Well, sir, I guess we have our answer to that. Pat Buchanan listens to what Obama says and has great things to say about it. Had to get cut off, matter of fact.
The question is just who is it that runs this Jackson-area blog called Benevolent Dictator Extraordinaire. Why, it's a guy named Mike Shirkey. He's not just some dude on the Intertubes. He's an actual business owner, whose day gig is manufacturing.
I say ... good for him. It's nice and refreshing to see business owners get into blogging and sharing their opinions. My feeling is that the problem today is that we aren't too political, but that we aren't willing to be political enough ... as long as it's leavened by a healthy dose of respect for the fact that the guy on the other side of the aisle probably has the state's and nation's best interests at heart just as earnestly as you do. Is this the case of Mike Shirkey? His own words:
"If anyone even contemplates voting for this clown, the first thing they should do is have someone test the Kool-Aid they are drinking. Because someone has likely put some idiot juice in it."
Let bi-partisanship reign! (Now, perhaps you understand why when I got the chance to leave Jackson, I fled in a way that left skidmarks halfway across the state.)
By the way, that wasn't from Mike Sharkey's blog, but from an answering machine message he left for people who called his business. You support Barack Obama, you call his business, and you get ridiculed. Again, I appreciate the honesty. Then again, I live in an apartment the size of a shoebox, don't own a car, don't have health insurance, and make ends meet by growing my own vegetables. I've made a lot of sacrifices so I can be an asshole on the internets.
Why do I bring this up? Mike Shirkey is appearing in Tim Walberg's latest round of ads, attacking Mark Schauer as wanting to throttle his business by holding it under water until the bubbles stop rising. This is the same Tim Walberg who the other day bashed a Michigan manufacturing company because one of the people made wealthy by it is Jon Stryler (again, he could have praised Michigan workers ... instead he chose to blast the recipient of the profits).
Anyway, dude hates Barack Obama, right. He also gives money to Tim Walberg, and so doeshis family. Naturally, he appears in the latest round of Tim Walberg ads, attacking Mark Schauer, claiming that Tim Walberg is literally their lifeline.
Oh yes, one last thing. Shirkey's company, Orbitform LLC ... couple of years ago, it benefitted from a state program to mostly eliminate state and local taxes to help tool and die businesses. Right, I know, this is a company -- according to commercials -- fighting for its very survival. Whatever.
The last time EPIC-MRA polled people in the 7th, Walberg led 51-40 ... except after a brief biography was read to them. After that happened, Schauer had the slimmest of leads.
EPIC-MIRA's polling shows the race today stands in a statistical dead heat, with Wallberg up by three. This, despite a steady drumbeat of press coverage that has offered him an uncritical forum from which to endorse drilling as the way to bring down the price of gasoline.
The same EPIC-MRA poll had Joe Knollenberg over Gary Peters by seven double digits. Again, when a brief biography was read to potential voters, Peters was in the lead. Some of that is no doubt based on the high negatives Knollenberg has in his own district (47 percent unfavorable), but if the Schauer race is any indication, it's a matter of name recognition. I understand that the Peters campaign started airing ads last night.
Today 21st Century Democrats is proud to announce our endorsement of Mark Schauer for Congress. Schauer is a progressive leader and is needed to help future President Obama pursue a progressive program. We stand behind him in this campaign and will do whatever we can to ensure that on November 4th, voters make the progressive choice and send Mark Schauer to Washington for the 111th Congress.
By all standards of modern journalism, this morning's article in the Jackson Citizen Patriot is incredibly bad. It features Tim Walberg, again, out pumping gas. It also touches on Mark Schauer's call for a moratorium on the use of robo-calls.
The difference? The stuff about Walberg, pumping gas (a political stunt that is about two months old), is at the top and -- as has become typical in 7th District media outlets -- declines to explore if Walberg's plan will do anyone any good. Meanwhile, when the reporter got around to discussing Schauer's call for an end to robo-calling, she contacted the Walberg campaign for rebuttal and added four paragraphs from its spokesman scoffing at the offer.
Walberg campaign manager Justin Roebuck said that after a year of Schauer's supporters using robocalls, it is "laughable" that he would call to stop them.
...snip...
