| Lil' Fella ought to be cruising to re-election in the 3rd Congressional District. The reason he isn't is that he's such an oddball character. This week, and you might have missed this, at first the news was that he was going to endorse Willard. Then, Lil' Fella came out and emphatically said he had no intention to, but planned to work for his election after the campaign. Then, he apparently avoided most of the stuff at the RNC convention, preferring to do his own thing, even as polls show that he's got an actual race on his hands. A recent survey of 501 Third Congressional District voters shows Amash beating Pestka 50-42 percent, but the eight-point margin has shrunk from 11 points in February.
This is before the race really gained legs and only a very short time after Pestka had to win a Democratic primary. This race, it seems to me, can be won or lost in Calhoun County, where both guys are unknown quantities. There, Pestka has the advantage of support from Mark Schauer and I believe even Joe Schwarz, and his campaign will have an opportunity to define Justin Amash for voters. Amash is famous for his unwillingness to do media, which means he's ceded the initiative here to his challenger. Amash has considerable advantages -- money and the fact that it's still at the end of the day west Michigan -- and the road is unclear, but his quirkiness and unwillingness to break with ideology to play nice with his own party could result in the sort of ideologue-fatique that hurt Walberg in Jackson County back in aught-8. |
