Lessenberry: Defending Debbie (great profile of Stabenow)

[UrbScotty]

Warmly personable, she still has more than a touch of the small-town girl from Clare, the daughter of the local Oldsmobile dealer back when she was growing up. When I had a long chat with her in Dearborn a couple weeks ago, the only loathing she expressed was for the Asian carp, "the fish that keeps me up at night."

Pressing the Obama administration to do more to stop the giant invasive species from getting into the Great Lakes is a major priority of hers, but not the top one. That could be summarized as "jobs, jobs, jobs," she said. "Helping bring more jobs to Michigan."

Helping people always has been what she wanted to do, since she enrolled at Michigan State in 1968. She earned two degrees in social work while singing folk songs part time in a local coffeehouse. Later, she married, raised two children, wore sensible shoes, and first ran for office in 1974 when she was outraged that the Ingham County commissioners closed a nursing home.

People who know Stabenow usually like her. They've been electing her to office after office ever since. Republicans have more and more trouble even finding a credible candidate to run against her.

http://metrotimes.com/columns/defending-debbie-1.1168365#.Tgtd88N-8jU.facebook

At the end, he mentions that she's more of a 'workhorse' instead of a show horse. Ironic, since Spence Abraham's 2000 campaign bus was called the Workhorse Express. I appreciate her tireless, yet often unnoticed, work on behalf of Michigan.

She so far has very little opposition for next year, but it's certainly not a race to take for granted. Still, it's telling that most of the big names are not running against her.