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I lost the August 5, 2008 Democratic primary. Incumbent Joan Bauer got 5,277 votes and I got 571, about 10% of the Democratic vote. Even though there were no contested races on the Republican side of the ballot, 68th district Republican candidate David Irons got 1,551 votes. I apparently failed in my attempt to get Republicans to vote on the Democratic side.

About the only campaigning I did was an 11x5.5" postcard mailed to all 18,423 households in which someone voted in the 2006 general election. It was sent late, arriving in mailboxes the Friday, Saturday and Monday before the election. That was a big mistake. I forgot about absentee voters. 3,457 Lansing residents voted by mail, and we can assume that very few got my postcard before they filled out their ballot.

But that was not my only mistake. The 68th district includes most, but not all, of the city of Lansing. It also includes all of Lansing Township, a separate, self-governing entity. I got my voter list from the Lansing City Clerk, so none of my postcards went to Lansing Township voters. 985 of them voted in the primary.

And then there was the Post Office's mistake. I received a call from the Post Office on August 14 saying that 423 of my postcards didn't get sent. (The Post Office is going to refund $84 in postage.)

The total number of votes cast in the primary for 68th district representative was 7399. The total number of voters who voted without having seen my postcard was 4865:

3457	absentee voters in Lansing
985	Lansing Township residents
423	postcards lost in the Post Office
4865	voters who did not see postcard

That leaves 2534 (7399 minus 4865) who did get the postcard. Since 21% of all votes cast in the primary went to the Republican, we can assume that 21% of the people who got my postcard voted Republican and 79% voted Democrat. 79% of 2534 is 2002. So of the 2002 Democratic voters who got my card, 28% (581) voted for me. 28% sounds a lot better than 10%. Not so bad for a Democrat who is against unions and for taxing seniors. At the start of the campaign, Mark Grebner, a local political expert, said I would be doing very well to get 20% of the Democratic vote.

My campaign was essentially one-man operation. I was the campaign manager and campaign treasurer. I created the website and provided the text for the postcard. A friend who knows Microsoft Excel showed me how to eliminate the “duplicates” (extra voters in the same household) from the voter list I got from the Lansing City Clerk. A guy at the printers took my basic design for the postcard and added the color. The picture on the postcard was cropped from a photo taken 3 years ago for my wife Carol’s parish directory.

It is not too late to donate to my campaign. When I started, I promised Carol that I wouldn't spend any of our own money, but I ended up "loaning" the campaign $6,600.

The Lansing City Pulse Did Me Wrong

On July 9, Derek Wallbank of the Lansing State Journal came over to the house and interviewed me for about 45 minutes. Wallbank's article appeared July 16, and I thought it was accurate and fair:

State Rep. Joan Bauer and Steve Harry are a bit like oil and vinegar politically. Harry, a retired procedures analyst living in west Lansing, thinks unions are destroying Michigan's economy. He wants to tax pensions, eliminate the sales tax, abolish the lottery and get rid of the state Senate. "I think the economy will take care of itself if we can do away with unions and fix the business tax," Harry, 65, said . . .

Despite their differences, both Bauer and Harry support abortion rights for women and would seek to reverse a 2004 constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage. They also agreed that Michigan must find a way to increase funding for schools and roads. Harry would pay for it through a tax increase while Bauer said she would designate part of the sales tax collected on gasoline for road and bridge repairs.

The Lansing State Journal didn't do endorsements for the primary election. The weekly City Pulse did, although no one from the Pulse took the time to talk to me. The Pulse's article appeared July 30, the Wednesday before the election:

Lansing freshman Rep. Joan Bauer’s lone opponent in the Democratic primary, Steve Harry, is a former state employee who claims the state still owes him $6 million. Not your typical Democrat, Steve Harry, of Lansing, wants to “drive the unions out of Michigan,” repeal the prevailing wage law and shut down the Lottery. Harry also says “seniors enjoy a huge income tax break” and that both the Parole Board and the Liquor Control Commission should be abolished.

