programs at the Acton Institute, a Grand Rapids-based think tank that strives to "promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles."
The easy wedge issue that Zandstra has up his sleeve is the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which would bar the state and state colleges from using affirmative action plans that are biased towards any ethnic group or gender; it's due to be on the ballot this fall. Butler and Bouchard are opposed to the MCRI, so this would give Zandstra a leg up with folks who aren't fans of AA.
The less easy wedge issue that Zandstra could use in the general election is his "tripod economics" philosophy, that economics need to balance the interest of employers, employees and customers. That echoes a lot of talk in business literature of the last decade or so of looking at a company's stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers and the community at large) as well as the classic look at stockholders; that's normally a more liberal way of looking at things, but it has the power of helping even conservative businessmen not be penny-wise and pound-foolish in dealing with all the people that have an interest in what the firm's doing.
Zandstra's policy page blasts incumbent senator Debbie Stabenow, stating that "...her true interests lie with ultra-liberal..." special interest groups and is too slanted towards organized labor. If that tripod econ can be fleshed out so that it's not just an anti-labor rant, that could be a potent tool to win swing voters over to the Republican camp.
The primary isn't until early August, so we'll have seven months to see this three-ring political circus play out.
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