Paying winos for their votes

College Republicans (4.00 / 6)

This has long been the case with the college Republicans.  If you're looking for a wild party, that's where it's at.  

College Republicans get underaged booze, the Grand Hotel at Mackinac Island, free fleece, swingers and MILFs licking ears.  

College Democrats, by contrast, get hot coffee, food service brats and potato salad at union halls in Bay City and Dearborn with retirees licking envelopes.

But then, that's probably a good reason why more voters have faith in Democrats to address the needs of working people.

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by: Brady @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 18:34:55 PM UTC

Values voters... (4.00 / 2)

And, if these same people weren't constantly running around, lecturing and moralizing and boosting the Ten Commandments as the cornerstone of Western Civilization and a code for how you are to comport yourself, this wouldn't be a big deal in the slightest.

But, that's not the case, and I wonder if anyone will ask the attorney general, who takes every opportunity to blanket the media with press releases every time his office is involved in an arrest, how parties sponsored by his campaign -- or parties of any kind at an event in which his campaign participated -- allowed such obvious widespread underage drinking and flagrant flouting of the law.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 18:48:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Are We Talking About the Same Attorney General Here? (4.00 / 1)

You know, the one who suddenly couldn't remember what the law said when he was asked whether his own infidelity was a felony?

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by: boehmianrhapsody @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 20:36:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Re - Values voters (0.00 / 0)

Well, I can't condone swinging. But my own religion has nothing against drinking unless I get wasted. It also has "Vegas nights" for gambling. Not every "values voter" is a Southern Baptist. The big issue for most of them is abortion. Life.

Not every republican is a "values voter". A lot of them are Ron Paul voters and supporters, Second Amendment supporters, or simply support less government. Some are even Bush backers and neoconservatives.

As far as underage drinking goes, ID's were checked. That I know for a fact. Most of these parties were packed, and I can also see how it would be easy for someone underage with planning to sneak off, erase the stamp in the restroom, and blend in with the 21 and 22 year olds who were there wearing either the same campaign or college shirts as others, or suits.  

"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security" - Benjamin Franklin

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by: Republican Michigander @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 23:50:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Life (4.00 / 5)

It would be a very positive development if our pro-Life friends on the Right actually worked to protect human life by reducing the number of elective abortions through family planning, comprehensive sex education, the distribution of contraceptives, facilitated adoption including the removal of restrictions for single parent adoption and support for programs to assist low-income women with dependent children.

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by: Brady @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 02:29:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

You've gotta wonder (4.00 / 3)

how many unwanted pregnancies were created at this "retreat."

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by: Nazgul35 @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 02:39:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Lets not forget... (0.00 / 0)

"pro-lifers" who are pro-war, pro-capital punishment, etc.

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by: cmichalakis @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 15:00:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You know, I used to go to church in Spring Arbor... (0.00 / 0)

Dry township, connected to Spring Arbor College.  The preacher man used to regularly use the pulpit to thunder down upon the congregation about abortion.  I went mostly because the chicks were hotter and easier.

Part of the social side of that, however, was the moralizing about day-to-day life.  You don't drink, you don't smoke, even dancing was highly frowned upon (seriously).  So, the political expression of these people was all abortion, all the time.  But, the social political side of that was judging you based on what you did, who you hung out with, and whether alcohol or tobacco or marrywanna smoke ever passed your lips or whether you ever knew (in the Biblical sense) any of the easy girls who hung around the church youth group.

Bottom line ... someone wasn't very careful about who had access to the booze.  I don't blame the underage kids, who everyone knows will attempt to access free alcohol if for no other reason than to use that as a bragging point.  The blame for this rests with the organizers of the party and the candidates who paid for these underaged kids to show up and support them in straw polls.

And, I think, that's an important point here.  Hundreds of people, we're told, had their expenses paid to go to this conference for the express purpose of voting in a fucking straw poll.  So now, you've got video and photo evidence that some of those people who went did so primarily because they thought it'd be a huge party for which they didn't have to lay out any cash.  And, because some of these people were not of age to drink alcohol, the events became enablers of widespread law breaking.

Too bad it was a political event for a party that claims to closely cherish law and order.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 03:44:52 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

They got MILFs licking ears? (0.00 / 0)

Don't let that get out.  We need Young Dems to win elections.

