So... Thaddeus McCotter was the victim of a conspiracy, in which members of his own staff were compromised and forced to turn in obvious faked and fraudulent petition signatures. All because some people or groups did not like what Mr. McCotter has exposed during his time in Congress, and were...afraid of what he might do with a sixth term?

Seriously? As conspiracies go, this is among the more half-baked. All Thaddeus had to do was ask his staff to show him the signatures they'd gathered before sending them off to the Secretary of State, and the whole "conspiracy" would have unraveled.

Isn't it just easier to accept that he was negligent and complacent, with a staff more incompetent than corrupt?

For five terms Thaddeus McCotter's been a virtual non-entity in the House -- never named the chair or ranking member of a committee or subcommittee, never wrote a bill or significant amendment that became law, and failed miserably at bringing appropriations into the District.

Thad freely "co-sponsored" all manner of legislation he didn't write, but there's no evidence that the "McCotter stamp of approval" ever carried weight. He was never a leader in Michigan's Hosue delegation -- unlike, say, Candice Miller, Mike Rogers or even Tim Walberg.

All McCotter ever did was vote with his party, and give florid and bellicose speeches on the House floor. In short, he was a gadfly. You don't need a big conspiracy to bring down a gadfly.

Hope you like reindeer and Tea Party rhetoric, then...'cos that's Kerry Bentivolio in a nutshell.

So Herb, tell me, who will you be looking at, and leaning towards for this seat?

I give Kerry Bentivolio credit for:

1) His military service;

2) The fact that, despite little money and very limited name recognition, he managed to submit more than 1,000 valid signatures -- but then, so did the LaRouche crackpot...which kinda makes Thaddeus' failure even more pathetic.

3) Causing the GOP establishment -- L. Brooks Patterson, MiCox, Paul Welday, Nancy Cassis, etc. -- to sweat bullets and consider spending $100,000-$200,000 on a write-in campaign. A man who can do that simply by following the rules can't be all bad.

All that said, I am a Democrat, so I'll be advocating on behalf of Dr. Syed Taj. Fortunately, he's worthy of advocating.

If the unthinkable happens and the LaRouche troll wins the Democratic primary...Mr. Bentivolio would have my vote (assuming he wins his primary).