"If Mark Schauer wants to truly end outside influence, he would do what Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Boyda from Kansas did and tell the (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) to take their money and go someplace else," Roebuck said in a release responding to Schauer's request.
A press release from the Schauer campaign is not similarly quoted paragraphs above when discussing Walberg's gas pumping stunt. Nor is there any indication that the reporter attempted to contact the Schauer campaign, or preferably, some outside objective source who could speak to whether Walberg's plan to drill would do anyone any good.
Update! ... The reporter in question did such a bang-up job on this that the NRCC picked up the article for its Web site. Bravo Zulu, dudette!
Walberg, R-Tipton, said adding the rail between cities could be beneficial for those looking for a break from high gas prices.
Officials must make sure the system will be able to support itself financially once it is started, he said.
``It would certainly allow for our transportation and highway systems to be supplemented and would reduce cars on the roadway,'' Walberg said. ``The challenge will be to make it efficient and build it in a way that's patterned after normal business practices.''
This is the same Tim Walberg who (thinks that hospital emergency rooms is the same thing as access to health care, and), just a few months ago voted against funding for Amtrak.
(Note to media: Voting records for public officials are public records. When a candidate for office says something that appears to confict with their voting record, it's considered good reporting to ask why their actions and words do not mesh ... just sayin'.)
Suppose you're an undecided voter. You don't know a lot about Tim Walberg, but you've gotten his glossy flyers in the mail. You've seen Mark Schauer's name somewhere, but really, you don't know much about either of them. What do you do?
For many, you type "Tim Walberg" and "Mark Schauer" into Google. Focusing on Walberg, what do you get? The first five results are all either pro-Walberg or neutral-- Walberg's House website, Walberg's blog, Wikipedia, Walberg for Congress, and a National Journal profile. (The old Walberg Watch address comes in at number nine, while the new Walberg Watch is rapidly rising, now nearing the top of the second page).
Many people will probably stick to those five results, too. Of those results, only the Wikipedia article even comes close to offering different points of view, but only in the context of controversies that have arisen for Walberg. It doesn't keep up with current issues.
So how do we fix that? How do we make sure that Walberg's side of the story isn't the only one being seen? One way, of course, is for Walberg Watch to rise in the Google page ranking, and that's happening slowly on its own. But, oddly enough, Tim Walberg gave us another way of getting opposing viewpoints into the top Google rankings, albeit not directly.
I understand that Freedom's Watch has started airing an ad in the 7th District attacking Mark Schauer's opposition to off-shore drilling. Here is the script:
"70% of Americans are in favor of exploring for off shore oil, but Mark Schauer says no. Mark Schauer is against a bill that would expand domestic oil exploration, build new refineries, and increase wind energy. And he's endorsed by a liberal special interest group in favor of high gas prices. Schauer said expanding the search for domestic oil won't do anything to lower gas prices, but a RAND study said that the US has at least three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Michigan is in a one state recession, we are losing jobs, families are struggling. As an elected official, Mark Schauer can do something, but he refuses to explore for oil here in the US. Call Mark Schauer at (517) 373-2426 and tell him to support domestic oil exploration and support American jobs. Paid for by Freedom's Watch."
Lies, plain and simple. Here is the RAND study citied. Please note that it's called "Oil shale development in the United States." That's because the the "proven reserves" the RAND study is talking about are all locked up in oil shale ... not lying about somewhere off shore or in Alaska.
You're probably wondering about oil shale, and why we haven't developed it. I mean, we have a lot of it. It's remained undeveloped since the 70s for the same reason why the United States has lost and not built refining capacity ... purely economic reasons. Processing oil shale into something usable is incredibly expensive, requires a great deal of energy (because it requires a great deal of heat), and because it's very water intensive (and most of the shale is where there isn't a great deal of water).
Then, there's the bit about Michigan being in a one-state recession. But, at this point, that seems like the lesser of the ad's sins.
Tuesday morning I sat in with our paper's editorial board on a wide-ranging interview with Walberg and along with rising gas prices, the economy and healthcare, we got his take on this much-maligned vote.
His only concern was that it didn't exempt communities of faith from the hiring restrictions that other groups with Head Start classrooms must adhere to.
"It didn't allow communities of faith to hire who they wanted to hire," Walberg said. "I was called a racist several times, a bigot."
