This year's GOP challenge of five-term Sen. Carl Levin shapes up as another Mission Improbable, but Michigan faces some of its most spirited challenges of congressional incumbents in decades.
Most of the action is downstate, including the targeting of two Republicans seen as vulnerable and two Democratic primary opponents of the mother of the beleaguered mayor of Detroit.
But Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis insists there is potential in the decidedly uphill and underfunded bid of term-limited state Rep. Tom Casperson of Escanaba, a third generation owner in a family log trucking business, against eight-term 1st District Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee.
Anuzis also trumpets the challenge of Levin by term-limited state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk of Holland, who long has had one of the most conservative voting records in Lansing and last week filed 30,000 petition signatures -- double the number needed and collected from all 83 counties.
Levin, Michigan's longest-serving senator, has been holding his opponents to about 40 percent of the vote.
Stupak has done even better on occasion, getting 69 percent against Don Hooper of Iron River in 2006, and 66 percent against Hooper in 2004. Hooper seeks the nomination again this year, as does Linda Goldthorpe of McMillan.
After his filing last week, Casperson said that in his travels, "what I heard from Houghton to Houghton Lake was that the residents of the District want congressional representation that stands up for fiscal responsibility, stands against burdensome regulations, seeks common sense solutions, avoids partisan politics and refuses to 'legislate' merely through press releases and letters to the editor."
Northern Michigan's other two congressmen have solid Republican districts -- 2nd District eight-term Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, opposed by Hope College professor Fred Johnson of Holland, and 4th District nine-term Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland, opposed by attorney Andrew Concannon of Saginaw.
Nationally, the highest-profile Democratic targeting is of freshman Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, proclaimed by assorted independent groups to be a toss-up race -- or, as described Friday by Michigan Democratic spokeswoman Liz Kerr, a looming "rock star campaign." Challengers are state Senate Democratic Leader Mark Schauer of Battle Creek, highly successful in fundraising, and Sharon Renier of Munith, who got 46 percent of the vote against Walberg in 2006.
Also among the top 10 targets of national Dems is eight-term Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township, opposed by ex-Sen. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township, who came within 5,200 votes of defeating now-Attorney General Mike Cox in 2002 and then was named lottery director by Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
In Detroit, six-term Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, mother of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, is challenged in the Democratic primary by state Sen. Martha Scott and ex-state Rep. Mary Walters, now working for Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, who has filed perjury and other charges against the mayor stemming from his racy text messaging sex scandal with his female chief of staff.
Last week, some high drama appeared possible when the Rev. Horace Sheffield, a controversial political activist, filed in the primary against 22-term Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, (whose wife is on the city council and voted against removing the mayor). But, alas, Sheffield withdrew Friday.
Conyers has no GOP opponent. Not that it would matter. When he's won, it has been by about 90 percent.
Notable northern women
The Michigan Women's Hall of Fame abounds with political northerners.
In 1925, there was Cora Reynolds Anderson of L'Anse, first woman elected to the state House to what was then called the "Iron District" -- counties of Baraga, Iron, Keweenaw and Ontonagon.
In 1950, Ruth Thompson of Whitehall was the first Michigan woman elected to Congress, representing counties as far north as Benzie, Grand Traverse and Leelanau.
Among the most notable is Munising-born Connie Binsfeld of Maple City, who before her 1990 election as lieutenant governor was the only women in Michigan history to be elected to both houses of Legislature and hold major leadership positions in both.
Binsfeld was among political pioneers cited by Michigan Supreme Court Justice Betty Weaver, former chief justice and herself a hall of famer, in remarks prepared for Sunday's dedication of the Leelanau County Government Center.
In touting other Leelanau firsts, Weaver, a former probate and Michigan Court of Appeals judge, cited a woman who was born in a log cabin in the county in 1891 and was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in 1990: Emelia Schaub, who in 1936 was the first woman elected in Michigan as a county prosecutor, lobbied first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and others on behalf of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians long before it gained federal recognition. She also published a book at age 95.
All of that long before Wayne County just recently elected its first female prosecutor.
Notable northern books
Gov. Jennifer Granholm, following a tradition started in 1954, proclaimed Michigan Week starting May 17 "as a time to embrace, explore and celebrate everything that sets our state apart as an ideal place to live, work and raise a family."
One of the traditions is the annual selection of 20 Michigan Notable Books by a Library of Michigan committee. (Full disclosure: I am on the selection committee.)
One timely 2008 non-fiction selection is "Mackinac Bridge: A 50-year Chronicle, 1957-2007," by Mike Fornes.
Another notable of northern note is "The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft," edited by Robert Dale Parker. Born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie by her Ojibwe mother and Irish-born father, Schoolcraft is the first known American Indian literary writer.
A list of all 2008 selections, and those of previous years, can been seen at www.michigan.gov/michiganweek, by clicking on Notable Books.
George Weeks retired in 2006 after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.
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