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by: IgnatiusDonnelly @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 17:44:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And I love the part (4.00 / 4)

about being partiers, but of "good morals."  Whew.  Glad of that.  

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by: Harris @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 19:15:04 PM UTC

Don't forget the "great families" (4.00 / 2)

who have raised their kids to be opportunistic...

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by: kelster @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 19:31:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Beer Tax (4.00 / 3)

No wonder they're against raising the Beer Tax.  

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by: rich @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 20:52:23 PM UTC

I got carded at the parties (including AG's), and I'm well past 21 (0.00 / 0)

I'm over 30 and have a noticeable receding hairline. Some think I look younger than 30, some older than 30. I was at both Bishop and Cox's party and I was carded at those bars. ID's were checked at the door. (I wasn't carded at another bar which was not a campaign event) If I was carded, I'm sure the CR's were also carded.

As far as drinking goes, adulthood should be either 18 or 21 for everything. I vote 18.

The big complaint some (not me) have about Rick Snyder is that Snyder credentialed his campaign workers so they voted in the straw poll, while many others weren't registered so they couldn't vote in the straw poll (since they were there more to work for candidates, not go to all the pollsters). There were allegations of certain things as well, but I don't know if it was anything more than being pushed to vote in the polls. My view is that Rick Michigan did what his campaign intended and won the poll because of it. Good for him. I'll stick with ripping him for outsourcing, inability to answer questions, his views on life issues, and his fiscal liberalism.  

"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security" - Benjamin Franklin

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by: Republican Michigander @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 23:29:47 PM UTC

Anecdote (0.00 / 0)

does not equal data.

I heard from my college Rep students that things were out of hand up their...

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by: Nazgul35 @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 02:41:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

If The CR Party Vixen Were a Cute Blonde She Would Have Gotten a Lot More Than a Fleece From Adulterer General Cox (0.00 / 0)

If the CR party girl blogger were a cute blonde she would have gotten more than a fleece from the Adulterer General.
Mike Cox, Ladies Man. Mike clearly knows his way around the Island. She would have gone to many more Republican conferences and traveled and probably gotten a job for a while in the Department of Attorney General, but eventually she would have to move to another state. There should be some great commercials in the Republican primary next year!    

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by: Elliot @ Mon Oct 05, 2009 at 23:58:16 PM UTC

I dont think she would have had to move to another state.... (0.00 / 0)

Cox would have just funded her campaign for run for a decent political job, like I dunno....wayne county commissioner?

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by: cmichalakis @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 15:04:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hidden from sight... (0.00 / 0)

Our little party animal must have noticed that half of Facebook and the liberal blogosphere was chattering about her post because she's gone and password protected the post.  Too bad a few local journalists have cached the entire thing...

Anyone taking wagers on when Ms. PartyAllTheTime is going to post a video in which she blasts MichLib for taking her "remarks out of context" and "smearing someone with good morals from a great family"?

Do stupid people know they are stupid?

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by: JPowers155 @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 04:17:12 AM UTC

I noticed that when I got home from work... (4.00 / 1)

This is part of a much bigger semi-scandal, which is the lengths to which gubernatorial candidates when to win the Mackinac straw poll.  This girl's debauchery isn't the issue here; in fact, as a former underaged college student, I defend her right to try to poach drinks where she can get them.  The fault here lies with a forming campaign that is predicated on winning stupid, meaningless things.  The Mackinac conference straw poll is nothing. It is meaningless.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 04:25:37 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

One last piece of emphasis... (4.00 / 1)

I would hope that any journalists who cached this blog entry and plan to do stories on it focus on the real story here, which is not the girl in question but the entire process that apparently led to widespread underaged drinking.  I would also hope that it would inspire on the part of those journalists the role in covering non-events like the Mackinac straw poll had in making that happen.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 04:31:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I Actually Feel Sorry for Her (4.00 / 2)

She can probably kiss any dreams of holding public office goodbye. Even a regular, private-sector job could be more difficult due to the magic of Google. All for the crime of a) being like pretty much every other college student and b) being open and honest about herself (the horror!).

I feel zero sympathy for whatever damage this does to the party, though. While riding around on its moral high horse it trampled my family, so in my book, as an institution it deserves pretty much whatever's coming to it.

