DETROIT | When popular six-term U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, the mother of this city’s indicted mayor, attended a recent Barack Obama for president rally, she drew boos from some in the crowd.
Mrs. Kilpatrick, who has represented Michigan’s 13th Congressional District since 1996, has had an easy time of re-election, garnering as much as 78 percent of the vote in each of her elections, but the scandal surrounding her prominent son, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, has given her opponents ammunition.
“In a normal year, you couldn’t touch an incumbent congresswoman like her,” said Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle, a critic of the mayor whose mother chairs the Congressional Black Caucus. “But this is not a normal year. What we are seeing is the perfect political storm gathering as a result of her son’s political mess.”
In a story that has drawn ongoing national attention, Mr. Kilpatrick faces a trial, possibly later this summer, for what prosecutors have said is his lying about his role in a police whistleblower settlement lawsuit.
The situation, which has outraged the City Council and divided many residents as well as the once-popular mayor’s supporters, took on a sordid tone when a Detroit newspaper earlier this year obtained and published copies of sexually explicit text messages sent from the mayor to his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty.
The texts, sent during the mayor’s first term, suggest the two were involved in a sexual relationship, something they both had previously denied in depositions in the police settlement case.
Now, as the City Council has voted to oust the mayor, who has publicly apologized and steadfastly refused to leave, the lawmakers have appealed to Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, to use her power to remove Mr. Kilpatrick. The move has forced another round of legal wrangling from the mayor and the city in a push and pull that has stymied the economically challenged area, hit hard by unemployment and high foreclosure rates.
“This is a city where all the parties have lawyered up to the max, and in the meantime, the people’s business is neglected,” Mr. Riddle said.
Mrs. Kilpatrick now faces the strongest challenge of her political career.
Her opponents for the Aug. 5 Democratic primary, former state Rep. Mary Waters and state Sen. Martha Scott, both have long political resumes but are considered underdogs.
Miss Waters, who Inside Michigan Politics publisher Bill Ballenger calls the more aggressive of the two opponents, turned up the volume on the race when she launched a television ad two weeks ago with 2005 footage of Mrs. Kilpatrick defending her son during his re-election bid.
“It’s the subtext behind their candidacy,” Mr. Ballenger said of Mrs. Kilpatrick’s opponents trying to make her son’s troubles an issue for her. “If this hadn’t happened with Kwame, I doubt that Mrs. Kilpatrick would have gotten these challenges.”
Unlike others, he doesn’t think her son is strongly tainting her candidacy.
“I don’t see her losing to either Waters or Scott,” Mr. Ballenger said. “It’s not as though she’s viewed as some lightweight. I don’t think she’s this huge player in the state, but she is pretty strong.”
Duke University political scientist David Rodhe, who worked in Michigan for many years, said Mrs. Kilpatrick has not been particularly strong in her role as Congressional Black Caucus chairman, but that her House seat should remain safe.
“I think she is a very strong, independent politician,” with a career long established before her son got into politics, he said. “I think the spillover here is relatively limited. Her opponents are trying to use his problems against her, but I would not expect this to have a substantial impact.”
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