John Conyers: A relic’s last stand

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 20:18:00 +0000

John Conyers is a relic. The congressman, first elected to Washington during the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964, is 83 years old, and has been beset, in recent terms, by ethics controversies (including his wife currently serving up to 37 months in federal prison for taking bribes while on the Detroit City Council). Conyers should be vulnerable this year. Or at least as vulnerable as a 24-term incumbent who has always received at least 75 percent in a general election can be. However, Conyers isn’t facing a general election on Aug. 7; he’s running in a racially polarized Democratic primary.

Conyers is facing a crowded field in his new district, the product of a Republican gerrymander that now includes blue-collar, heavily white Detroit suburbs. The result is an electorate that, unlike the disproportionately minority district that Conyers currently represents, will be about 40 percent white, according to Ed Sarpolus, Conyers’ campaign manager.

Although Conyers faces two African-American opponents, state Sen. Bert Johnson and state Rep. Shanelle Jackson, neither has caught fire. Instead, Conyers’ main competitor has become state Sen. Glenn Anderson, a white suburban candidate. As of the most recent FEC deadline, Anderson had almost as much money available as Conyers for the last few weeks of the election and gained a number of endorsements in suburban parts of the district.

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John Conyers: A relic’s last stand