Today, we have dueling internal polls. The latest is from the Schauer campaign, which calls the race a dead heat. Here's the memo.
According to our latest survey little has changed from the trend we saw in August of last year. Today, Schauer remains locked in a dead heat with Walberg at the survey's virst uninformed ballot, 37 to 40, -3 net.
According to the memo, that gets shaved a point when partisan leanings of voters are factored in ... to Schauer's advantage. Also, Levin is running strong (natch), and Obama performs competitively.
I don't put a great deal of stock in polling, especially 100 days out and super especially internal polls. The story here, I think, is that not even Walberg's own internal polling has him above 50 percent, which is just not good news for him especially since he's being outraised.
There's some debate about the particulars of this over at Swing State Project, but I think that's arguing about whether a grease smear in a parking log resembles the Virgin Mary or Elvis. Apparently the same poll has McCain up over Obama by about the same margin in the district.
I can't say that I'm exactly surprised. Probably Schauer's name recognition has something to do with it, but having an 11-point lead and still not hitting 50 percent is really kind of surprising. Local media coverage has been abominable, and its inability to do simple homework vetting claims made by any of the candidates doesn't seem to concern anyone, which I'm sure doesn't hurt Walberg.
Today we're excited to announce that our campaign raised more than $427,000 in the second quarter, which breaks the previous fundraising record we set earlier this year. Combined with the last three quarters when Sen. Schauer outraised incumbent Tim Walberg, we have brought in more than $1.33 million and have more than $928,000 cash on hand.
In this quarter alone, the campaign collected more than 1,100 total contributions, with more than 83 percent of individual contributions from donors in Michigan. With just over 100 days to go before the general election, we have now raised more than our opponent brought in during the entire 2006 election cycle.
The records don't yet appear to be on the FEC Web site.
Faced with the decision to either vote in favor of what's necessary and what's ideologically pure, Tim Walberg voted to finish tanking the housing market.
Walberg said he wasn't sure what would happen to Fannie and Freddie if Congress didn't step in.
"I don't know if letting it go would be a problem," he said.
I mean ... wow. Just wow. Here is his statement from the floor:
"Today the House voted to revise the great American tradition that hard work, responsible investment and diligent savings leads to home ownership, and sadly, the President stands by ready to support this flawed legislation," Walberg said. "In Michigan, we know firsthand how our struggling economy has frustrated people who've had dreams of home ownership and put many folks in difficult situations. Rather than allow the government to reward risky investments, Congress should work on policies that promote home ownership and keep alive the dream of owning a home for all Americans. Michigan taxpayers cannot afford to pay for the irresponsibility and blatant recklessness of mortgage servicers and speculators, and this legislation forces hard working families to backup $300 billion in risky mortgage securities and adds a new tax on mortgages, which will only slow any economic recovery and job growth. The best way out of the current housing crisis is to create more good-paying jobs which will help all Americans purchase homes."
Emphasis mine. I don't favor rewarding bad behavior, and I object to private profits and socialized losses. On the other hand, allowing the backers of half the nation's mortgages to go belly-up in the name of sound economic policy is kind of like eating Dran-O to kill parasites in your gut.
Today we're excited to announce that our campaign raised more than $427,000 in the second quarter, which breaks the previous fundraising record we set earlier this year. Combined with the last three quarters when Sen. Schauer outraised incumbent Tim Walberg, we have brought in more than $1.33 million and have more than $928,000 cash on hand.
In this quarter alone, the campaign collected more than 1,100 total contributions, with more than 83 percent of individual contributions from donors in Michigan. With just over 100 days to go before the general election, we have now raised more than our opponent brought in during the entire 2006 election cycle.
Congressman Walberg has done nothing to improve Michigan's job climate since taking office, but we fully expect him to do whatever it takes to keep his seat in Washington. That's why it's so important for us to keep working hard to defend against the impending negative attacks from Walberg's wealthy donors.
Thanks to everyone in the netroots community for your continued support!
Patriot Majority, an independent progressive organization, will run a "multi-million dollar" television campaign against Republican congressmen and senators in the coming months -- an effort that begins today in Michigan's 7th district.
