(From our friends at Progress Michigan. - promoted by Eric B.)
Over the past few months, you’ve probably been bombarded with messages about voting. Perhaps some have even come from Progress Michigan. Obviously, we believe that voting is important – your vote is your voice in the dialog about the future of our state.
So we worked with Michigan’s leading progressive organizations to produce a 2010 Michigan Voter Guide. We think of it as one-stop shopping for highly informed recommendations about the races on your ballot, making it easier than ever to make smart, informed choices based on progressive values.
Map of Michigan's Seventh Congressional District from Wikipedia. Incumbent Mark Schauer is fending off a challenge from former Representative Tim Walberg.
U.S. Representative Mark Schauer will be debating challenger Tim Walberg four times this month.
On October 6th, the Adrian Daily Telegram reported that the times and locations for two of the four upcoming debates between incumbent Mark Schauer and challenger Tim Walberg have been set.
The first debate will take place on Wednesday, October 13th, from 7 P.M to 8 P.M. at the Charlotte Performing Arts Center. WLNS (Channel 6 in Lansing) and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) are co-sponsoring the debate. The public is invited to attend. The Performing Arts Center's address is 378 State Street in Charlotte.
WLNS will be broadcasting the debate live, so residents of Washtenaw County whose cable systems carry WLNS Channel 6 will be able to watch the debate. Those who do not have cable but do have broadband can follow the debate on WLNS's website as the station will stream it live.
The second debate will be held the next morning at 8:30 A.M. on October 14th at the Lexington Lansing Hotel on 925 South Creyts Road, Lansing. The Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring the candidate forum. Anyone wishing to attend the forum should call (517) 487-6340.
More at the link, including information on the other two debates and how Walberg picked a fight with debate sponsor AARP before he accepted their invitation. Smooth move, Ex-Lax, especially in a district with a lot of retirees (I should know, I used to live there) and a year in which Social Security and Medicare are such big issues.
WILX reports on how Social Security and Medicare have become major issues in the race between Mark Schauer and Tim Walberg.
A few days ago, I posted a diary in support of Lance Enderle's campaign in which, along with several other key points, I pointed out his opponent, 5-term incumbent Republican Mike Rogers' extreme position on reproductive rights for women:
4. MIKE ROGERS WANTS RAPE VICTIMS FORCED TO CARRY RAPISTS' OFFSPRING: The whole nation is abuzz about Alan Grayson's opponent, "Taliban Dan" Webster. Well, guess what? Republican Mike Rogers is also so extreme on abortion that he wants women who are the victims of rape to be forced to give birth to their rapist's offspring. I can't imagine the injustice of police detaining & supervising rape victims for 9 months until their rapists' spawn are born. Yet that is the necessary consequence of Mike Rogers' position.
(A Bible salesman who says, "To Hell with them." - promoted by Eric B.)
Congressional candidate "Top Kill" Tim Walberg has taken over $57,000 from Big Oil and other dirty energy companies while voting time and again to hand out tax breaks to BP and Big Oil.
Our lawmakers shouldn't be subsidizing BP and Big Oil but they should be protecting our Great Lakes. Yet Walberg is on record supporting oil drilling in the Great Lakes. Michigan shouldn't be a place where we need "junk shots" and "top kills" to plug giant oil spills.
With the effects of the Enbridge oil spill into the Kalamazoo River still being felt, we know that breaking our dependence on Big Oil is key to keeping our waterways safe. Now, as Tim Walberg says he wants to represent Michigan in Congress - again - we think it's time he broke his dependence on oil, too. Sign our petition telling Tim "Top Kill" Walberg to shut down Big Oil's pipeline of influence today!
We're tired of seeing people like Tim Walberg take money from Big Oil and then vote for huge tax breaks for those same companies while blocking incentives for clean, job-creating energy like wind and solar.
Time again for my weekly feature in which I excerpt my articles from Examiner.com. This week, the digest not only describes what happened on primary night, but also debunks two popular myths about this election year.