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by: boehmianrhapsody @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 11:22:46 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's very unfortunate... (0.00 / 0)

The good thing is that voters tend to be a lot more forgiving of personal transgressions like this than do political players.  That's why, at the end of the day, Bill Clinton cheated on his wife, got his knob polished in the Oval Office, and was turned into a sympathetic figure for it.

I noticed that while going through the state's newspapers for the news ticker today, that a big splash was made by Mike Cox's filing of charges in relation to a Ponzi scheme involving churches.

I wonder when he'll support a criminal investigation looking into allegations of widespread underage drinking at the Mackinac conference.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 14:28:15 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Time will be on her side (0.00 / 0)

I got caught once and mentioned by both real name and blog name for something stupid by Matt Ferguson on this site of all places a full year after the fact as someone posted an internet post about an event. I cringed at my name mentioned, but I got a few laughs out of it, especially as it was nothing like what Matt posted. I have more laughs today than I did back then. 3 1/2 years later after the report and 4 1/2 years after the event, nobody remembers it.

If I ever do run for office and someone uses that against me, I'll just laugh and dismiss the attack. Nobody got hurt, and it was something from the days of my youth. No apologies. No regrets.

I do have some sympathies for what sethgecko, Bruce Fealk, (Eric's post wasn't as nasty) and company want to do to this individual as part of a political plot for (gasp) underage drinking. They beat the stamp system that I'm sure most of you have seen at bars back in the day. Now some (not all) of you want to get the AG (which has more important things to worry about) to prosecute a few MIP's for this as a party where the people were in fact carded (I was, and they also were, according to their own blog post)? Doesn't the state's prosecutor have something more important to worry about than a college student drinking?

If this is something for anyone to go after, it would be the Mackinac County Prosecutor, but even that it something I don't think should happen. It's not like this was a DUI which put others at risk. It's something 90% of America has probably done at some point.

I don't think it was smart to post that on the net, but that's the difference between being 19 or 20 and being 30. I was 19 once too, and did some much dumber things than this at 19. Chalk it up as a learning experience. From my own personal experiences, adversity makes people stronger, so if I was hiring and she was qualified, I wouldn't hold this against her.


"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security" - Benjamin Franklin

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by: Republican Michigander @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 17:13:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What say we get off the high horse there, Chachi... (4.00 / 1)

A) Hundreds of people were bribed into going to this conference with promises of free room, board, and "fairy" rides to and from the island. It's been verified that at least three campaigns did this.

B) Those people were bribed into attending for the express purpose of voting in a straw poll that would be meaningless except for the headlines it generates.  In essence, each campaign was attempting to buy a headline.  Rick Snyder's campaign was the most crass in this regard, in requiring strict adherence to strict rules from the outset.

C) A part of the conference are wild parties sponsored by various candidates, at which food and drink flow freely.  One of these parties was sponsored by the state's top law enforcement guy, the attorney general.

D) Among those hundreds of people who attended this conference were college students not of age to legally drink alcohol in this state, but who attended primarily because they heard it was a wild time. In fact, as you can see from this blog post, she is looking forward to future conventions, because she suspects that those, too, will be wild.

E) Predictably, those underaged people who wished to acquire alcohol did so at all of the sponsored parties ... including the one sponsored by the state's top law enforcement guy. That is, at his party, it was simple to break the law and apparently no one was punished for doing this.

F) The end result was that an effort to buy a headline turned into widespread law breaking ... and it was tacitly enabled by the state's top law enforcement guy.  That is, the state's top law enforcement guy didn't enforce the law at an event he sponsored.  How's that for basic competence?

I'm not the only person who thinks that this politics scraping a new low. I've heard from two Republicans who can't believe the depths to which these campaigns stooped to win a meaningless straw poll. But, they did it, and this particular girl unwittingly wrote an indictment of the entire thing.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 18:20:06 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What I'm Trying To Do (0.00 / 0)

Thanks for the sympathy.

However, I completely agree with you that this is relatively harmless behavior that the great majority of people have engaged in.  It's asinine that the drinking age is 21.  That's the point.  People shouldn't be burned at the stake for this (or for smoking marijuana); and yet that's precisely the platform of the Republican party (particularly its conservative wing).

What I'm trying to do is:

1) Impress upon these people that the party they're laboring for is diametrically-opposed to their lifestyle and interests.

