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...
Late last year, the League of Conservation Voters named Joe Knollenberg to its Dirty Dozen list. Tomorrow, the group plans to add another Michigan name to that list ... Tim Walberg.
By being named to the list, Walberg joins Knollenberg and the likes of Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma senator who thinks global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated and who once called science fiction novelist and believer in spoon bending Michael Crichton to testify before the Senate.
Is Tim Walberg taking a page from The Maverick's campaign playbook? When you can't beat 'em on the issues, smear by association.
Rep. Tim Walberg is trying to link his Democratic congressional challenger to filmmaker Michael Moore.
Walberg, a Republican, released a new ad Thursday that argues the liberal documentary maker is supporting state Senate Democratic Leader Mark Schauer. Schauer is trying to unseat Walberg in a south-central Michigan congressional district.
Personally, I think it's a point of pride that Michigan not only can claim Michael Moore as a native son, but that he hasn't abandoned the state after attaining celebrity and in fact has established a pretty decent film festival in Traverse City. Then again, I'm not a minister in Tipton who's idea of deep political thought is riding through the district on a motorcycle to send a message to the American people that if they, too, had a mid-life crisis they could save a few pennies on the price of gas.
An awfully curious headline, if I do say so myself. It's the kind of thing that's maybe lifted right from a press release. But, it isn't. In fact, it's a headline lifted right from a story in the Battle Creek Enquirer in which Walberg responds to ads being run against him in the 7th District. Here is Tim Walberg, clearing the record:
Walberg said he doesn't support privatizing Social Security, but instead insulating it from use for anything other than Social Security benefits and Medicare.
Insulating it ... from use for anything ... other than ... Social Security benefits ... and Medicare? How's he plan to do that? Let's take a trip in the Wayback Machine to the year two-thousand-and-six (aught-six, to those nostalgic for the the early 20th century). Tim Walberg on the issues.
Social Security Reform Tim supports President Bush’s efforts to expand our ownership society by allowing younger workers to voluntarily invest a portion of their payroll taxes and allowing the money to be secured in personal investment accounts.
Uh-huh, so Tim Walberg supports efforts to expand our ownership society by allowing younger workers to take a portion of their payroll taxes, otherwise no doubt earmarked for Social Security, and secured ... in personal ... investment accounts. I wonder if that's why Ontheissues.org has Walberg listed as "strongly favors privatizing social security?"
Anyway, consider the record cleared. Tim Walberg doesn't support privatized Social Security, only workers using their payroll taxes to create their own investment funds.
Just several hours before the vice presidential debate, McCain withdraws his campaign troops from Michigan to redeploy them in other battleground states such as Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Clever decision? This campaign tactic could be so much more than what it appears to be at the surface.
Aside from the obvious move to minimize the media attention on his decision by announcing his decision when the media spotlight was clearly focused on the vice presidential debate, there is a lot more suspicious activity behind the scenes.
Mark Schauer and Tim Walberg get into a testy debate over breakfast, and all the AP reporter can manage to come up with are ... six paragraphs?
The two clashed on taxes and other issues. The forum was hosted by the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce.
That is some intense writing, d00d. We get to-the-second breaking coverage of Paris Hilton's jail sentence for repeatedly breaking the law, we know what toppings were on the burger David Hasselhoff ate while being filmed a rambling drunk, and two candidates in a closely-watched district have an impromptu debate over bagels, and this is the most detailed the guy on hand to cover the story gets? And, yes, I've tried looking up some of the key phrases to see if there are any write-thrus ... none, so far.
The last time the Schauer and Walberg campaigns released the results of internal polling, Schauer's was pretty close to what EPIC/MRA found, while Walberg's polling data practically had Schauer conceding the race. The other day, another Schauer internal poll showed the Democrat ahead, and by more than the margin of error. Just yesterday, stories started popping up with results of another Walberg internal poll ... predictably, Walberg had a double-digit lead.
Walberg's polling firm is the same one he used last time, when his lead was 16-points instead of just 10. Now his lead, according to the same firm has shrunk to 10, which is still a heap greater than what EPIC/MRA had last time around. That makes it a great deal more likely that rather than providing a real sense of where the race stands, that the Walberg campaign would be using its internal polling data as propaganda.
There isn't anything especially wrong with that, of course, and any fault here lies with the paper that published a story that passed along this kind of information uncritically to readers. Rather than repackaging a pro-Walberg press release, the paper could have done a quick Google search and provided some idea if the information coming from the Walberg camp was at all consistent with what neutral, objective observers were saying. That kind of context might even be helpful to the paper's readers, who maybe today are wondering who is most likely to tell them what they need to hear rather than what the campaign thinks they ought to hear to satisfy the campaign's own best interests.
(Not that Republicans were really big fans of low taxes anyway. - promoted by ScottyUrb)
This is ironic, the Democrats using taxes to go after Tim Walberg. I love it. Taking what is supposedly Walberg's strong suit as a Republican and turning it against him. Maybe top Democrats have learned a thing or two.
All Michiganders have felt the Bush legacy in the form of high unemployment, the loss of manufacturing jobs, record gas prices, record home foreclosures, huge corporate bailouts and the deaths of hundreds of young people in an unnecessary invasion, and now you can see it all in one place when the National Bush Legacy Bus Tour Comes to Michigan on Saturday.
The Bush Legacy is a 45-foot, 28-ton clean bio-diesel powered museum on wheels that features several exhibits on how disastrous the Bush/conservative policies have been, and how they have weakened America's security abroad while neglecting and undermining important priorities here at home.
It is also highlighting the people who have helped Bush wrecked havoc on the county, and the bus tour will be in Battle Creek on Saturday, Sept. 20 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the backyard of Bush enabler Tim Wahlberg, where he is locked in a battle with State Sen. Mark Schauer. It will be in front of the Kellogg Arena at Michigan Ave between Macamly and N. Capital. On Monday it will be in Jackson from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 120 N. Jackson St. The museum will also be in Lansing in front of the Capitol from 2-4 p.m.
On Tuesday it will be in Bush enabler Joe Knollenberg's district from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Royal Oak Farmers Market at 11 Mile Road and Troy Street in Royal Oak. Gary Peters is neck and neck against Knollenberg.
The tour kicked off on June 24 across the street from the White House, and the National Bush Legacy Bus tour has since blanketed half the country - from New Hampshire to New Mexico - and will continue making nearly 150 stops in the hometowns of Bush's enablers in Congress and symbolic locations like the President's home away from home in Crawford, Texas.
It will be back in Michigan before the tour concludes on Election Day in Virginia. It will be in Kalamazoo on Oct. 21; Grand Rapids on Oct. 22 and Ann Arbor on Oct. 23.
Over the weekend we started airing our second ad of the campaign season, and in case you hadn't seen it yet, I wanted to make sure you had a chance to check it out:
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.
Former GOP state legislator Paul DeWeese talked at length with Jack Ebling this week about the state of the GOP and GOP moderates in America. They also touched on the Presidential candidates, national health care, stem cell research and his own political future. They also talked about DeWeese's endorsement of Democratic candidate for the U.S. House (7th District), Mark Schauer.
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.
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.
Jack Ebling recently talked with 7th District Congressman, Tim Walberg (R-Tipton), and his presumptive November challenger, Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer (D-Battle Creek), about energy issues facing the United States.
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.
