I first became aware of Lance Enderle in 2010 when I read about his campaign in Brainwrap's diary. The abbreviated story is this. The Democrats lost Michigan-08 back in 2000 when Debbie Stabenow vacated the seat when she won the senate race. Mike Rogers (R) won the race by a mere 111 votes, which demonstrates that there are a lot of people in the district that are willing to vote for a Democrat, however, Mike Rogers has held onto the seat since then. Brainwrap's suspicion (and mine too) is that the Democrats haven't been giving it a serious effort.
Two years ago, Kande Ngalamulume, was the only candidate on the ballot in the Democratic primary. And then on June 2, he sent out a public email saying he was dropping out of the race, then he moved back to his home state of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, he dropped out after the filing deadline, leaving the Democrats in a bind because as long as Ngalamulume didn't register to vote in another state, they were constrained from putting another candidate on the ballot.
Lance Enderle ran as a write-in candidate and didn't get enough votes to defeat Ngalamulume, however, Ngalamulume registered to vote in Pennsylvania so the Michigan Democratic party was able to put Lance's name on the general election ballot (over roadblocks put up by Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land. Whew, what a story!) So it wasn't until the very end of August 2010 that Lance got on the ballot.
If you're interested in reading the story of the election in more detail, do a search of Brainwrap's diaries from June of 2010.
With those overwhelming obstacles -- in addition to it being a very bad year for Democrats (understatement), it is not a surprise that Lance lost to Mike Rogers:
Rogers - 157,400
Enderle’s - 84,400
It sounds bad until you remember that Lance Enderle didn't even get into the game till June and not on the general election ballot until the last minute.
I've been reading Brainwrap's diaries and also Lance's (you didn't know Lance was a contributor here on Daily Kos?) and was happy to see that he'd be running again for 2012. He declared back in November of last year.
I've also been reading his Facebook page and noticed that one day he mentioned he and his team had canvassed 600+ doors, then another day, 700+ and it occurred to me that this guy has a great ground game. I talked to him on chat the next day and asked how many houses they had canvassed so far and he said 80,000. 80,000 households! Can I get a bigger font here?
This is why I think Lance can win.
I think that we Kossacks can help to make that happen. So far, the Daily Kos community hasn't paid much attention to this race. He wrote 3 diaries last month and the highest recommends was 16. To quote Samuel L. Jackson, "Wake the f***k up!" THIS IS A HOUSE RACE! This can be one of the 25 districts we need to get back the House!
So to start with, pay attention to his diaries. Follow him on Daily Kos.
Friend him on Facebook and tell any of your friends in Michigan to friend him. Or tell Lance to friend them if they live in his district.
Look at his campaign page
and watch this amazing campaign.