There are two purposes to any campaign. One is to decide who is going to represent you. The other is for the candidates to have a conversation with the electorate and each other, to educate everyone, ourselves included, on the issues of the day.

On this page I try to set out fairly the differences among the candidates and then comment. Quotations are taken either from the candidates' websites, or utterances at public forums.

Five others are running for Michigan's first congressional district: Republican Dan Benishek, Democrat Gary McDowell, conservative independent Glenn Wilson, Libertarian Keith Shelton, and US Taxpayer Patrick Lambert.

All are public-spirited people who, if elected, would do their best to be good congressmen.

But I have basic disgreements with their philosophies. For instance all (except possibly Shelton) are pro-life and strong supporters of the right to bear arms. I am pro-choice, and my views on guns have evolved over the years (see below).

The campaigns of most are short on specifics. As an example, the Detroit Free Press sent us detailed questions asking our positions on a variety of subjects: employment growth, health care reform, climate change, the stimulus package and green industry, allocation of federal transportation aid, a publicly owned bridge across the Detroit River to Canada, the cause of the financial collapse and solutions, estate and other taxes, threats to the Great Lakes, immigration, social security, and other subjects.

None except Lambert and I responded. My answers are here.

Other issues:

• Republican Benishek is vehement about guns. He said the following, responding to a question from the Petoskey News-Review in a voter guide before the August primary:

  "[W]e have the rights as citizens to be armed if we have a tyrannical government, so they cannot just make us do what they want." He added that guns enable citizens to overthrow such governments, but without guns people "would not be able to do that."

  Does Benishek believe the government actually is tyrannical today? We'll see in a moment.

  First, a word about my own attitude toward guns. I hunted once and brought down a duck, but I don't own a gun. I have no strong opinions about people who do.

  But I am a socialist. Historically, people have been concerned that socialists would be the ones to take up arms and overthrow the government.

  Thus, my first political speech was in law school in 1969, about a leader of the Black Panther Party up for manslaughter of a police officer in California. While still a student in the early 70s I volunteered legal research for the successful defense of the "Detroit 15", members of the Detroit Panther chapter, who were charged with murdering a police officer.

  The BPP was a revolutionary African-American Maoist organization. Some of its members and publications promoted armed overthrow of tyranny. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the party as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country".

  In May 1967 thirty Panthers entered the gallery of the California legislature with rifles in hand, to protest a bill under consideration. The bill would have outlawed the public display of loaded firearms, a Panther practice.

  I supported them. In 1970, I wrote a legal appendix to a manual, Firearms and Self-Defense: A Handbook For Radicals, Revolutionaries, and easy Riders. The authors of the main text concluded their introduction saying this:

  Those around the world who are engaged in armed struggle against the U.S. Leviathan will surely grow and be victorious, and inexorably we will all be drawn in -- either as "part of the solution or part of the problem." If we sympathize with this worldwide struggle, and consider their fight to be our fight, then we should begin now to relate to the tools of worldwide liberation.

  Today, Benishek's rhetoric echoes the last clause of this manifesto. And he is very angry. In a September 6 video, Enough Is Enough, he highlights the rage of his supporters:

  When I drive through this district what I see is that people are enraged by their government and they're taking action. People are no longer sitting at home doing nothing. They're out there, they're going to tea parties, they're going to Republican Party meetings, they may be going to Democratic Party meetings. People are out there and they're talking about it. They're sick of the government interfering with their business and their lives, they're sick of the regulations, they're sick of the taxes, I think in this past year people have really got enraged by the way government is not listening to them.

  Again, in another news release he denounces the Socialist/Entitlement agenda supposedly being implemented by the current Democratic party.

  This last point is particularly puzzling. The greatest danager to this country is not the government; it's big business. The Democrats don't see this. They are not socialist, much as I wish they were. They don't want to overthrow the government and put the means of production in the hands of the workers. Like Franklin Roosevelt they want to shore up capitalism. Then-Senator Obama voted for the bailout of the US financial system in 2008.

