I first became interested in Democrat Elissa Slotkin’s run to replace the odious Republican Mike Bishop in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District when I watched her amazing ad. In the ad — and in our subsequent interview with her on The Sit and Spin Room podcast — Slotkin said her impetus for running against the corporate shill Bishop was watching him sit in the Rose Garden as President Trump celebrated the House vote to end the Affordable Care Act. As I wrote before, Slotkin’s mother passed away from cancer in 2011 after having spent many years without healthcare insurance that may have helped he live a longer life. Slotkin was forced to write checks for thousands and thousands of dollars just to get her mother the tests she needed during her treatment. Bishop’s giddy response to having signed the House version of Trumpcare was the final straw for her, pushing her to get into the race. Have a listen:
Here’s the whole ad and it’s very much worth at watch:
What has become clear since that time is that Slotkin is poised to trounce Bishop in the General Election should she win her primary. For three consecutive quarters she has raised more money than the well-funded corporatist. More impressively, she’s done so without taking a penny in corporate PAC money. Slotkin raised $801,000 to Bishop’s $456,777.
Her campaign is going full-tilt against Bishop’s corporate ties:
In his bid for re-election, Bishop has accepted … thousands of dollars from two leading pharmaceutical companies, Endo and McKesson, both of which are being sued by Oakland County for misleading tactics that have led to opioid addiction. Bishop accepted this support despite his position on Congress’ Opioid Conference Committee, a group charged with enhancing opioid abuse treatment and prevention.
Meanwhile, Bishop, already well-known for having been purchased by skabillionaire Matty Moroun, continues to suckle at the bosom of our Misogynist-in-Chief, Donald Trump. In a recent appearance on WHMI, Bishop went so far as to call Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into President Trump and his administration “un-American”:
If you’ve got a special prosecutor who was duly charged and given the proper role, that he has in my opinion, he’s got a job to do and he’s got to finish it. But it’s the role itself that concerns me and how broad it is, to me its un-American and it’s just not the way to conduct an investigation. […]
In my opinion, the special counsel is not the way to handle this situation […]
I don’t like that kind of investigatory body, to me it’s over and beyond what it was intended to cover […]
There has been absolutely no proof of any kind of collusion anywhere with Russia between the president and — in any way shape or form. I’m concerned that we’re going to keep this investigation open until these investigators find something, which is not the way the rule of law is supposed to work.
In response, Slotkin released a statement saying that this is a “sad reflection of how partisanship has bled into our approach to national security.” Mueller, she said, “Is a respected Republican statesman attempting to determine whether a foreign power had influence in our elections. This should not be a partisan issue. If Rep. Bishop feels Mueller has gone ‘over and beyond’ his role of seeking evidence of collusion, he either doesn’t understand what’s at stake, doesn’t understand how complex international investigations work, or is simply ready to politicize anything – even the security of our democracy.”
Slotkin is playing this smart. She knows that Trump’s supporters see everything he does, no matter how base or venal, as a strength. So she cannot effectively run against Trump. However, she can harness anti-Trump sentiment on the left to help propel her message and run aggressively against Bishop.
After all, Mike Bishop is giving her PLENTY to work with.
You can learn more about Elissa Slotkin’s campaign at ElissaForCongress.com. If you’d like to help her keep the momentum going, you can make a donation HERE.
