Leaving U.S. State Department For Michigan Congress

By Laura Fawaz, Contributing Reporter

Congressional candidate Bobby McKenzie

Farmington Hills, MI–A Canton man and former member of the U.S. State Department is running for Michigan State Congress, to bring the change he feels Michigan needs.

Bobby McKenzie, a Dearborn Heights native who now lives in Canton, is running for Michigan’s 11th District, covering parts of Oakland and Wayne counties.  “The reason I left [the State Department] is because I can try to improve the situation here in South East Michigan,” McKenzie said.

It has been reported that McKenzie denounced his opponent Kerry Bentivolio as a “tea party extremist.”  When asked about that, McKenzie responded, “The Tea Party has extreme views, less inclusive views, Bentivolio is a member of that.”

Endorsed by Congressman John Dingell, The Detroit News, the Michigan Educational Association, and 27 labor endorsements, among many others.  “My top priorities, just to name a few of them, are creating jobs, and showing support for small business.  My dad has worked very hard to survive a small business for 50 years, and lived with polio.  I saw him struggle and want to help others trying to build a small business,” McKenzie said.

Wanting to help the middle class, McKenzie says he’s honored to be running and looking forward to serving people in the same South East Michigan that he grew up in.  One way he plans to do so is by investing in education.  Being the brother of a teacher within Detroit Public Schools, McKenzie says that he very passionate about the need to invest in education, though only has control to do so at the federal level, not locally.

When asked about his thoughts on the overall situation in Iraq, McKenzie said, “I didn’t think the war in Iraq was a good decision.  The case made by the Bush administration was very cogent.  We first started talking about WMD [weapons of mass destruction], then helping the Iraqi people, then trying to take out Saddam.”

McKenzie noted that the American government, therefore the American people’s tax money, spent $1.7 trillion.  Though he said that more troubling than the financial number is the loss of human life.  “We should be deeply concerned about that,” McKenzie added.

“The next steps would be to not have a knee-jerk reaction.  I don’t think that we should be putting any troops on the ground.  I think that we need to be talking with a rage of actors within the region and the international community … finding a healthy and violable way forward,” McKenzie concluded.

16-30