Craig Varoga, who managed former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's failed presidential bid earlier this cycle and is the president of Patriot Majority, called the ad against Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) the "first wave" of television ads that would be "airing ... over an extended period of time."
They're targeting Walberg's vote against Head Start.
Today we launched our official blog, where I will be posting updates from the campaign trail regularly to keep our supporters in the grassroots and netroots communities updated about the status of our campaign for change.
I'm a big believer in the power of grassroots organizing - that's why I've been such a loyal reader and supporter of blogs like Michigan Liberal, Blogging for Michigan and DailyKos. These sites have empowered a whole new generation of voters to get involved in the political process and fight for the kind of change that will move our country in a new direction.
For this race to be successful, I'll need your help online and on the ground to organize supporters and spread our message across the 7th district this year.
That's why I'll need your help this Saturday, July 26, when we will be competing with congressional campaigns across the country for Mobilize for Change: A National Day of Action. The goal is to see which Democratic campaign can recruit the most volunteers to phone bank and canvass that day, and the winner will receive a fundraising letter from a prominent Democrat to a national email list with more than 3 million subscribers!
Last week, Gary Peters' campaign cracked the top ten fund-raising efforts through ActBlue. This week, Peters moves up to number four, and Mark Schauer's campaign comes in at number 10.
Peters' campaign raised $15,000 last week through ActBlue, according to an ActBlue e-mail, and Schauer's campaign raised $8,645.
Here is what the e-mail had to say about the Peters campaign.
After debuting in the eighth spot on our Top 10 list last week, Peters has pushed his way into the Top 5 this week. This past weekend, the Peters campaign launched its new "Take Action Now" initiative, in which Gary Peters and supporters will take time off from the campaign trail to volunteer with community service programs across Oakland County. The first volunteer event was the Stogdill Pancake Breakfast in Pontiac, Michigan, and the campaign intends to volunteer with community service programs across Oakland county. This isn't the first time Peters has mobilized volunteers to help his community: in 1997, Peters formed "NetDay Michigan," a grassroots organization that "installed donated wiring and computers in twenty-two schools, libraries, and recreation centers."
And about the Schauer campaign.
Schauer, who built a career in community services, has recently attracted donations through an ActBlue page acknowledging Schauer's reliability as an advocate for children. The Schauer example highlights an important feature of ActBlue: by being explicit about the issue that drives a community to support a given candidate, the candidate can better understand what matters to his supporters.
You can find Peters' ActBlue page here, and Schauer's here.
In case anyone missed it, here's a link to Mark Schauer's Q&A session. I kind of wish someone had asked him about health care, because it's one of the issues he talks best about and it's an issue on which Tim Walberg has talked so poorly (Walberg said going to an emergency room was the same thing as having access to health care).
Most recently, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) repeated the charge to the Ft. Collins Coloradoan, which pointed out to her that it wasn't true. Her office later acknowledged that she "misspoke."
It appears, at least, that a television station (a television station, for God's sake ... any print reporter reading this ought to be embarrassed) apparently asked him about it.
Republican Congressman Tim Walberg is getting hands on with pain at the pump and pushing his solution.
Rep. Tim Walberg, Republican Michigan 7th District: "If we have resources in Anwar or off the outer shelf, or if we can use nuclear technology or clean coal, lets do it"
But Walberg admits his plans are a long term fix and he'll only make one promise when it comes to dropping gas prices any time soon.
Some obvious follow-up questions naturally spring to mind, like if he admits that "Drill! ... Drill! ... DRILL!" is a long-term solution, why he's talking about it while pumping gas ... and why he's pushing a solution that federal studies say won't impact the price of oil in the slightest?
Finally, we lead ourselves right into legitimate questions about Tim Walberg's record in Congress here. If he wants to make every tool available to the American public at a time of high gasoline (and, by extension, energy) costs, why did he vote against funding for Amtrak and why is he taking part in a lonely war against the compact fluorescent lightbulb.
Today we're excited to announce that our campaign raised more than $427,000 in the second quarter, which breaks the previous fundraising record we set earlier this year. Combined with the last three quarters when Sen. Schauer outraised incumbent Tim Walberg, we have brought in more than $1.33 million and have more than $928,000 cash on hand.
Today we launched our 