2) Point out the rank hypocrisy that is emblematic of our justice system.  There is a grave disparity in the response to criminal infractions depending on the race/socioeconomic class of the persons committing them: if these were disadvantaged minority youth - it's a well-documented fact that they would have been subject to more scrutiny by law enforcement and harsher treatment in the justice system which likely would have resulted in a criminal records (something that could easily ruin the rest of their lives).

3) Illustrate how shamefully these politicians are behaving. While people are going hungry, unemployment benefits are being slashed, school funding is being decimated and police may being taken off the streets - these people are blithely floating along completely out-of-touch with the crisis facing the state.  

It's no wonder we still don't have a budget and these idealogues continue to press for a cuts-only solution: the consequences of such a policy are mostly irrelevant to them.

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by: sethgecko13 @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 03:13:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

By point (0.00 / 0)

1. While you say that people shouldn't be burned at the stake, you and Bruce broadcasted on every left-wing blogosphere calling a young woman who isn't running for office out by first and last name in an attempt to take a political potshot at the party where some individuals washed the stamps out after being carded and (gasp) beat the system and drank. You then posted a second post calling her out, again by name, about taking down the original post. At least when Matt went after me and others several years ago, I had an actual title in the county party (which is why I was called out). She's just a student who was there as a volunteer for a candidate. That is my problem with your posts on this.

At least Eric concentrated on the politicians. I'm sure these people which you say is opposed to their interest are going to support your party after these potshots. You and I have no idea what her stances are. Maybe she's strictly a "moralist" on one issue like I am (life). Maybe she's a libertarian who supported Ron Paul. Maybe she's fed up with who is running this state. Who knows. I'm not going to make an assumption. Put a group of ten Republicans at a table, and none of them will agree on everything.

2. The two most high profile pol who support decriminalization of marijuana are Ron Paul and Gary Johnson, former New Mexico Governor. Both are Republicans. There's hardly a consensus on that issue within the party. As far as drinking goes, the only issue I see is the beer tax, which was proposed by Gretchen Whitmer (D-Blue Cross). MIPs? The most I saw handed out were in East Lansing, dominated by a democratic city council and mayor (Mark Meadows when I was there). It was in fact the East Lansing City Council, Building Codes, Rampant rules, university bureaucracies, Police Department, and the behavior of all of the above that largely pushed me more and more to the R camp. I'm from the country which has much fewer rules, and it was solidly republican. While that's not strictly a D/R thing, because Oakland County next door to me has its own issues there, I see it rampant in university towns, more than anywhere else. Stu Dunnings leads the way. Painting that is strictly "GOP" isn't accurate. Maybe with the law and order types (Nixon wing), but the dems have their own wing like that with Clinton who was quite a drug warrior in his own right, even if he didn't inhale.

3. I halfway agree. I think the justice system targets the youth in general. I don't like it. I know a lot of people, both white and black who got screwed over by overzealous DA's, like Stu Dunnings. Some got lucky because of good attorneys like the Duke LaCrosse case in Durham County, NC (Also a University town). I have strong pro-defense leanings.

As for the policies, I do support an all cuts solution. Give me a scalpel to cut things line by line, and I'll have a field day. We can start with the new State Police building.

 

"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security" - Benjamin Franklin

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by: Republican Michigander @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 04:27:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think you are missing the point... (0.00 / 0)

Underage drinking happens all the time, and i understand where you are coming from there- but if you look at what some of these CR's are saying it was almost as if the "drank" of this conference was a SELLING POINT to get underage CR's up there.

Not to mention anyone with half a brain can tell tell you that if you are carding people at an event where there is drinking you either 1) identify those who are OVER 21, not under with either a wristband or hand stamp, 2) you stamp everyone- with different stamps of who is over and who is under, or 3) use markers that dont wash off!

Fianlly, I would like to point out that by the tone of this woman's post, it sounded like underage CR's were not the only ones drinking, but that they were joined by many elected officials.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, wasn't there something important going on in Lansing that might have been a better use of their time?  Weren't they criticized for leaving during VERY important budget negotiations, only to reply that the nature of these meetings are far too important, and that the budget could be delayed?

Glad to see the R's care more about "drank" than the budget!

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by: cmichalakis @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 15:18:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]