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Mitt Romney 
Mon Jan 01, 2007 at 02:33:18 AM EST
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Michigan is going to be critical to the efforts of both John McCain and Mitt Romney in attempting to secure the Republican nomination for President in 2008. We already saw that McCain's supporters in Michigan were ambitious enough to try and oust MRP chair Saul Anuzis before the 2006 election. With any luck, that kind of infighting will continue to occur through 2007 and 2008.
Typically, we are the targets of the Republican smear machine. With the upcoming 2008 Republican primary, various conservative figures are setting their sights on each other instead of us. For example, Pat Robertson's CBN (take a very large grain of salt) reports that Mitt Romney's support in Michigan may be eroding due to inconsistencies in his positions on issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
...there are at least four Republican Representatives from the Michigan State House that are seriously rethinking their support of Romney for President.
These are members of Romney's steering committee in Michigan who are now having reservations about recent revelations about Romney's past comments in regards to marriage, abortion and the Boy Scouts. There's a good chance that they could jump ship. I know that one of them wrote to Romney's office demanding specific answers to certain questions.
(snip)
What I'm being told from a well placed source on the ground is that the representatives who may leave Romney are really questioning the legitimacy of his conservative credentials. Romney has always said he has evolved on these issues over the years, but these folks in Michigan think it's okay to evolve, but some of this seems to be major flip flop material, especially on the life issue where they point out how he's gone from pro-choice in 1994, to pro-life in 2000, to pro-choice in 2002 and now back to pro-life.
Romney's office will dispute this, but what they can't dispute is a potential unraveling among their steering committee in Michigan.
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Wed Dec 20, 2006 at 21:27:51 PM EST
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CORRECTION by Matt: Turns out Gongwer got it wrong. It's former Michigan Christian Coalition head Glenn CLARK - NOT Gary Glenn. See Mr. Glenn's email here.
And to think I voted McCain only 6 years ago! From today's (subscription-only) Gongwer report:
GLENN JOINS MCCAIN: Former Michigan Christian Coalition Director Gary Glenn has joined the John McCain presidential exploratory campaign as director of social conservatives in Michigan.
Flashback!"Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."
-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), 2/28/2000
Uh...nevermind guys (imitating McCain), I didn't actually mean any of that shit.
More about Gary Glenn here.
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Mon Dec 04, 2006 at 13:14:09 PM EST
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Just in from the DFP:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Michigan Sen. Carl Levin said Monday he will run for re-election in 2008, saying that the change in power in Congress had left him with a full plate.
It would be the Democrat’s sixth Senate term, having initially won election in 1978. Levin said he made the decision early last week after speaking with his family.
Levin said he decided to announce his intentions today to clear his agenda so he can focus on assuming the chair of the Senate Armed Services in January, when the Democratic majority is sworn in.
The Detroit lawmaker has called for troop withdrawals from Iraq beginning within four to six months. He has criticized the Bush administration for making the war open-ended, saying the White House has provided the Iraqis with a blank check with the presence of U.S. troops.
Let's just get it over with and appoint Carl senator for life. That would be okay by me. :)
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Tue Oct 31, 2006 at 21:47:21 PM EST
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(From the diaries - promoted by matt)
With today's EPIC-MRA and WSJ/Zogby polls both showing Dick DeVos (R-Amway) 10 points down, he now appears unable to break past the 42/43% mark, which may be his ceiling.
The DeVos for Governor campaign appears to be stuck in the ditch.
Does Mr. Dick try something desparate in the waning days of the campaign to get out of the rut, or is it over for the Amway Guy?
GOTV, GOTV, GO GRANHOLM, GOTV, GOTV
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Thu Sep 28, 2006 at 01:51:29 AM EDT
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(From the diaries. Also check out this morning's DFP editorial, which puts Amway Guy's newfound interest in campaign finance reform into proper perspective - promoted by matt)
All of a sudden Dick "I am a Special Interest" DeVos (R-Amway) is whining about "putting the special interests on notice." And as a billionaire, the Amway Guy certainly knows fine whines.
His election conversion on special interest money is notable given this report from late August in the Detroit News indicating that the Republican Governors Association will be funneling $750,000 in out-of-state special interest money to Michigan to aid the DeVos campaign's on-going efforts to engage in a single-state deception and talk down the Michigan economy:
They brought in Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- a potential GOP candidate for president, and the son of former Michigan Gov. George Romney -- for the convention.
He hosted a "Pizza and Politics" party for delegates Friday night, and brought a little jingle to the state, too: a commitment of $750,000 from the Republican Governors Association, which he chairs, for "issue ads" aimed at showing Michigan voters how poorly the state has fared under Democratic leadership.
