One Picture, 1,000 Words (Take II): The Slotkin-Rogers Senate Slugfest

 

Continuing with our current theme, here are some flyers and mailers from the U.S. Senate slugfest between Democratic Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, and her Republican counterpart, Mike Rogers. In many ways, this race typifies what we're seeing nationally. Both are among the more notable faces of Michigan's Congressional delegation, looking to move up into the bigger job that opened, when veteran Debbie Stabenow ruled out running for a fourth term.

Since 2019, Slotkin has represented a district, variously numbered as the Seventh and Eighth, that stretches from Lansing, to Detroit's outer north suburbs. In contrast, Rogers served the Eighth Congressional District from 2001 to 2015, notably as chairman of the U.S. Permanent Committee on Intelligence (2011-15). Since then, he's put his credentials as a former law enforcement officer to good use, as a national security commentator on CNN, and executive producer of the network's program, "Declassified: Untold Stories Of America's Spies."

Unlike his more flamboyant former colleagues, Rogers isn't a screaming bomb thrower, nor a partisan performance artist. His lower-key style simply doesn't inspire the same animosity or pure gut level disgust as Scott Perry's election denying antics do. Yet Rogers's attack approach seems wearily familiar -- blame Democrats, in general, and their nominee Kamala Harris, in particular, for everything major and minor.

Cost of living going up? All roads lead back to Wilmington. Is the road closure that bottlenecks your complex taking weeks longer to unravel? Team Harris is leaning on those orange barrel guys. Got dinged by 50 cents, for an overdue library book? One call to the front desk sealed your fate. You get the idea.

The only problem, of course, with all this finger-pointing is that it doesn't offer any new insight, unless it's to suggest that Trump didn't get enough to work the magic tricks that eluded the adults in the room. And that's the basic problem with people like Rogers, who seems reasonably intelligent, but nevertheless, voted with Trump 95 to 100% on the time (FiveThirtyEight). 

It's a factoid that raises a reasonable concern, should we end up stuck with a Trump restoration. Slotkin has taken her share of knocks from progressives, which hasn't hurt her at the electoral box office. So far, polls show her clinging to a narrow lead (3-3.5%), a marked contrast from the picture painted in this recent Politi.com story:
https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/32405/politico_internal_republican_poll_shows_slotkin_with_sizable_lead_over_rogers_in_michigan_senate_race

If the story is accurate, and Slotkin really has opened up a wider lead against Rogers, it might explain the flood of literature we're seeing from him lately. Carpetbombing your mailbox doesn't seem like the sign of a candidate who's on a winning track, but maybe Rogers is trying to make up for lost ground and time, having lagged consistently in fundraising throughout the race. (Current figures show war chests of $80 and $62 million for Slotkin and Rogers, respectively.)

At any rate, here are some relevant images from the flyers and mailers we have seen, with relevant comments, as needed. With just over a couple weeks left till Election Day, the frenzied carpetbombing of all those mass mailings is likely to only heat up -- as ever, we'll present the most notable ones that catch our eye. And yours, too, perhaps. --The Reckoner

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<An atypically sunny, positive ad from the Rogers camp, serving as a reminder of what candidates --- particularly incumbents -- used to do, before the "ready, aim, splat!" approach took hold as the go-to campaigning mode nationwide...>

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<I don't see my overdue library book nor clogged local road among the list of failings enumerated here, but give Mr. Rogers time -- I'm sure that he'll lob one, soon enough, to a mailbox near you...>

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<Back to Mike Rogers Playbook 101: Vote for those, like him, who marched in lockstep with the "Swamp Drainer." That should fix everything that ails us, right? 

The verbiage here ('big spending Democrats...like Slotkin") makes us wonder if there's some fill-in-the-blank computer program, deep in the dark heart of the Republican National Committee, that helps candidates whip out these sorts of mailers -- like some twisted political game of Mad Libs, isn't it?>

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So far, the only Slotkin mailer that's crossed our threshold (maybe our fellow tenants have pitched theirs), aimed from the other side of the equation, with a knock against Republican hegemony firmly in the crosshairs ("We deserve to buy a home, build wealth, and start a family, just like every generation has been able to do before now").