Candidate against Rogers emerges

Democrats in the 8th Congressional District were disappointed, and some angry, when Democratic Kande Ngalamulume suddenly announced earlier this month he was dropping out of the race past the withdraw deadline, but a write in candidate has emerged.

Clinton County Democrat Lance Enderle announced he plans to run for the seat as a write in. According to subscription only MIRS, there is a possibility Enderle’s name could actually appear on the November ballot instead of Ngalamulume’s. Enderle would need more votes than Ngalamulume in the Aug. 3 primary to replace him on the Nov. 2 ballot. But there is also another way.

If Ngalamulume moves out of state, or dies, a provision in state law is triggered that would allow the chairs, secretaries and treasurers of all give five counties within the 8th District to convene a special 15-person panel to name a replacement nominee after the Aug. 3 primary, according to MIRS.

Ngalamulume is reportedly in Philadelphia or Chicago looking for work. If he registers to vote in one of those states, the panel will be triggered. MIRS said Ngalamulume “told a local supporter this week that once he finds a job out of state, he would register to vote at that location.”

“However, Ngalamulume also told 8th Congressional District Democrats in an e-mail a couple weeks ago that he would not change his voter registration information, meaning a write-in candidate would need to defeat him during the Aug. 3 primary in order for his name not to appear on the Nov. 2 ballot.”

Political consultant Joe DiSano on his pod cast, “Two Guys Named Joe,” said Bob Alexander, who ran twice against incumbent Republican Mike Rogers, is helping Ngalamulume pay off his estimated $5,000 debt.

Ngalamulume’s withdraw this late in the game angered many people, and DiSano was one of the most vocal.

“What he is doing is reprehensible and shameful,” he said.

MIRS said “Alexander said Ngalamulume told him in an e-mail four days ago that he would change his voter registration information once he found a new job, which would open up the chance for the Democrats to pick someone new.

The 8th Congressional District Democratic Committee is meeting tomorrow in Bath, and this will most likely be a topic of discussion.

Enderle is a progressive Democrat, and he says he believes in small business, agriculture, tax equality and individual Freedom. He said he believes money has nearly destroyed the political process, and he has pledged he will not take any PAC or any special interest money.

Livingston County favorite sons get by with too much help from their friends

Anyone trying to beat a Rogers in Livingston County has an uphill battle on their hands.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, is running for his fifth term in the U.S. Congress after wining his first term by a less than 1 percent of the vote with a mere 111 votes in 2000 back in the days when the 8th District was actually a competitive swing district. This is the same district than produced Democratic U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and it was her election to the Senate that opened the seat for Rogers. He is again running against Lansing resident Bob Alexander.

After Republican gerrymandering in 2002, Rogers needs little help in keeping the seat, but he is getting plenty of it anyway. So I was a little surprised to see this notice about the Greater Brighton Area Chamber of Commerce’s membership breakfast on Sept. 15. In the middle of election season, it is featuring Mike Rogers.

The blurb says he will present something called "Energy, Economy and Jobs." “Congressman Rogers will delve into his plans to help the United States develop diverse and clean sources of energy with his Energy Independence Plan, lower gas prices and share ways to bring jobs to Michigan.”

I don’t know what else we are going to hear from Rogers, other than drill here drill now. Rogers has been a extremely close alley of oilman George Bush, and anything he says beside drill, drill, drill is just rhetoric from him.

But the most glaring thing for me was: how can they allow him to give basically a campaign stump speech less than two month before the election and not extend the same courtesy to his opponent? This is even advertised on the Livingston County Republican Party’s web site.

I understand his mother was the director of the chamber for many years and the building that houses the chamber offices are named in honor of her, but there are still standards.

We need to call the chamber at (810) 227-5086 and ask for some fairness.

As you know, his older brother, Livingston County Commissioner Bill Rogers, is running for the open seat in the state House for the 66th District against Democrat Donna Anderson.

Last month the hometown Livingston County Press & Argus, long friendly to the Rogers family, did a puff piece on the Rogers family last month. The general manager of the paper has even contributed to Mike Rogers campaign. When supporters of Donna Anderson complained about the piece and not giving equal time, they were told it was not a political piece.

Now, I will agree it was a puff piece in that no tough questions were asked, but to paint it as not a political piece is disingenuous at best. None of the three are new to public office, so you have to question the timing of this article.

