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Thursday, October 06, 2005

MI-09: A Challenger for Knollenberg

Posted by DavidNYC

I clicked on over to Our Congress just now and saw a posting from a Dem challenger, Rhonda Ross, in Michigan's 9th CD. I have to admit, I have never even heard of Joe Knollenberg (the GOP incumbent), but one thing in the diary popped out at me:

Votes In MI-09:

Kerry - 178,141
Bush - 184,858

That's pretty seriously close. Yeah, I know, jerks like Chris Shays can survive for years (but hopefully not much longer) even in districts which vote for Dems for president. So the presidential vote is not necessarily the ultimately predictor of the lay of the land.

Which is why I flipped over to Superribbie's comprehensive list of House races to target to get a better feel for things. Turns out, MI-09 was fairly high on the list, at 34. Obviously, Superribbie's methodology is not perfect (no one's ever is), but until someone comes up with something demonstrably better, that's what I'm going to go by for now. And it looks to me like Knollenberg is at least somewhat vulnerable.

So I'm glad to see we've got a challenger for this race. Obviously, this isn't an endorsement of Ross, and it's very possible that others are already in the running against Knollenberg, or are at least considering it. But it's good that at least one challenger (that I am presently aware of) is getting the jump on Knollenberg. If you want to make them sweat, you've got to start early, and Ross is definitely doing that by getting in the game more than a year in advance.

But at the very least, I can urge you to go take a look at her post on Our Congress and check out her website. While the latter could use a bit of work, I do like the fact that she has a link on the left side labeled simply, "I OBJECT." Reminds me a bit of of Emil Zola's everlasting "J'ACCUSE." There's a whole hell of a lot to object to these days, that's for sure.

UPDATE: This is why I love the comment boards. Apparently, there are two other candidates in MI-09. So it's only fair that I suggest you check them out, too: Steve Reifman, whose website is here, and John Ashcraft, whose website will apparently be here.

Posted at 01:59 AM in Michigan | Technorati

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Comments

Rhonda is one of several challengers in the 9th. It's looking to be a good year for Michigan Democrats: there are three congressional seats that we could reasonably contest (7th, 9th, 11th), and multiple people are showing up on the radar.

The two people in the 11th are Tony Trupiano, the radio host, and Ray Raczkowski (www.Ray4Congress.com, coming soon). Two more in the 9th are John Ashcraft (coming soon, www.ashcraft06.com), and Steve Reifman, last year's candidate.

For more details on races, check out Michigan Liberal.

Posted by: lpackard at October 6, 2005 09:03 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Tony's campaign website will be at trupianoforcongress.com eventually.

There is at least one candidate I know about in the 7th, will be coming forward publically in the next couple weeks.

Some of the other MI congressional candidates (although these districts aren't really winnable without a sea change):

Mike Huckleberry in the 4th.

Scott Elliott in the 6th.

Don Ritchie in the 10th.

Posted by: lpackard at October 6, 2005 01:03 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment