HOWELL - He’s only been in office six months, but U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers is hopping onto the campaign trail a little early - and he’s getting a little help from a friend.
Vice President Dick Cheney joined the Brighton Republican for a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser in the congressman’s district Monday evening.
“It’s funny - the other night I said to my wife, ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’” Rogers said. “She said it was OK, as long as it was my night to cook.”
Cheney told the more than 300 people who attended a Rogers’ rally before the dinner that the freshman congressman was “a keeper.”
“In the end, our ability to deliver the things we promised depends very much on who we have on our side in Congress,” Cheney said. “The president and I badly want to see Mike Rogers re-elected.”
Rogers narrowly defeated state Sen. Dianne Byrum, D-Onondaga, in November for his seat in the House. He said he hopes early fund-raisers, like Monday’s, will help him win in 2002 by a more comfortable margin.
“When you win by 111 votes, you are happy to be anywhere,” Rogers said. “Now, I need to let the people know that I am serious about the job that I am doing.”
MSU communication Professor Charles Atkin said the early start may also help Rogers deter competition.
“If he can raise a lot of money early on, he could discourage anyone else from running against him in a primary and he also will send a message to the Democrats that he really wants to keep his seat,” said Atkin, who has taught a class dealing with campaigns.
But not everybody who turned out at the Rogers rally was there to support his bid for re-election.
Self-proclaimed Democrat Ty Schalter, a political theory and constitutional democracy junior, said he was there to hear what Cheney had to say about the Bush administration’s energy policy and other issues.
“We don’t see eye-to-eye on this,” Schalter said. “I feel the energy plan is very shortsighted. It’s not beneficial to just keep increasing the production of a limited resource, such as coal or oil.”
Cheney made his trip to Michigan on Monday to tour the General Motors Corp.’s Vehicle Emission Lab in Warren and to promote the Bush administration’s energy plan.
Under the Bush plan, consumers could receive tax incentives to purchase fuel-cell or gas-hybrid vehicles, which are believed to be more efficient.
Cheney’s trip to Michigan - his first since taking office in January - was met with protest from the Michigan Sierra Club and Public Interest Research Group of Michigan.
About 30 protesters, armed with an inflatable power plant bearing the words “Clean up dirty power plants now,” gathered outside Rumor’s Lounge at Lake Pointe Manor, where the Rogers rally was held.
Megan Owens, a protester with PIRG, said fuel cells were “a step in the right direction. But they are throwing pennies to alternative fuels like that while spending billions on coal and oil.”
Cheney also expressed the importance of campaigning for congressional seats to the crowd at the Rogers rally - drawing from personal experience.
“When I was running for my fifth term in Congress, I thought I knew everyone in Wyoming by then,” he said. “But I was at one campaign rally where I approached a man in a cowboy hat, shook his hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Dick Cheney. I’m running for Congress and I’d like your vote.’
“He then told me, ‘You got it. ’Cause that fool we got in there now is no damn good.’”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
