Salon.com > Ben Jacobs

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.

Warren regains her footing

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:45:00 +0000

Elizabeth Warren is choking up. She calms and collects herself. “Yup,” it’s time to end the interview. She has been describing the burden she bears as a candidate and how heavy it sits on her shoulders. The 63-year-old Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts was describing in particular the needs of a married couple she met. The wife was caring for her husband, Jack, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. He spent four days a week at a center that receives federal funds. She came to Warren expressing her concern about what might happen if it lost federal funding. She said “if they lose their funding, I lose my Jack. I’m here because I figure you’re his best hope.” Warren managed to get half of her next sentence out “I think about her every ...” until she could go on no further.

Iowa: Where gay marriage still matters

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 17:49:00 +0000

Opposition to gay marriage helped sway the 2004 presidential election, when a constitutional amendment in Ohio may have turned out enough Republican voters to help George Bush prevail in a contest where gay marriage was a minor issue. This year, it may not even swing an Iowa state Senate race, where it actually is the most important issue.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, perhaps the most powerful politician in the state, has long been the top target of Iowa social conservatives because of his efforts to keep same-sex marriage legal in the Hawkeye State. As the election approaches, not only are Republicans deemphasizing that issue in his western Iowa district but the target is slowly fading from Gronstal’s back.

In 2009, Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled that the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. The result was an outcry among social conservatives who were outraged at such “legislating from the bench.” The result helped further gin up Republican turnout in the state and helped the party take the governor’s mansion and the state House of Representatives during the Tea Party wave of 2010.