Here is the latest article on-line concerning the race in the 12th Congressional District, Read the article by clicking here.
Even in the 12th Congressional District, voters are talking “change.”
“There’s a real surge for change out there,” said incumbent Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, who is seeking his 14th consecutive term in Congress. The desire for change is the “strongest I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Republican challenger Bert Copple agrees. “Everywhere I go,” he said, “voters want change.”
Not surprisingly, Copple’s literature has a message of change. But it’s quite different from the incumbent’s: “Pink slip Sander Levin,” states the literature he has been distributing to voters in the 12th District – an expansive area extending from Southfield and Lathrup Village eastward through Oak Park, Ferndale, Hazel Park and Eastpointe to St. Clair Shores.
Levin has been part of the problem in Washington, Copple insists. Within the last decade, “We’ve lost 26,000 jobs,” he said, “and 23,000 more people are living in poverty. I’m worried about the next generation.”
Copple said he has been going door-to-door – “thousands of doors,” he said, “sometimes on my lunch hour” – and meeting with small groups of voters. They want change, he said, and they want more fiscal responsibility in Washington – starting with a new U.S. Representative in the 12th District.
Libertarian Candidate John Vico is also calling for change. “Sandy Levin probably means well,” he said. “But over the last 10 years, he and other members of Congress (including Republicans) have listened more to special interests, rather than constituents.”
The recent federal bailout – under which Congress, at the urging of the President, authorized $700 billion to stabilize some financial institutions – is a dramatic example, Vico said. “Ninety percent of the people didn’t want that bailout,” he said, “but Levin and others voted for it.”
The best way to initiate change, Vico insisted, is to oust Levin and other members of Congress who he said helped get the country into its present state of economic distress.
His campaign is drastically different than others in the race, Vico said. “I’m doing a lot of campaigning on the Internet,” he said. But he’s still getting a strong message of change in response, Vico said.
Other candidates in the race – William J. Opalicky, the Green Party candidate from Southfield, and Les Townsend, the U.S. Taxpayers candidate from Fraser – did not respond to numerous requests from the Southfield Eccentric.
Levin’s life was interrupted by the passing of his wife Vicki, who died in September after a battle with cancer. “But I’ve been talking to people,” he said this week, “and people are hurting. They’ve lost jobs, lost their health care and, in some cases, lost their homes to foreclosure.
“People want a government that stands up for them and the interests of the country,” he said. “That’s why Obama will carry Michigan.”
McCain claims to be a maverick, Levin said, “but he’s supported Bush 90 percent of the time.”
The change he thinks voters want, the incumbent said, is to oust Republicans who he said are perceived as favoring big business and special interest, rather than average voters.
