MI-11 - Fubar

I'm absolutely stunned at this.A MIRS report's been circulated just about everywhere. MIRS is a good source too, so this isn't looking good at all. McCotter may be ousted from Congress without even an election.

MIRS Breaking News - Movement Within GOP For Trott If McCotter Bounced From Ballot -- 8:48 p.m.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Republican sources tell MIRS tonight that there is growing movement within the Republican Party to recruit Attorney David TROTT, a Bingham Farms attorney, to run in the 11th Congressional District as a write-in if U.S. Rep. Thad McCOTTER (R-Livonia) is unable to make the ballot.

Trott is the co-founder and president of Bingham Farms-based Trott & Trott, one of the nation's largest law firms handling residential default procedures.

Trott, a long-time party activist, had flirted with running for Michigan Republican Party state chair in 2004.

While there is no official word on whether Trott or anyone else would be interested, Republicans have actively searched for candidates after noon today since they were first alerted that McCotter had "woefully fewer" than the 1,000 valid signatures needed to make the ballot.

McCotter turned in 2000 signatures according to the Secretary of State's office. Assuming that's true, how in the hell did 1001 of them get fubared?  How? If this is remotely true, I'm flabbergasted. This is after redistricting and other possible candidates gave him a huge gift. Peters is running against Clarke and Lawrence. Marty Knollenberg long said he wasn't going to run if McCotter did, and is running for Oakland Treasurer. Mike Kowall was going to run and backed out. Kowall especially has to be kicking himself.


The question is now what. Either McCotter survives the petition challenges, or he's gone. If he's in, he's the favorite to win. If he's disqualified, then it's going to be real interesting. What happens is this:

On the dems side, there's a race between Bill Roberts (D-Redford) and Syed Taj (D-Canton).


On the GOP side, Kerry Bentivolio, assuming his signatures clear, will be the frontrunner if McCotter is not on the ballot. McCotter could run as a write-in, as could Trott. In order for Trott or McCotter or anyone else to be the nominee, he'd have to beat whoever is on the ballot. Like Bentivolio. While that could and in fact sometimes DOES happen, it's rare in a congressional district. It's rare even in a township. People would have to write in Trott or McCotter in not just Bloomfields and Livonia, but everywhere else.


I think the Republican establishment here may need to swallow some pride and save its resources to help Bentivolio if McCotter gets KO'ed at the signature level. McCotter in 2008 got 40,000+ votes while being unopposed. In the primary. Even 20,000 write-ins is a very tough undertaking, even for a guy with the resources Trott or McCotter would have. There's a very good chance that Bentivolio will be the nominee if McCotter loses the petition battle. If that's the case, the establishment needs to ask themselves this. Do they want Speaker Pelosi back or not? Bentivolio is a strong tea party candidate and a bit of a libertarian republican. I think he'd be similar to Justin Amash in his views and voting. Instead of floating Trott, they should be grateful that someone bailed out the party if McCotter's out. We can do a lot worse than Bentivolio, like Bill Roberts.