Will the Pitt. Steelers elect a teabagger thanks to SCOTUS?

by: Eclectablog

Mon Feb 01, 2010 at 19:39:10 PM EST

Meet Brian Rooney. Brian Rooney is running for the Republican nomination in MI-07 this year. He has only lived in Michigan since 2007 and he recently moved into MI-07 in order to run for this seat. Even his main Republican opponent, Tim Walberg, doesn't have much nice to say about him:

Walberg questioned if Rooney runs whether he can win over voters if he's just moved into their district.

"He is going to have to move in as a carpet bagger," Walberg said. "Unless you are a Kennedy or a Clinton, you don't do well as a carpet bagger."

Rooney is a study in hypocrisy in many ways. In his recent press releases, he repeatedly refers to our current Representative Mark Schauer as a "career politician" in tones that drip with sneer and snideness. One wonders how he feels about his own brother Tom who is running for reelection in FL-16 (or if Rooney himself will perhaps pledge not to run for reelection!)

Currently an attorney for the right-wing Thomas More Center, a group that claims to be the right's answer to the ACLU, Rooney claims to be virulently anti-tax. His literature decries the Stimulus Bill last year as a "a liberal grab bag of special interest payoffs instead of job creation." But when stimulus money is spent in Michigan, it's not enough and he disingenuously uses it to batter his Democratic rival. In a recent press release he had this to say:

"Today's announcement that Michigan's portion of the Obama Administration's high-speed rail funding is a paltry $40 million, less than 5% of the amount requested, is a complete failure of our congressman, Mark Schauer."

Seriously, is this guy an amateur or what? Blaming a freshman Representative in his first year on the job for a loss of an unprecedented amount of high-speed rail money for the whole state??? What's the matter, Brian? Didn't feel up to the task of taking on John Dingell? Or Thad McCotter? Or Debbie Stabenow? Or Carl Levin? And what, specifically, would YOU have done to get all that dough that you think is such a bad idea in the first place.

Like I said: amateur.

So what does all this have to do with SCOTUS and the Pittsburgh Steelers? Well, Rooney's grandfather founded the Steelers, his uncle is a former Steelers chairman (and current ambassador to Ireland) and his family still owns the Steelers (as well as, a horse track in Yonkers, New York and a dog track in West Palm Beach, Florida.) That's a lot of money, folks. Money that could be, say, spent running ads for him and against his opponents thanks to the recent SCOTUS decision. Lots and lots of money, lots and lots of ads.

Rooney has also said he'd put up to $1 million of his own money into the race.

All that money, along with the local media giving him a free platform to spew anti-Democratic platitudes, could turn the tide in a tough, gerrymandered district like MI-07.

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The reality is that Steelers owner Dan Rooney, although a lifetime Republican, was a big Obama supporter (thus the ambassadorship) and is unlikely to support his teabagger nephew. That said, it's exactly this type of thing that we should be worried about if something isn't done to undo what the SCOTUS has unleashed.

Another reality is that Rep. Mark Schauer will very likely face either this amateur teabagger or the equally-loathesome Tim Walberg, the man who last held the seat. In either case, we would lose a truly great new Representative and replace him with his complete opposite.

Please consider donating to Mark's Act Blue page HERE.

I'm just sayin'...