State Sen. Bert Johnson looked out the window of the Cornerstone Bistro, the only restaurant in his desperately impoverished city apart from fast-food joints.
"If I took you on a tour of Highland Park and the rest of this district as configured today, you would ask yourself, "Do they even have representation in Congress?" he asks.
Two blocks from where he was eating breakfast are homes without roofs, and squatters in abandoned houses. (In fact, even the Cornerstone Bistro is run by a rescue mission.)
The senator has a point. Both his enclave city and much of the Detroit portion of the newly configured 13th Congressional District are home to some of Michigan's grimmest streets and neighborhoods, though there is also a collection of aging working-class suburbs, including portions of Dearborn Heights.
Much of this district has, in fact, been represented in Washington by John Conyers, who has been there since 1965, longer than any member other than John Dingell.
Bert Johnson regards him "as an icon." But next year, he means to take the icon's job away. He is going to take the congressman on in next August's Democratic primary. (In general elections here, any Democrat on the ballot wins.)
Beating Conyers would seem a formidable task. When Conyers first arrived in Congress, not only was Johnson, who is now 38, still unborn, his parents weren't even teenagers.
The congressman is, indeed, an icon, who marched with Martin Luther King Jr., sponsored the bill making the civil rights leader's birthday a national holiday and went on to become the first African-American chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
But there are increasing whispers that Conyers, who will be 83 next year, is not the man he was.
It has been a difficult year for him.
His wife, Monica Conyers, remains in federal prison for conspiring to commit bribery in a sludge-hauling case.
He lost his committee chairmanship in January, when the GOP took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The congressman has long been mercurial. Last month the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn held a symposium on life a decade after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Late in the day, Mr. Conyers dropped by and was invited to speak.
He told a mostly baffled audience that the best thing Arab Americans could do was appreciate the genius of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
On another occasion, he told an interviewer he considered himself "the Congressman from the Planet Earth."
Bert Johnson thinks his area needs a congressman from the 13th District. "We've had a national congressman for many years, but you have to ask whether the district's needs are being met by Washington; the answer is no." The challenger says he "unquestionably" could do a better job.
But it is far from certain that he'll ever get that chance. He has his own baggage, which he is quick to admit.
The last time Conyers had serious opposition, Johnson was sitting in state prison in Ionia for armed robbery and breaking and entering, felonies he committed at age 19.
"I was a follower. I make no excuses. It was stupid, and it taught me a lot," he says. "That was as real as real gets." He credits former Oakland County Judge Jessica Cooper with enabling him to turn his life around. "I'm giving you a shot, she told me. It's up to you to take it from there." She sentenced him to 18 months to 30 years, depending. He was out of prison in 14 months.
After that, Johnson worked as a manager in his father's law firm, taking care of case files. Later, when his friend Bill McConico became a state representative, he put Johnson to work for him.
"He turned me loose in the district, and I found I liked the people side of politics, not the partisan games," he said. When McConico's time was up, thanks to term limits, Bert Johnson was elected to succeed him.
He served two terms in the House, and then was elected to the state Senate last November. But life there is frustrating. Thanks to the GOP landslide last year, Democrats have only a dozen seats.
Essentially, they are powerless. So in July, after a family conference with his girlfriend and three kids, Johnson decided to run for Congress. He expects a hard-fought battle.
"He's certainly a credible candidate, and has done much better politically than anyone would have thought, given his start in life," said Bill Ballenger, the longtime publisher of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics. "But I still would have to give Conyers the edge."
The last time Conyers had a serious challenge was in 1994, when a vibrant young lawyer took him on in the Democratic primary.
But a third candidate then entered the race, and with the opposition vote split, the champ won easily.
That could happen again this time; state Rep. Shanelle Jackson is also said to be thinking about entering the race.
If that happens, Ballenger noted, it might have an entirely unintended consequence; a white candidate from someplace like Westland could conceivably enter a crowded primary and win.
Nobody now knows how this will all play out. But one thing is clear -- some day, in some way, John Conyers will leave Congress.
Increasingly, some are thinking that time may be soon.
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