Then a quick check of Bill Rogers campaign finance report reveals an interesting tidbit. On July 29 there is an expenditure to the Press & Argus for $2,207 in advertising . Now, there was once a time when the best way to reach voters was through the local newspaper, and if you went through back issues from 15-20 years ago you would see lots of political advertising in the local newspaper. However, that has gone the way of kids on bicycles delivering the local newspaper.

As a support of newspapers and a former print journalist that’s a sad fact, but you cannot deny that readership has fallen off. Newspaper advertising is not the best way to reach voters anymore, unfortunately.

He spent $1,340 on the local radio station, but a mere $180 on the Ann Arbor News weekly product that covers Livingston County with an office in downtown Brighton.

It seems funny that less than a month after spending more than $2,000 with the paper, we get this puff piece.

Just asking.

Al Gore’s new book gets good review by panelists

Enthusiasm is building for former Vice-President Al Gore to enter the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and there was plenty of that enthusiasm at a panel discussion of Gore’s latest book – “Assault on Reason” – on Thursday put together by mid-Michigan draft Al Gore proponents at Schuler Books in Okemos.

The panel, consisting of Beryl Schwartz, editor and publisher of the Lansing City Pulse; Tracy Dobson, a professor at Michigan State University’s Fisheries and Wildlife Department; and Doug Kelley, the retired director of Extension and Continuing Education at the University of Michigan in Flint.

The panel had differing opinions on latest book. Schwartz said he was disappointed the book had no new ideas from Gore, but he said it served as a good reference for all of Gore’s previous positions and good ideas.

“This book, to a large extent represents, both what is good and bad about Al Gore,” he said. “He is brilliant, but as a campaigner he is a little wooden.”

Kelley disagreed with that assessment, and he said Gore’s positions are what the former U.S. Senator and Vice-President are passionate about.

“I found this a very passionate book,” he said. “He says George Bush violated the law – not that that he just lied to people – that he violated the law for the past six years.”

Dobson said there were good and bad things in the book, but she really enjoyed Gore’s take on the history of democracy and communications in the United States.

“TV has done more to damage our democracy than anything else,” she said. “Political debate has been diluted down to 30 second advocacy spots.”

The talk naturally drifted away from the book to politics and other subjects, and the panelists also talked about their personal experiences with Gore. Schwartz said he first met Gore in the early ‘80s when Gore was a Senator and Schwartz was a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C. Schwartz was offered a job as publisher of the Knoxville News Sentential in Gore’s home state, and shortly after that he accepted the job got a call from “Al’ – a former reporter himself - inviting him to lunch.

“We had a lot to talk about,” he said “He has a great sense of humor.”

Schwartz said even then he was developing a respect for Gore, but that respect was cemented when Gore appeared at a journalism panel celebrating the newspaper’s 100th anniversary that Gore had to fly to from a conference in Bermuda and back just to be there because he had made a promise to Schwartz to attend.

“I think there are a lot of people from liberals to conservatives who wish he was president today,” he said. “We would be better off today, but this book will not get him there.”

Kelley, very active in the Washtenaw Democratic Party, said he saw Gore at all six of his Michigan appearances, and he was one of the 1,000 presenters Gore personally trained last year in Nashville to present the slide show based on Gore’s Academy Award winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Kelley said he saw a man that was far from wooden and lacking in emotions, and he saw a man who cared about people and was at ease with people from al walks of life.

Kelley has one of the largest collections of Democratic Presidential campaign memorabilia in a garage-like structure at his Ann Arbor home he calls the “archive” that he welcomes people to visit. Kelley once worked as an aide to late Democratic U. S. Senator Phil Hart, and he compares Gore favorably to Hart. Hart was a former Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, and he served in the Senate from 1959 until his untimely death in office in 1976. The Senator Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. is named for him.

“He (Hart) was as close to a saint as a politician can get,” Kelley said. “Al Gore has some of those same qualities.”

Bob Alexander, a former Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in the 8th Congressional District, is one of the organizers of the mid-Michigan Draft Al Gore movement. The group meets every month at 7 p.m. at the Gone Wired Cafe, 2021 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing.

For more information contract Alexander at Alexjuliea@aol.com.