I spent most of the weekend in Detroit at the Michigan Democratic State Convention and the rest of it catching up on lost sleep.

In a nutshell, parties hold conventions in August because our state constitution requires them to nominate candidates for the following 13 offices:

Three statewide offices: Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State; and

Two seats for each of the Supreme Court of Michigan, the University of Michigan Board of Regents, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees, the Wayne State University Board of Governors, and the State Board of Education.

I have no idea why the 1963 Constitutional Convention came up with this Rube Goldberg contraption, but that's what we have to work with.

Unless you're from Michigan, you probably haven't heard of Scott Bowen--even if you're a hard-core political junkie. Bowen is the Democratic establishment's preferred candidate for the Attorney General nomination. He faces off against Amos Williams, an attorney from Detroit, at the state convention the last weekend of August.

Bowen is a former city council member and district judge from the Grand Rapids area. He's popular in that neck of the woods, and apparently can raise enough cash to stay competitive with our Republican attorney general, Mike Cox.

However, Bowen calls himself "pro-life" and won't say if, and under what circumstances, he would favor legal abortion.

Yesterday, I put up a diary on MichiganLiberal.com expressing my concern about putting Bowen on the ticket. His defenders came out of the woodwork and some accused his critics of being single-issue extremists, Naderites, and/or politically naive.

Here, take a look for yourself. My diary entry, which sparked the biggest and most robust discussion in MichLib history, is below the fold.