'Survivor' 's Skupin Skirts the Senate

By Stephen M. Silverman

08/08/2001 at 03:39 PM EDT

The political arena is much tougher to survive than the Australian Outback. Just ask "Survivor 2" contestant Michael Skupin, 39, the former copier salesman who now says he won't be running for the U.S. Senate in 2002, the Associated Press reports. Skupin cites the fact that he doesn't want to be taken away from his family and his new company, Michael Skupin Ministries, which fights alcohol and drug addiction. (The Michigan resident also co-owns a religious software company that publishes CD-ROM Bibles.) "I have three children and one on the way and raising a good Christian family where the father is home is more important than any position," he said in a news release. "I want to be certain I'm doing the right thing for them." Skupin, whose time in the Outback was cut short when he severely burned his hands in an accident, earlier raised the possibility of a political career when he said that he was considering a run against Sen. Carl Levin, a popular Democrat from Detroit. Not that a future showdown is out of the question. "I know that I will have the opportunity again when the timing is better," he said.