  There is another doctor in northern Michigan, John Tanton, who has even more militant views than Benishek, expressed in the magazine The Social Contract which Tanton publishes. The magazine predicts and justifies race war, and says we need to get ready for it. See my op-eds about Social Contract, here.

  Tanton and Benishek appeal to the same passions.

  Like the Black Panthers Benishek is angry. "Enough is enough" is his campaign theme. But his base is more powerful, his funding is more substantial, and his movement is better organized and armed than the Panthers ever were. The problem is this movement is angry at the wrong people.

  Back to the specific question of guns: I would have given this subject little thought had he not raised the issue. Greens do recognize the need for defense even as we project non-violence as a key Green value. But for me the importance of guns has faded. Other issues such as the wars in the middle east and the environment have way more priority. These are the reasons I am in this campaign.

• Democrat McDowell: He says Kennecott's metal sulfide mine at Eagle Rock ten miles from Lake Superior must have adequate safety plans. I say it should just be stopped.

  Again, in 2007 McDowell

  Jason Allen, Jennifer Granholm, Gary McDowell at signing ceremony of tax break bill for Sovereign Deed.

  supported Sovereign Deed, an insurance company for giving advance warning and protection for wealthy people around the country in times of terrorist attacks. It proposed to invest $79 million for a national response center at the Pellston airport in Emmet County, where hangars would house troop transport planes. The company claimed it would create from 40 to 500 local jobs; the figure kept changing. County commissioners initially agreed to keep details of the proposal secret. Meanwhile McDowell and Republican state senator Jason Allen rushed through bipartisan legislation enabling the township to give it a $5 million tax abatement. The deal had unanimous support from the legislature and governor, all Democrats and Republicans. Local business leaders cheered.

  I led a local group of critics with philosophical objections to such a company, and sharp questions about its business background, penning a detailed 19-page critique of the deal.

  Soon the company collapsed amid exposure of lies about the CEO's military record and involvement in used car fraud in Australia.

  It was crony capitalism. There would not be anything like that under a Green administration. We would put people ahead of corporations.

  Again in 2006, McDowell supported a bill declaring English as the official language of Michigan. The bill failed. Certainly English is the overwhelming choice of speakers throughout the state, especially in higher education and the business world. Students and workers are well-counselled to know it fluently. But the English-only movement reeks of racism. See my op-eds here about The Social Contract, a Petoskey magazine which is the leading proponent of official English, both in Michigan's first district and nationally.

  Again, in May 2008 McDowell voted against an amendment to a bill to ban late-term/partial-birth abortions. The amendment would have prohibited government from depriving consenting individuals of the ability to obtain or use safe and effective methods of contraception. Contraception has nothing to do with abortion, particularly abortion at or near the end of a pregnancy, but he still opposed it. Then he voted for the main bill though it had no exception for women's health. The governor vetoed it. Whatever his views on abortion, there was no reason to oppose contraception.

• Independent conservative Wilson: He wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, even for people making over $250,000 annually, on the ground that cuts for high-end people will benefit "small" business. He added, at a forum on October 7, that $250,000 was not a lot of money. (Median income in the district is $34,076.) He opposes what he terms death taxes, and regulation of business. He opposes federally-funded abortions. He does have a point in railing against the Democrats' and Republicans' special interests.

• Libertarian Shelton: I don't yet have a clear picture of his views. His website support of Arizona's 2010 immigration law and extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich concern me, as well as his opposition to government regulations of business. On the other hand he says Congress should stop funding the war in Afghanistan immediately, and he does not support deporting millions of illegal immigrants.

• US Taxpayer Patrick Lambert: He opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest. He opposes compulsory attendance for schoolchidren because education as a whole cannot be separated from religious faith. He adds that English should be Michigan's official language, Social Security should be privatized, a constitutional militia should be restored to Michigan, and ratification of the 17th amendment (which established popular election of US senators) should be reviewed.