A Mark Schauer "Watch Blog"

by: rich

Tue Feb 05, 2008 at 16:28:09 PM EST

Update 2: I received an email from a representative of NMSC. This person informs me that Mr. Seelig retained his NMSC email because, though he was retired, he still occsionaly did projects for them. But...

NCMS was not aware Mr. Seelig was using his NCMS e-mail account as a contact address for this web site.

After our internal examination we have found no other NCMS property used to support this activity.

The account has been terminated as of February 6, 2008. In no way was he using this e-mail domain in official NCMS business or proxy.

Looks like someone didn't get the memo about using company resources for political work. 

Update: Mr. Seelig has replied to me with information about the address to where the domain is registered, which I have updated below.

It was only a matter of time. The republicans have finally gotten on the "Watch Blog" bandwagon, after getting beaten to the punch numerous times by Democrats (we've got 9 over on the blogroll). But here it is in all of its gleaming take-no-prisoners glory.

http://www.thetruthaboutmark.com/ 

No. It's not so much a blog as "A website dedicated to clarifying Senator Mark Schauer's stands on issues of the day."

And they really like the color red. They're using this particular shade of Republican Red for much of the text to portray Schauer as a "tax-hiking, baby-killing, bigot-loving employer of illegal immigrants!"

I can already hear the radio ads with those adjectives as a tag-line.

Next they'll accuse Schauer of smelling funny.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So far, there's no "them" behind the web site. There is only one person posting, and he goes by the handle wdseelig.

How do I know it's a "he?"

The domain name is registered to Wyckham Seelig at the Washtenaw County Republican Party, which is one of the several tenants who rent space from the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences at its corporate offices in Ann Arbor. Seelig is currently the Republican Party's 7th District Chair. But that is not all.

According to an old NMSC web page (that has been cached here),

Wyckham Seelig is a Program Manager at the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. Mr. Seelig joined NCMS in 1996 after retiring from a 30 year career with AT&T. During his time at AT&T, he was responsible for a variety of manufacturing operations including the production of copper and fiber optic communications cable, a copper refinery, the production of analog and digital telephones and key telephone systems, and the engineering and production of advanced proprietary technology manufacturing equipment. He concluded his career at AT&T as the Company’s Manufacturing Planning Vice President.

Mr. Seelig holds a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He is active in a number of professional societies and is presently chairman of the IEEE’s Manufacturing Technology committee. He has also served on a number of national manufacturing policy bodies, including the 1991 group at Lehigh University which produced the first Agile Manufacturing Enterprise report and the 1993 National Research Council report on the use of software technologies in manufacturing operations.  

Up until very recently, Seelig was listed as Vice President of NCMS. But his bio is not currently on the NCMS web site. He informs me that he retired about five years ago from NCMS.

Last year, Seelig endorsed Saul Anuzis for MIGOP Chair (so did we at Michigan Liberal). This year he's endorsing Keith Butler for RNC Chair.

Since Seelig didn't use "Schauer" in the name of the site, I suppose if the effort doesn't prove all that effective at "clariyfing" Mark's stands on the issues, he can find himself another Mark to "tell the truth about." It's good to leave your options open.

[Hat Tip to LoRayne for some of this.]