Many column inches have been written about the anti-tax sentiment sweeping the country in the form of Tea Party protests and town hall meetings during the past year. However, only a relatively small amount of that well-publicized hostily to taxation was in evidence Tuesday, as ten of the thirteen ballot proposals involving property taxes passed, some by impressive margins with relatively strong turnouts exceeding the county average of 21.28%. Only the renewal of the millage for the general operating budget for Manchester Township, one of the millage renewals for police protection in Northfield Township, and the bond proposal for the Saline Area Schools failed.
Details on the ballot proposals at the link in the headline.
In municipal primary elections held last Tuesday, all the incumbents running to keep their offices won. In Ann Arbor, the mayor and five council members won strong, in some cases overwhelming victories over an insurgent slate. In Ypsilanti, the mayor and the one council member who ran for re-election also won by large margins.
These electoral wins came despite widely publicized anti-incumbent sentiment which claimed only a few victims in the state, most notably Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who lost her congressional seat in the primary.
Details on the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti municipal elections at the link.
It looks both these memes (anti-incumbent and anti-tax) held little weight in local elections. Take that, Tea Party!
Other races, including Governor and U.S. House of Representatives, on the other side of the jump.
On the City Pulse radio show February 3rd, former Republican Congressman Joe Schwarz, a Republican, said Mark Schauer has been a more effective legislator than Tim Walberg was during his tenure as the Representative of MI-07. The show can be listened to HERE. This section kicks in around 17:35.
Transcript:
Kyle Melinn: You've taken a look at two different people who have represented the 7th Congressional district that you once represented - Tim Walberg and Mark Schauer. Who do you think's done a better job or did a better job representing that district?
Joe Schwarz: Mark Schauer.
Kyle Melinn: Okay, why's that?
Joe Schwarz: I think Mark Schauer has made a legitimate effort at trying to represent the whole district and is far more aware of what the real issues that the voters in the 7th district care about might be than Tim Walberg. I think Schauer in his year has proven himself to be a more effective Congressman for the 7th district that Walberg was in his two years.
Given that Walberg defeated Schwarz in the GOP primary in 2006 due in large part to a huge influx of outside money (i.e., The Club for Growth) and that he actually endorsed Schauer in the 2008 General Election, it's not totally surprising. It is, however, gratifying and encouraging.
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."
At the Western Washtenaw Democrats meeting last Friday, Mark Schauer came out strongly in favor of pushing the Democrats' health care bill through the Senate without the standard requirement of 60 votes.
Ahhh. Finally. A Republican admitting that the threshold to pass legislation through the Senate in this country is no longer the Constitutionally-mandated 51 votes. Now it's 60.
For a Republican liar, you gotta give the guy credit for a brief moment of honesty.
UPDATE: The Walberg campaign was quick to dub Rooney a "carpetbagger" for only recenty moving to the district. "We do not need a lawyer from Wayne County when we have Tim Walberg," Walberg supporter Mark Behnke, the mayor of Battle Creek, said in a statement released by the campaign.
The only way you could improve this is if Sharon Renier joined the fray.
Update! ... Well, my stars and garters, that joke did have a very familiar feel to it. Clucketh the Munith Turkey Lady from the archives.
"I'm officially a Republican," (Sharon Renier) said, adding that she will "absolutely" take on Tim Walberg in the Republican primary for U.S. House District 7 in 2010.
"I am no longer a Democrat," Renier said. "They don't even know when they've got a good candidate."
If you pay $150 bucks, you get to have your photo taken with the moron. Wouldn't it be hilarious if a few of us yelled "You Lie!' to his face? It would almost be worth the $150 donation to Tim Walberg's campign.
Cross-posted at the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post. ==================
This is a follow-up to my [Daily Kos] diary on Tuesday regarding defeated former U.S. Representative Tim Walberg holding town halls in Michigan in an apparent crass use of the health care debate to launch his 2010 bid to regain his House seat.
