MI-Sen: Peters in

[RogueBeaver]

Making it official.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/01/gary-peters-announces-michigan-senate-campaign/?wprss=rss_election-2012

[windjammer]

Lean D? Roger could be really competitif but with Amash

[RogueBeaver]

Likely D with anyone but Amash, safe D with him. Paulism doesn't fly outside of red states, much less ocean-blue MI.

[Maxwell]

No surprise. Probably going to be the next Senator unless its 2010 all over again, which I really totally doubt.

[seanNJ9]

From this Democrats perspective, Peters is a pretty boring candidate, but everyone appears to think he's our best option. Really wish Gretchen Whitmer would reconsider a run for Governor.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Likely D with anyone but Amash, safe D with him. Paulism doesn't fly outside of red states, much less ocean-blue MI.

Michigan's not really "ocean-blue."  It's really a swing state; Bush only lost it by 5 points in 2000 and 3 points in 2004.  It's kind of like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown; Republicans think they have a chance, but then they lose at the last minute.  And remember, we have a GOP governor, and our Secretary of State and Attorney General are both Republicans as well.  I'm glad that he's running for the Senate instead of Governor. 

Anyway, I think the GOP really has a chance, just as long as Amash doesn't run and/or win the primary. (Especially if it's a good year for the GOP, which it probably will with President Obama still in the White House.)

[Vosem]

I highly doubt either Amash or Rogers run, because both aren't nobodies in the House (Rogers is a committee chairman; Amash is one of the leaders of the House Paulists, which are small now, but are expanding and may within a few cycles hold the balance of power in the House) and neither has shown much interest in risky statewide promotion before.

It's interesting how both parties seem to have profoundly weak benches in Michigan (a pretty big, pretty swingy state). Republicans have no obvious candidate for the Senate (Terri Lynn Land's name has been bandied about a lot, but has she actually ever said anything on the topic? The likeliest candidate in my mind is St. Sen. Roger Kahn, who represents Gratiot and Saginaw counties in the north and wanted to be the sacrificial lamb against Levin) and Democrats have no obvious candidate for Governor since Whitmer declined (somebody, I think Triple P, did a poll of the various possible no-names recently and the best-performing Democrat was Fmr. Rep. Mark Schauer, who was a one-term wonder in the 111th Congress).

The Senate race is basically Likely D until it's clear who the Republican candidate is; if they get a self-funder or somebody whose held state office, it becomes Leans D, I suppose. This one is winnable under the right circumstances, but those seem doubtful.