The RGA is chaired by Massachusetts Governor Willard "Mitt" Romney (R).
Unfortunately for DeVos and the Republicans, the RGA has had problems this election cycle with tainted special interest money. Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported that the RGA was returning $500,000 in ethically questionable contributions it had received from Michael Scanlon, the business partner of Washington lobbyist, former National Chairman of the College Republicans, Bush/Rove buddy, and convicted felon--Jack Abramoff:
Romney said an internal review, triggered by questions about the donations on Tuesday from the AP, deemed the donations legal. But he and Gov. Sonny Perdue of Georgia, the RGA vice chairman, decided to split them equally over two years among Red Cross chapters in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida.
The move allows Romney and the RGA to avoid questions about the contributions while they are trying to help Republican governors win elections in 36 states this fall.
And while the divestiture will take at least $250,000 out of RGA coffers this year in the run-up to those elections, Romney refused to swear off future contributions from lobbyists or their corporations to replace the lost funds.
Apparently the money only was returned after the RGA got caught:
Cyndi Roy, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said: "Gov. Romney's call for ethics reform within the Republican Party is nothing more than a bad joke. The Gov. only pledged to return this money when he was caught red-handed by the Associated Press."
But that won't stop Governor Willard "Mitt" Romney (R-Taxachusetts) from continuing to travel using RGA special interest funds:
[Romney] also said he would continue to travel occasionally on corporate aircraft, as he did in December when he flew to an RGA meeting in California on a Gulfstream jet owned by Pfizer Inc., the New York-based pharmaceutical firm. Massachusetts is currently debating a health care overhaul, although Romney said Pfizer is not a party to the deliberations.
Given this special interest influence and questionable RGA funding, Michigan voters should be extremely skeptical of the Republican Governors Association, any message they deliver, and any candidate they fund, including Dick DeVos (R-Amway).
- DeVos. DeRoche. DeLay. DeSame. -
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Mon Apr 10, 2006 at 17:29:51 PM EDT
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There's been a little confusion here and elsewhere and about the status of Governor Granholm's "Michigan First" health insurance plan (health coverage for 1/2 of the state's uninsured - see my previous post), and Department of Community Health spokesman T.J. Bucholz graciously e-mailed in to set the record straight.
As it stands now, the Granholm administration is still in negotiations with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Serivces) to get a coveted Medicaid waiver that would allow the plan to go forward. According to TJ, conversations have been "very productive", and they still hope to start the program in April, 2007. Let's just hope that politics hasn't completely infiltrated this process, as it has with so much of the Bush administration.
By the way, the new Massachusetts system didn't occur overnight either. Accordin to TJ, it took Ted Kennedy and Gov. Mitt Romney a year-and-a-half of negotiations with the national government to come up with their new system. Kind of makes me wonder why some enterprising federal lawmaker from Michigan who is up for re-election doesn't introduce legislation to streamline this process? If the federal government refuses to provide any national solution to the health care quandry, it would seem the least they could do is make it simpler for states to start coming up with their own solutions. Remember when Republicans used to be about the devolution of power to the states? What happened to that?
At any rate, all of this means that the Michigan First proposal is not currently under the domain of the Michigan Legislature - though it certainly hasn't stopped the Republicans there from throwing rocks at the idea of covering half the state's uninsured. There certainly are lots of issues over which one can criticize the legislative Republicans for lack of action - but the Michigan First plan isn't one of them. It's not under their purview (yet, anyway). We'll just have to go thrash them on something else. I'm sure we can think of something...
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Sat Apr 08, 2006 at 11:41:30 AM EDT
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After the Survey St Louis "March Madness" tournament which was a hit among national GOP bloggers, The Republican Michigander has decided to start a new tournment of 32 with a twist - half of the possible 2008 candidates listed are democrats. I invite Michigan Liberal's readership to join in on the democratic bracket of our tournament. We would like to see which candidates are favored by grassroots activists in both parties primarily in the state of Michigan, where the readership of both our websites is based. While I prefer Republicans voting in republican polls and democrats voting in democrat polls, there is no rule against cross party voting.
The tournament is in the sidebar on my blog - http://www.republicanmichigander.blogspot.com
The format is an NCAA tournament style format. All matchups are one on one with the first seed matches up with a 16th seed, etc.
Today starts part 2 of round one. The first round for the democrats start today. Polls will be open until Tuesday, when Round two will begin.
Until the final round, democrats will be facing democrats and republicans will be facing republicans. The championship matchup will be of the winning republican vs the winning democrat vs common third parties who are on Michigan's ballot.
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