A week after her defeat in Michigan's 11th District GOP primary, former state Sen. Nancy Cassis isn't giving up her special election bid to fill the vacant seat of former Rep. Thad McCotter -- if only for the two months left in his term -- and she's not happy Gov. Rick Snyder endorsed full-term nominee Kerry Bentivolio in the upcoming special election.
Asked whether she would be continuing her candidacy for the brief congressional stint, Cassis replied, "My name's on the ballot, yes." She noted "it's important to have a presence" in the run-up to the election but pointed to previous campaign efforts when asked about ongoing attempts to raise her profile.
Cassis said she didn't expect Snyder - who endorsed Bentivolio after he won the August 7 primary - to share his views on the special election as well. "I do not believe it is appropriate for a governor to inject himself or herself into a primary election," Cassis said. "How fair is it to [the five GOP candidates] that one person would be endorsed?"
She also stuck by a statement made before the election that she wouldn't support Bentivolio if he became the GOP nominee. "At this point in time, I think my statement that I made in my concession speech says it all," Cassis said (She congratulated Bentivolio and wished him well). " As for an endorsement as such, no."
As she had throughout the campaign, she accused Bentivolio of refusing to engage, but stopped short of saying his low-profile strategy caused her loss. "He was nowhere to be seen," Cassis said. "His manager spoke for him. They hid him from the press and the media. Why? What were they afraid of? He's going on now to face a Democratic opponent. Can he continue to hide?"
As for her defeat, she noted the difficulty of a write-in campaign but said the difficulty of raising her profile without her name on the ballot wasn't why she lost. She blamed the $650,000 dropped into the race in the final weeks by Liberty for All, a Super PAC affiliated with Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.
