Of the five Republican Party candidates in the primary election for 72^nd District State Representative, Bill Hirsch is perhaps the most unusual.

Hirsch, a Caledonia area dairy farmer, has been a Kent County Commissioner for four years, but his campaign is remarkably low key. He isn’t interested in spending a lot of money to get elected.

A comment he made on his brochure distributed at the Dorr Township Board meeting June 30 was, “I decided that during this campaign, I’m not asking for money from my friends nor special interest groups in order to spend it on spewing political rhetoric that I am tired of hearing anyway… and I hope you are too.”

The only promises he makes are “to work hard and do the right things. If I have a chance to cut taxes, I will. If there is an opportunity to reform or reduce government, I will…”

He said he believes too much time is being “wasted in fighting and arguing over over things that nobody outside of Lansing even cares about. But when you have things like Detroit and Flint and more than $800 million of taxpayer money spent to fix their problems, when we have similar issues here.”

The other four GOP candidates in the primary are Robert Coughlin of Kentwood, Ryan Gallogy of Byron Center, Steven Johnson of Wayland and Tony Noto of Kentwood. The Democrats are Dick Cunningham of Kentwood and Steve Shoemaker of Leighton Township.

The 72^nd District includes Gaines Township, Kentwood, Dorr Township, Leighton Township, the City of Wayland and Wayland Township. State Rep. Ken Yonker has to step down at the end of this year because of term limits.

Though he has proudly declared independence from special interest groups, Hirsch has received an endorsement from the Right to Life of Michigan Political Action Committee. He also has declared himself as pro-local business and pro-community.

He proudly reports that his wife drives a school bus, son Nick works at Green Valley Farm Services and children Timothy and Clarissa are Caledonia students and active in 4-H and FFA.

It’s all sort of like an example of “Mr. Smith Goes to Lansing.” At least Bill Hirsch hopes it turns out like that.

PHOTOS: Bill Hirsch

Dairy farmer Bill Hirsch and his “girls” in the fields.