A couple of recent polls have given Republicans hope that Mitt Romney has a shot at taking Michigan this November. But the behavior of former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the frontrunner in the state’s GOP Senate primary, hasn’t been encouraging to Republicans hoping to take Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow’s Senate seat. First, Hoekstra made national headlines earlier this year when his campaign launched a racially-tinged Super Bowl ad against Debbie “SpendItNow.” And then came news that Hoekstra, despite saying he believes President Obama is a U.S. citizen, was pandering to “birthers” by calling for a federal panel to establish the citizenship of presidential candidates:
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra came under fire Wednesday for proposing a federal panel to vet presidential candidates’ qualifications amid a resurgence in the “birther” movement seeking to undermine President Barack Obama.
“I’d like to establish a three-person office in Washington, D.C., OK, knowing it will grow to five,” Hoekstra told a tea party rally early this month in Lapeer.
The panel should comprise “an FBI person, maybe a CIA person and one person managing those two people, and just if you want to run for president, you’ve got to go with the right, proper documentation and go to that person and get it certified that you meet the qualifications to be president of the United States.”
“I’d like to establish a three-person office in Washington, D.C., OK, knowing it will grow to five,” Hoekstra told a tea party rally early this month in Lapeer.
The panel should comprise “an FBI person, maybe a CIA person and one person managing those two people, and just if you want to run for president, you’ve got to go with the right, proper documentation and go to that person and get it certified that you meet the qualifications to be president of the United States.”
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