As many of you already know, defeated former House Rep. Tim Walberg is hosting a series of health care town halls across MI-07. The one originally scheduled for Battle Creek on Wednesday has been relocated to Marshall. Below is an excerpt from my Daily Kos diary this morning which has details. Note the Walberg has another one tonight in Hillsdale.
From 7:00pm to 9:00pm, I'm going to be away from a computer-- and, in fact, away from any televisions, radios, or other devices which report election results. During arguably the most exciting portion of the night, when Virginia may be called for Obama, or when the returns start coming in for the Georgia Senate race, or when our own district begins reporting, I won't be able to be a part of it.
For a political junkie like me, that's like missing the World Series, the Rose Bowl (Go 'Cats!I believe in you!), and the World Cup all at once, which, by the way, are also on Christmas. Tomorrow could be a really amazing day, and I’m disappointed that I’ll be missing a big part of it.
But when I do get to a computer, I’ll be looking for a few things. I don’t claim to have a secret formula or know which tiny town will be the bellwether, and I’m definitely not a Grebner-like expert. But I can tell you what I think a Schauer victory might look like, and where I’ll be looking for it.
Schauer said there wasn't the justification for war. Walberg said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.Even though the U.S. didn't find them but said there is evidence they were moved.
Emphasis mine. Tim Walberg now joins any number of people who, in three days, will head off to local abandoned houses or local cemeteries with beer and marrywanna in hand, only to emerge when they run out and get cold, and swear that the bootprint in the mud/dust and that is an exact match for their own is evidence that some "really creepy shit" had happened.
Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
...more...
• The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them.
Just the kind of carefully constructred organization you'd want if you planned to secret massive stockpiles of unconventional and potentially volatile weapons out of one country and into another.
I realize all of this has been debunked and debunked over the years. I realize that only a few hangers still insist that prior to our invasion that Saddam sailed armadas of secret death ships stuffed to the gills with illegal arms, buried air flotillas of balsa-wood gliders hung with cannisters of nerve gas labeled "Destination: DesMoines," and flew pallet upon pallet of mustard gas reconstituted in Saddam's mobile bio- and chem-weapon factories that doubled as hot dog carts out in Russian army helicopters. I just didn't realize that the 7th District had elected one of these very special people to Congress.
You can tell we're two weeks outside a major election ... my Inboxes are filling up, by the hour, with stuff that's going on. So, let's break it down to highlights...
CD07 -- According to a press release from the Schauer campaign, the Democrat raised $226,000 in the first two weeks of October, compared to $157,000 raised by Tim Walberg. The Schauer campaign reports having $735,000 on hand entering the last two weeks of the campaign, while the Walberg campaign either has $691,000 on hand if you believe a Schauer campaign press release or $412,000 if you believe Deb Price of The Detroit News.
*--Responding to threats by the Walberg campaign over an ad that it is running in the 7th District, Health Care for America Now has responded by pouring more money into the district in adverstising. Walberg threatened to sue HCAN over this ad, and in response the group purchased more air time. Also, the group purchased space in the weekly newspaper The Tecumseh Herald for this full-page ad.
CD09 -- In a new internal poll, commissioned by the DCCC, Grove Insight found that Gary Peters had opened up a double digit lead over Joe Knollenberg. According to a press release, when 400 residents of the 9th District were polled, 46 of them said they plan to vote for Gary Peters. Thirty six percent said they would back Joe Knollenberg. Jack Kevorkian received 2 percent of the vote.
The GOP expects that it could lose up to 34 seats, U.S. News and World Report is reporting. More than that, they've apparently consigned Tim Walberg's reign of terror to the trash heap of history.
The document provided to Whispers is no gag: It comes from one of the key House GOP vote counters. The source called it a "death list." The tally shows several different ratings of 66 House Republicans in difficult races or open seats held by retiring Republicans. "Rating 1" finds 10 Republicans "likely gone." Those districts are New York 13, Alaska, Arizona 1, Virginia 11, New York 25, Illinois 11, Florida 24, Michigan 7, Nevada 3, and North Carolina 8. Under "Rating 2," nine Republican seats are listed as "leaning Democratic.
