Tom Barrett goes after bipartisanship of Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin

David M. Drucker

July 17, 06:00 AM July 17, 06:00 AM

Republican Tom Barrett responded candidly when confronted with the political reality that he wouldn’t have the power to do much of anything on his own if voters in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District send him to Washington this November.

Barrett, the putative GOP nominee in a newly configured, Republican-leaning seat anchored in Lansing, Michigan, is challenging Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). Typically, politicians in his position have (an understandable) habit of vowing to change the country, if not the world — if voters would only sub them in for the incumbent in the next election. Not Barrett, a state senator first elected to the Michigan legislature in 2014. “As one person, you are not in charge of the entire agenda of Washington, D.C.,” he told the Washington Examiner in a telephone interview. “That is what makes our system great.”

“Legislating is supposed to be difficult. It’s supposed to be a hard task. We don’t want to willy-nilly change laws,” Barrett said. “As a freshman member, you not in charge of the agenda — you’re part of a team.” And in this instance, Barrett emphasized, “team” matters.

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Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and the Michigan Republican argues there is no way Washington is going to put a dent in skyrocketing inflation, rising energy costs, violent crime, or a national crisis of fentanyl addiction if you don’t change the team in charge of federal lawmaking — or at least, one half of one branch of the government that formulates legislation.

“You can’t turn this around with the same people,” Barrett said.

Barrett, 41, joined the Army right out of high school and recently retired after more than two decades. He learned to fly Blackhawk helicopters, was in combat in the Iraq War, and at one point was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In between, Barrett graduated from college, married, had four children with his wife, and settled in Charlotte, Michigan, about 20 miles southwest of Lansing, the state capital.

Barrett has the benefit of running for Congress with the wind at his back.

President Joe Biden’s job approval ratings have sunk below 40%, nationally and in Michigan, and the swing district he is running in is rated “R+4.” But winning will be far from easy. Slotkin is a dogged campaigner who will have plenty of resources. The second-term Democrat, elected in the Democratic wave of 2018, raised $1.5 million in the second quarter to finish the period with $6.5 million in cash on hand, and she’s already advertising on television.

Slotkin is banking her reelection on the image she has tried to cultivate as a bipartisan deal-maker who is willing to oppose her party. The congresswoman regularly reminds voters that she has never voted for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the floor votes held at the beginning of each Congress to elect a speaker. And Slotkin’s first television spot highlighted her service as a national security aide under two presidents: George W. Bush (a Republican) and Barack Obama (a Democrat).

Barrett says it’s all a smokescreen.

“Elissa Slotkin talks like Joe Manchin but votes like Nancy Pelosi,” he said, referring to centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). “The people don’t oppose Nancy Pelosi just as speaker — they oppose her agenda.”

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Barrett’s charge, that Slotkin is not as divorced from her party as she lets on when it comes to her legislative voting record on the House floor, would appear to be supported by FiveThirtyEight’s tracking of how often members of Congress vote for Biden’s agenda. Slotkin’s score: 100%.

“I actually have an independent voting record. I have voted against my own party in Lansing more than 290 times,” Barrett said. “I don’t do that to be a contrarian. I do that because I have an independent mindset. I’ve been willing to buck my own party to do that.”