Eccentric: Kevorkian brings new life to 9th District race

Dr. Kevorkian brings new life to the 9th U.S. House race

By now I am sure that Gary Peters and Joe Knollenberg are huddling in their respective corners weighing what to do next.

No sooner had Nancy Skinner been knocked out of the race for the 9th U.S. House seat then a new candidate entered the arena.

Jack Kevorkian announced that he is going to run for the seat.

Dr. Death.

Oh, my.

This could upset the entire dynamic of the contest, which already has taken some pretty sharp turns as it is. To recap, incumbent Knollenberg is up for re-election this year to represent the sprawling district, which stretches from Waterford to Royal Oak and from Farmington to Oakland Township.

Knollenberg has been the representative since 1992 and has enjoyed success in every re-election bid he has faced since then.

But things are changing. The district was reconfigured several years ago from the old 11th District to the new 9th District. It now includes Pontiac, which has a sizeable Democratic tilt. And even the Birmingham area has been leaning more toward the Democrats in recent years.

Anyway, in the last election Knollenberg was nearly upset by Skinner, who was at that point known as Nancy Skinner Who?

Actually she had some decent credentials, including being clobbered by Barack Obama in an Illinois Senate race, but she was not a well-known name in these parts. Yet she came within 15,000 votes of upsetting Knollenberg.

You can attribute that a lot to the Iraq War and frustration with the Bush administration and its spending policies. True blue - or is it red? - Republicans don't like what they are seeing in Bush's - dare we say, reckless - domestic spending. And more moderate Republicans are uneasy about the trillion-dollar expense being racked up in Iraq.

Knollenberg has a reputation of walking in lockstep with the Bush administration, even though he has been trying to distance himself from the prez in recent months.