TRAVERSE CITY — Christi Carpenter once idolized Michelle McManus, and as a teenager lived in a pop-up camper in McManus' backyard as she worked on the Lake Leelanau Republican's failed 1998 bid for Congress.
Carpenter's hero worship soured during that ill-fated campaign, and the then-18-year-old eventually resigned, a scapegoat, she contends, for a controversy over falsified petition signatures.
Today, Carpenter, 31, is a schoolteacher in California, far from Michigan's political scene. But she's speaking out about her old mentor's run for Secretary of State.
McManus, a term-limited state senator, directed Carpenter to break state election law during her 1998 run for the U.S. Congress 1st District seat, then told her to sign a false affidavit to conceal the act, Carpenter said.
Carpenter said she decided to talk about the 1998 campaign when she learned McManus wanted to become Secretary of State, gatekeeper of Michigan elections.
"The Secretary of State is responsible, in some ways, for these laws that she just flagrantly broke," Carpenter said.
McManus is among a handful of candidates vying for the Republican nomination for Secretary of State at the party convention this weekend. The winner will appear on the November general election ballot.
McManus and her father, Mike McManus, refused to be interviewed by phone or in person for this story, despite repeated requests by the Record-Eagle. She denied the allegations in a statement issued through her spokeswoman, Denise DeCook.
"I didn't pressure her or direct her to sign petitions or any affidavit during my congressional campaign," McManus said in the statement. "There would be no reason for bringing this up today except for politics."
'A tense time'
Carpenter graduated from Buckley High School in 1997, and an essay she penned there about Michelle McManus won a national writing contest. She enrolled at the University of Michigan, and about the time her freshman year of college wrapped, McManus contacted her to work on the congressional campaign.
McManus and Carpenter became acquainted through Carpenter's involvement with an anti-abortion teen group, and Carpenter volunteered on a McManus campaign for state House. Carpenter was excited to join her run for national office.
"She really kind of seemed like a hero to me," Carpenter said. "I was thrilled; what an opportunity to be 18 years old and work from the very beginning on a congressional campaign.
Carpenter's father, Cherryland Electric Cooperative line superintendent Jim Carpenter, remembers how his daughter looked up to McManus.
"She put Michelle on a pedestal ... she idolized her," he said.
Carpenter and two other staffers, John Helmholdt and campaign manager Jim Murray, moved into a camper at McManus' Lake Leelanau-area residence in the spring of 1998. Michelle's father, Mike, frequently was around and was heavily involved in the campaign, Carpenter said.
Murray, now president of AT&T's Michigan operations, didn't return repeated calls or e-mails requesting comment for this story.
Campaign staffers often worked long hours circulating petitions to get McManus' name on the state primary election ballot, Carpenter said.
Shortly before candidates' filing deadline in May, McManus and her staff discovered they listed an incorrect primary election date on their petitions. Rather than risk a challenge down the road, McManus decided to re-circulate petitions in a last-minute effort to secure her place on the ballot.
It was a "very, very tense time" as the campaign hustled to re-circulate petitions throughout the congressional district, including far-flung Upper Peninsula towns, Carpenter said. About 1,100 signatures were needed to qualify for the ballot.
"I just remember screaming happening ... it was extremely unpleasant," Carpenter said.
Republican chairs and others from across the district circulated petitions and mailed them back to McManus. But a number of circulators didn't sign the petitions, a requirement for certification.
Michelle McManus put a stack of unsigned petitions in front of her and told her to sign them as the circulator, Carpenter said.
"I was literally handed the pen by Michelle," Carpenter said. "The stack was put in front of me by Michelle. This is clear in my mind."
Carpenter said she told McManus she didn't think she should sign them. But McManus told her it wasn't a problem because Carpenter was a resident of the district, Carpenter said.
There's no way McManus or anyone else in the campaign in fact believed Carpenter circulated the petitions, she said.
"Absolutely not," she said. "There is no mistaking this, at all."
Carpenter signed "dozens" of unsigned petitions, she said, and all were turned in by deadline.
Challenges arise
A few weeks later, Democrats and fellow Republican candidate Bob Carr challenged the validity of McManus' petitions. They alleged, among other things, that some were circulated by underage persons and that Carpenter signed petitions she didn't circulate.
Carpenter said Michelle McManus and Murray told her to sign an affidavit that said she circulated the petitions she signed.
"What it stated was that I had been the one who circulated them, personally circulated those petitions," she said.
Carpenter said she refused, despite what she said was significant pressure from Michelle McManus and other campaign staffers, including threats that she could face criminal charges if she didn't sign.
"Michelle knew about it, knew about my problems with signing it and urged me to sign it, despite it being false," she said.
A few days later, Carpenter said she was handed a new affidavit that stated she signed the petitions, but was "unaware that this was improper." She signed that affidavit, then put in her two weeks notice and subsequently quit the campaign.
"The fact that they asked me and tried to persuade me to sign a false affidavit is what pushed me over the edge and caused me to leave the campaign," she said.
The state board of canvassers ultimately cleared McManus to appear on the primary election ballot.
McManus beat Carr in the primary, but eventually lost to incumbent Democrat Bart Stupak by a nearly 20-point margin.
Family hired attorney
Carpenter told her parents what happened about the time she left the campaign. Jim Carpenter thought his daughter should have an attorney, considering her allegations and the public petition challenges.
"I felt Christi needed representation," he said. "She was a kid and didn't know what to do."
Jim Carpenter contacted Doug Bishop, an attorney at the Traverse City firm Bishop & Heintz.
Bishop, now a Northwestern Michigan College trustee, remembers the family contacted him because Christi Carpenter was unnerved after being asked to sign an "untrue" affidavit.
"I recall being contacted, I remember talking to her, and I remember it had to do with what she related to me as being asked to either sign or verify facts which she stated to me were not true," he said.
Bishop's office destroys case files after four years of inactivity, and he no longer has a file on the matter.
"I recall it had to do with petition signatures, but I don't recall the specifics," he said.
Without his file, Bishop doesn't remember what became of his representation of Carpenter. Jim Carpenter doesn't either, though he remembers receiving a bill from Bishop.
Blake Hatlem, Carpenter's boyfriend in 1998, is now an assistant prosecutor with the Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office. Carpenter "loved" McManus when she joined the campaign, Hatlem said.
Hatlem said he doesn't know specific details of what went on in 1998, but said Carpenter became upset and left McManus' campaign after an issue arose with petition signatures. Carpenter isn't likely to fabricate allegations she raised against McManus, he said.
"She is a very honest person," Hatlem said. "She is absolutely not a liar."
Helmholdt, the other staffer who worked on the '98 campaign, now is a spokesperson for Grand Rapids Public Schools. He said he "can't speak to what did or didn't happen" in terms of Carpenter's allegations, though he wonders why she'd bring them up now.
"For me, it doesn't quite pass the smell test," he said. "It's coming up 12 years later, conveniently as (McManus) is running for Secretary of State."
Carpenter said she has no stake in the race, but believes her experience with McManus in 1998 is relevant today.
"(McManus) doesn't have a full and deep understanding, a sophisticated understanding, of the law and how things work together in the state," Carpenter said. "I just don't think she has the ideas or the ability to manage the Secretary of State."
