As for Dillon himself, its ok, you can dislike him all you want. I dont know the man personally and im indifferent to wanting to.
I stated point my argument that its more important to me to see an elected official trying very hard to move legislation to solve problems or at least do their job per our state constituion that is law. Than if i have met the man or woman and find them distasteful or that they have wronged me personally somehow and tainted my opinion of their personality or job habits.

If we based all our elected officials on how congenial they are to every single person that contacts them or that they give quick personal service at every level, then i dare say they would not be accomplishing major tasks because of concentrating solely on minor ones. I'm not saying its not important at all to focus on individuals but there should be a compromise and some people will lose out.

The good of many outweighs the good of one in my book.

So i dont think he meant they are literally offering people like you, money to add your name to the list, to define it as "buying" your vote.

As for your experience with Mr. Dillon, i'd say from my experience many people have many different personal experiences with local and state officials and some are always bad and some good. If thats just the nature of people who go after those jobs or not, i cant say, however, I always consider the person's performance overall vs the competitor to judge their worthyness to be in office.

From my perspective, his two congressional counterparts appear to be large blocks of concrete on the road to recovery, and Dillon has appeared to put in a decent effort to solve the problems in alliance with the governor.

Lest we forget, In Parallel to the Federal Government, Michigan has had a Long term of Republican Controlled State congress, just as the Fed with the National Congress.

When things were good for the nation, we didnt have tax cuts and our economy nationally and statewide made plenty of revenue.
Since then, The nation is now in its second recession in the same presidency, and only starting its 2nd year of democratic control in congress with a president stuffing them at every attempt to change course.

In our state, the GOP cut the income tax for us with Engler's initiative back when things were good... and no one complained about that. thats fine.
But when things went bad, our GOP congress didnt see the writing on the wall that auto sales were dipping significantly and shedding jobs in the industry left and right. Nohing was done. Tax cuts did ZERO for our state economy as it continued to slide because of different reasons than people that were working needed a few extra bucks a month in "Tax releif". Coincidentally major economic research organizations determined quite specifically that Mr. Bush's tax cuts cost our government more in revenue and cuts to services and lossed jobs than it spurred in economic growth. Which stands to reason because they gave most of it to people who didnt need any of it to invest or buy things.

So in conclusion, GOP policies of economics, business acumen, community development and social service needs, dont seem to be inline with patterns of success and prosperity for those that need it the most. However, they do seem to benefit their supporters and themselves greatly.

However, I also will not participate in his recall. I believe it's the voters job to vote for his opponent. Recalls are a waste of time and money, and very rarely work. Phil says the petitioners are buying votes. I've been visited by petitioners at my home at least six times. I now have a sign on my door that states this, hopefully the petitioners get the idea. However, no one tried to buy my vote, nor would I have accepted it anyway.

I watched intently the Rick Albin specials with interviews of the various players all last fall and i have to say, Deroche and Bishop were pathetic. I have never seen two people toss more insults at their opposing party members in my life.

Everytime Mr. Dillon and Gov. Granholms spoke in response, it was measured, hopeful and with full attempts to be cooperative. (althought toward the end, the frustration was evident)

Bishop on the other hand purposely adjourned the Senate numerous times when a vote was to come, and stated both that he would not support and that he would support the same topics numerous times. Deroche just kept lobbing baseless antagonistic insults at anyone he could, sounding as childish and immature as any employee of the state could sound.
Neither Deroche or Bishop ever came up with any plans to balance the budget, never voted on Granholm's proposals and fought tooth and nail against any idea the House came up with.
On top of that, They controlled both houses of state congress for years and failed to fix this oncoming budgetary disaster for years of watching it come while granholm's budget cutting continued each year.

You wanna talk about obstructionists to progress and refusal to do the job they were elected to do? thats classic.

You too can watch the interviews if you go to Woodtv8's website and check their archive of political videos.

The Campaign to remove Mr. Dillon is just another terrible example of a political party that cannot win by telling the truth. Another reason i am ashamed that i used to be a member of that party.

The fact that the term limits also make these recalls particularly moot, is another testament to the audaciously obvious political attacks that this group and its members are perpetrating. The Estimated $250k they may spend to start this, then the "TAXPAYER dollars" it will take to follow it through, And the Fact that some of this funding and initiative is from out of state political hacks, is an insult to all Michigan residents. ... Can Anyone tell why it is, that of the two major political parties, the GOP provides ream after ream of recent evidence, at the national and State level, showing clearly that they cannot win elections by telling the truth and will literally stop at no tactic to cause harm to their opponents? - yet this is the "conservative, christian" party? ....hipocrisy knows no bounds.

As Michigan tries to re-join the globally reconfigured jet stream of capital by developing its information technology businesses, we can see how all these cool new tools (blogs like this one, for example) can be deployed to divide us--as well as unite us. There are some very internet saavy political staffers who can skillfully hurt as well as help a political career with the way they manipulate information. Just turn on cable news any night and look at all the people who can have a career in political bloviating!

This leads me to a larger, but loosely related idea that Michigan's competitive advantage used to lie in the "barrier to entry" that large capital investment in manufacturing capability presented to competitors. I worry at bit about going too far into transforming the Michigan economy into an information age economy. (Frankly, I’ve been hearing that since 1980) While we may only be able to earn half of what we used to earn while doing it, let's try to retain some "barrier to entry" to competitors by staying in the business of making big, heavy complicated stuff you can't transform into a digital bit and run through a cable.

As the situation with Representative Dillon demonstrates, the information age enables any competitor to eviscerate your political career in a keystroke.

As you know from my frequent responses in the past, I greatly enjoyed your columns back in your newspaper days. I am sure they are just as good or even better today (maybe even better becasue I think you have an ideal forum).

BUT I find the columns terribly hard to read off the computer screen in their present format -- and that is the quickest way to get them.

These comments may also be riddled with typos; I can hardly tell what I am writing.

Your stuff is too good to lose -- plesse make it more legible!

Warm regards, Ted