Defending Debbie

The degree of contempt and hatred the right wing harbors for U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow seems out of all proportion. Vulgar, sexist, obscenity-laced attacks on her can be found all over the Internet.

This is fascinating, both from the standpoint of social pathology, and from the degree her enemies are disconnected from voter-based reality. To those who don't live in nutball fantasyland, Stabenow is a hard-working senator, the first Michigander since the 1880s to chair the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Warmly personable, she still has more than a touch of the small-town girl from Clare, the daughter of the local Oldsmobile dealer back when she was growing up. When I had a long chat with her in Dearborn a couple weeks ago, the only loathing she expressed was for the Asian carp, "the fish that keeps me up at night."

Pressing the Obama administration to do more to stop the giant invasive species from getting into the Great Lakes is a major priority of hers, but not the top one. That could be summarized as "jobs, jobs, jobs," she said. "Helping bring more jobs to Michigan."

Helping people always has been what she wanted to do, since she enrolled at Michigan State in 1968. She earned two degrees in social work while singing folk songs part time in a local coffeehouse. Later, she married, raised two children, wore sensible shoes, and first ran for office in 1974 when she was outraged that the Ingham County commissioners closed a nursing home.

People who know Stabenow usually like her. They've been electing her to office after office ever since. Republicans have more and more trouble even finding a credible candidate to run against her.

Yet you wouldn't recognize this from the venom that drips from dozens of blogs. Much of this is clearly misogynistic, and is often coupled with sneers at the weight problem she's battled for years.

Other attacks are merely spluttering and incoherent. One of the milder ones was posted last week on a blog called Northern Michigan Conservative View. "It would be nice if everybody called her Dangerously Incompetent Debbie Stabenow," the bloggist wrote, adding, helpfully, "It helps to understand who we are talking about. The woman is the MOST LIBERAL DEMOCRAT in the Senate."

Whatever that means. Curiously, this echoes a contradictory theme raised by many of Stabenow's usually anonymous attackers: They portray her as both hopelessly incompetent and also cleverly plotting to force "the liberal agenda" down America's throats.

What her enemies mostly don't say, however, is what really bugs them the most. Not only can't they seem to beat her, this time, they can't even find a candidate to run against her.

Less than a year ago, Republicans were confident that this was the year "we take Debbie out," as one said. Actually, they've been underestimating her since the start of her career. The Ingham County commissioner she ran against a lifetime ago dismissed her contemptuously as "that young broad." She beat him like a drum.

> Email Jack Lessenberry