Don't forget about the primary election on Tuesday

Here's a preview of my next column, which will appear in The Morning Sun newspaper:

One of the more important races to be decided in Tuesday's primary election will be the Republican senatorial nomination, in which the winner will challenge incumbent Debbie Stabenow, who has spent her career in office since graduating from Michigan State University. 

Though several gentlemen are standing for election, only two — Pete Hoekstra and Clark Durant — are serious. (One of the names, Gary Glenn, of Midland, has withdrawn and endorsed Durant, though his name remains on the ballot.) 

Hoekstra, a former member of Congress, was an early frontrunner in part because he unsuccessfully sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2010. However, he has been crippled by a series of gaffes, including an infamous television commercial that ran during the Super Bowl. 

Durant, whose candidacy began as a forlorn hope for Republicans looking for an alternative to Hoekstra, is surging in the final skirmishes of the campaign. In many respects, his gains are a result of his campaign deploying the same tactics as Gov. Rick Snyder, who outflanked Hoekstra and others to capture the gubernatorial nomination in the primary two years ago. 

Despite a steady run of television and radio commercials over the past month, much of what has happened on the husting circuit has gone unnoticed by Michiganders and unreported, or at least underreported, by the mainstream media despite Stabenow failing to get above 50 percent in most public opinion polls over the past year. 

But this doesn’t excuse Michiganders from paying attention to the GOP senatorial nomination. 

The general election campaign against Stabenow will be highly competitive regardless of the Republican nominee. This is especially true what with Michigan emerging more and more as a swing state in the presidential contest between Messrs. Romney and Obama.

The full column will be posted once the newspaper publishes.
 
— Dennis Lennox