The election to replace Kerry Bentovolio in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, one of the most absurdly gerrymandered districts in our state, has been one of the most interesting races in the state this election cycle. Multi-millionaire “Foreclosure King” David Trott massively outspent Bentivolio to win the Republican primary. On the Democratic side, Bobby McKenzie, a former Senior Advisor in the […]

The race for Michigan’s comically gerrymandered 11th district is one of the most interesting in the country. The story really started two years ago when Thad McCotter botched his reelection campaign by hiring some idiots who photocopied signatures for his nominating petitions and then proceeded to get busted by elections officials. If McCotter himself wasn’t a big enough oddball, his […]

Michigan’s 11th Congressional District is one of the most highly gerrymandered districts in the state. I mean, geez, just look at this travesty: Clearly, when Republicans redrew that district, they had no interest in the Democrats (read: black people) of Pontiac voting in their election. The newly redrawn district contains much of the former territory and is a hotbed of […]

When the choice is between an incumbent tea partier whose own brother calls “mentally unbalanced” with “serious mental issues” and a corporatist foreclosure specialist, the choice was easy for Mitt Romney. He went for the corporatist leech on the jugular vein of society and predatory vulture banker, David Trott: “As someone who grew up in Michigan and has family currently […]

What’s say you and him fight? Kerry Bentivolio’s campaign to keep the U.S. House seat he accidentally won in 2014 is looking bleaker and bleaker. His opponent, foreclosure vulturist and corporatist poster child David Trott has over a $1 million in the bank, most of which is from his own personal bank account. Throwing people out of their homes is […]

Congressman Kerry Bentivolio hasn’t held a single public town hall during August recess. So constituents held one for him. Representative Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan’s 11th Congressional District may be proud of playing Santa every year, but to his constituents, he’s more like the Grinch. He doesn’t listen to constituents except those who support his extremist views. He hasn’t acted in […]

An excellent candidate interviewed by an excellent blogger

Ypsilanti blogger (and my good friend) Mark Maynard of the most-excellent MarkMaynard.com recently interviewed Dr. Syed Taj, candidate for Michigan’s 11th Congressional District. After Thaddeus McCotter resigned his seat in disgrace after his campaign staff engaged in egregious election fraud, Dr. Taj found himself in a race against Tea Party activist Kerry Bentivolio and white supremacist Daniel Johnson. Dr. Taj is an excellent Democrat and, with some good fortune and good Democratic turnout, is likely to be the next Congressman from MI-11.

After the jump, you’ll find Part 1 of Mark’s interview with Dr. Taj with a link to Parts 2 & 3.

Thanks, Thad. Allow us to clean up this huge mess you left behind for you.

When last we left the Thad McCotter MI-11 Trainwreck, Republican Kerry “Reindeer Farmer/9-11 Truther” Bentivolio had $300,000 dumped into his pocket by a Ron Paul SuperPAC, while the Michigan GOP desperately tried to save face (and the House seat) by scrambling to run former state Senator Nancy Cassis as a write-in candidate.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Dr. Syed Taj, Canton Township Trustee, former head of medicine at Oakwood hospital and all around good egg, could nary believe his good fortune by seeing his campaign–which was already solidly run and raising some decent money ($200K in the spring quarter)–suddenly go from a longshot against 5-term incumbent McCotter to reasonable odds (if still an underdog) in an unexpectedly open, and very confusing seat.

Well, there have been three major developments since then.

You’ll find them and more after the jump.

This isn’t any better…

There’s a lot of laughing and giggling and guffawing bout the utter failure of Congressman Thad McCotter. Since it was discovered that almost 90% of the signatures he turned in to get on the August primary ballot were invalid, he has now dropped out of the race and won’t be running a write-in campaign.

Unfortunately, the guy who did make the ballot is as bad or worse than McCotter.