The merits of some of Harry’s positions could make for some lively dinner table debate. In the meantime, Bauer has positioned herself on the House committee in charge of spending state money and could be in line to chairing the community colleges budget next term. She’s leading the effort to get more state money to reimburse the fire departments in Lansing and East Lansing for the costs of providing servicing state buildings and Michigan State University.

It seems the main reason for the Pulse's endorsement of Joan Bauer was that she was the incumbent. But what really what made my blood boil was their statement that I claim the state still owes me $6 million. It made me sound like a crackpot. And since the Pulse is a weekly, they could issue no correction before the August 5 primary. I immediately fired off an email to the Pulse. The title was "Stab in the Back":

You really did a job on me in your July 30 primary guide. Is it because I declined to buy an ad? You said that I was “a former state employee who claims the state still owes him $6 million.” “Michigan Owes Me $6 Million” is the title of a story I wrote about my experiences at the Department of Social Services in the 1970s. I tell how I persuaded Social Services management to undertake an effort to automate the welfare allowance update process and then did most of the program design. It saved the state $5 million in the first year. (It would have saved $6 million if they had listened sooner.) Nowhere in the account do I claim the state owes me anything, and I never have claimed that. It was only the title of the story, and it was a joke. The story is on my personal website, not my campaign website.

I got the idea for the title to my story from a 1963 book by Bob Hope called "I Owe Russia $1200".

The next day, July 31, there was this exchange of emails between me and Pulse editor/publisher Berl Schwartz:

Your decision on advertising has nothing to do with it. I will look into your statement about the $6 million and get back to you.
Thank you.
Berl Schwartz

Berl,
Actually, I never believed my decision on advertising influenced your reporter. It was just lazy reporting. And maybe a little mean-spirited.
Steve

Thanks. I'm told the reference came from your Web site, but when I went there, I didn't see a "story," as you called it in your e-mail. I did see a letter. Is that what you meant when you said story? I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this.
Berl

It is on my personal website, www.steveharryssite.com. There is a link at the lower left to "Michigan Owes Me $6 Million". Evenually, you'll get to an intro followed by a list of chapter titles. Click on "$6 Million."
Steve

Then on Saturday, August 2:

Steve: Not to belabor this, but what was the purpose of the letter on your political Web site that comes up when you click on The State Owes Me Six Million?

Berl,
I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about. I don't think "The State Owes Me $6 Million" appears on my political website (steveharryforstaterep.org). "Michigan Owes Me $6 Million" appears on my personal website (steveharryssite.com). Is the letter you are referring to the one I link to in the introduction to the story, in the sentence "A letter I wrote in June 1976 contains a summary of my career at Social Services"?
Call me at 323-3897 and maybe we can straighten this out.
Steve

And on August 3:

what are the new addresses of the two sites?

Berl,
There are no new addresses. My campaign site is www.steveharryforstaterep.org. My personal site is www.steveharryssite.com. These have always been the addresses.
Steve

That was the end of the email exchange. The City Pulse never did print my July 30 email, which was sent to the address they give for letters to the editor, and I've heard nothing more from Berl.

When I realized on July 30 that the City Pulse could not correct before the election their characterization of me as "“a former state employee who claims the state still owes him $6 million”, I emailed a letter to the State Journal that was similar to the one I sent to the Pulse:

The City Pulse really did a job on me in the July 30 primary guide. They said I was “a former state employee who claims the state still owes him $6 million.” They are referring to a story I wrote about my experiences at the Department of Social Services in the 1970s. It tells how I persuaded Social Services management to undertake an effort to automate the welfare allowance update process, and then did most of the program design myself. It saved the state $5 million in the first year. (It would have saved $6 million had management acted sooner.) The title of the story, “Michigan Owes Me $6 Million”, was a joke. Nowhere in the account do I claim the state owes me anything, and I never have claimed that. The story is on my personal website (steveharryssite.com), not my campaign website (steveharryforstaterep.org).  No one from the City Pulse talked to me except to solicit a campaign ad, which I declined.

My thinking was that being a daily, the Journal could print it before the election. They never did print it.