Emphasis mine. Those are the seats the party expects to lose on the leading edge of a tidal wave that could sweep the GOP out of a majority in the House "for decades."
Club for Growth, which is again helping to bankroll Tim Walberg's campaign, leapt its way into another race yesterday by endorsing ratshit crazy Congresscritter from Minnesota, Michele Bachmann.
Michele Bachmann (MN-06): Though only a freshman in Congress, Rep. Bachmann has emerged as a strong proponent of free-market, limited-government policies. She has quickly become a leading opponent of pork-barrel spending, refusing to accept earmarks, and a supporter of expanding America’s domestic drilling.
Sounds familiar, don't it. Almost like, as if it were, highly complementary of ... how about a leap here.
Tim Walberg (MI-07) Michele Bachmann (MN-06): Though only a freshman in Congress, Rep. Walberg Bachmann has emerged as a strong proponent of free-market, limited-government policies. He She has quickly become a leading opponent of pork-barrel spending, refusing to accept earmarks, and a supporter of expanding America’s domestic drilling.
Why are we talking about Michele Bachmann? Because Club for Growth's endorsement of her came after she went stark raving mad on Hardball, calling Barack Obama "unAmerican" and suggesting that the media investigate the "anti-American" attitudes of certain members of Congress.
Everyone else has fled from Bachmann like rats from a ship that is burning, sinking and crewed entirely by cats since, with the RNCC pulling its advertising, her opponent raising wheelbarrows full of money, and every political handicapper immediately shifting the race from a safe GOP to tossup.Not Club for Growth, which on the 15th of this month laid down an additional $226,000 for an ad buy on Walberg's behalf. They looked at the race, and the most recent developments, and said, "You know, we need to spend a lot of money of this person's behalf."
I've listened to dozens of interviews Jack Lessenberry has conducted with people from across the political spectrum. Whatever he writes elsewhere, he's always a respectful interviewer, asks questions and just lets the person answer without trying to shout them down or trip them up in order to publicly embarrass them (he's not like Frank Beckmann, who actually used clearly edited clips to make the governor look bad on taxes last year). So, I can discern no explanation for this...
We had hoped to speak with both candidates however, Congressman Knollenberg declined to be interviewed for this program.
Peters gets time to talk about something he talks about and understands well, which is a forward-thinking energy policy.
Update! ... Oh, Knollenberg isn't the only person who turned down an invite by Lessenberry. Last week, Tim Walberg did, too.
We're all human, I get that. God knows I've put up my fair share of typos in blog posts and emails, but then again, I don't have a fully funded campaign staff supporting me.
Congressman Tim Walberg does.
So one would expect that I's would be dotted, T's crossed, and for the love of all that's holy - the man's name would be spelled correctly.
Call it Political Darwinism, call it Fate, or just call it stupidity.
But if a fundraising plea to help Timmeh out can't even spell the man's last name right, does he really deserve your money, much less relection?
I'm gonna go with - NO.
And in case you think I'm just being funny, keep in mind this is the stuff that the opposition would kill for, because you just can't make this kind of stuff up. Seriously.
On the other hand, I hear that Mark Schauer's a fine speller with excellent grammar and personally knowing and respecting the man, I'd recommend that you donate to him today.
For Club for Growth-backed candidates across the country, this is sounding like a familiar story.
The group scored one of its biggest victories in 2006 when it bounced moderate Republican Joe Schwarz in a GOP primary and elected Tim Walberg the representative in a conservative-minded southern Michigan district. But now Walberg is running behind Democratic state Sen. Mark Schauer — with Schauer using Walberg’s ties to the Club for Growth as a central message in his own campaign.
The story is about how Club for Growth's campaign to place more ideologically pure (i.e. people who'd eat their own feet before they'd support raising any tax anywhere for any reason) could very well result in more Democrats in Congress. One of those races featured...
Cross-posted at 
Somewhere deep in the middle of Chris Gautz's 
