Mark Schauer standing for change...that is a laugh. He is the epitome of what is wrong in Lansing and now he wants to go to Washington DC? Sharon Renier has called him out on this many times but all you Schauer Kool-aid drinkers refuse to listen. He voted in lockstep with Jenny on every tax increase she proposed and will be ripped to pieces because of it. Sharon has proved she can go head to head with Walberg in November and with a little financial assistance from the DCCC could win.
 

Did anyone think it was strange that the netroots fundraising only came up with $4,000 for Mark? Maybe he needs to talk to Obama and Ron paul. those guys know how to raise real money on the internet. The event with Cheney got Walberg a whole lot more.
 

Anon. at 8:5 a.m.,

I voted for Sharon last time around, but not this. She didn't have the support of the DCCC at that time. She wouldn't have it this time either if she happens to beat Mark in the primary.

Sharon is not mainstream enough to get DCCC support. She's too radical and too vocal. The process will forgive one or the other, but not both, in my view. She's not meeting a couple different viability tests, and won't get the backing of the DCCC.

Mark is not radical. He's solid Democratic values from all that I've seen from him. And, he's met those couple different viability tests.
 

Radical? Mark Schauer voted to hike taxes over and over again last year and supports partial-birth abortion, something most Democrats cringe at, especially in our district. You might think it's unfair, but Walberg will hit him again and again. Sharon is pro-life, pro-second amendment and pro-jobs. That puts her in line with the district a lot more than Mark.
 

Two things which might be interesting and possible post topics:

One, Walberg made a big blunder in Jackson County, once again announcing something that was not true, taking credit for something he didn't do:

http://blog.mlive.com/citpat/2008/03/county_will_not_be_a_hubzone.html#post

Near as I can tell, he wants the HUBZone designation for the entire county of Jackson, which is totally against the regulations. It is kinda funny to see him stomp his little feet and throw another tantrum.

The second thing I cannot get to online because it is on RollCall. (A D.C. news source.) But, basically, it shames Schauer's campaign for misrepresenting the polling data. I cannot find or verify it online, but maybe someone else can and post the article. I have only heard about it from a republican friend of mine.
 

Tim Walberg no friend to the poor

The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law ranked all the members of Congress on their support of anti-poverty measures.

Tim Walberg got an F. He got 13 points out of a possible 100.

The report is here, and Page 31 summarizes the Cs and Ds given to the Michigan Republicans and the A+ given to all but one of the Michigan Democrats.

http://www.povertylaw.org//advocacy/publications/2007-scorecard.pdf
 

From the Rothenberg Report, reprinted in Roll Call:

Poll Warning: Be on the Lookout for Bad Numbers, Analysis

...A far greater problem is a late February/ early March poll in Michigan’s 7th district. Actually, it isn’t the EPIC-MRA poll for the Detroit News and WXYZ-Action News that was the problem as much as it was the story about it that appeared in the News and bears at least some responsibility for a rash of misleading e-mails about the survey.

The newspaper story began with the very reasonable observation that Republican Rep. Tim Walberg could have a tough re-election race this year. The trouble came in the next paragraph, which noted that Walberg is in a “statistical dead heat when voters are read biographical information about him and challenger Mark Schauer.”

Three paragraphs later, the article quotes an EPIC-MRA pollster saying that he’d have “grave concerns” if he were the Congressman that an “unknown Democrat ... could match up so competitively.” The statement is particularly odd because one of the reasons Democratic insiders are excited about Schauer’s bid is that they note he already represents one-third of the Congressional district in the state Senate and is popular among those voters.

Two paragraphs after that, the article notes that when “voters had no other information than the two candidates’ names and party,” Walberg held a 51 percent to 40 percent lead.

In other words, in the initial ballot test, Walberg was over 50 percent and held a double-digit lead. This is the ballot test that really matters, and it is always reported as how the race stands.

So-called second ballots, which involve a retest of the candidates after additional information is provided to respondents, are much poorer measures of candidate strength and much less reliable predictors of the future. That’s because they introduce information into the survey that voters don’t necessarily have — and may never have.

Yet the Detroit News story led with the second ballot, creating a misimpression about the state of the race, at least as the poll found it exists today.

Interestingly, the Schauer campaign sent out a news release crowing “Schauer Leads Walberg in New Independent Poll,” even though that is demonstrably untrue. Walberg held an 11-point lead in the survey. I’d hope the folks at the Schauer campaign know the difference between a first ballot and a second ballot.

One of Schauer’s consultants distributed the article by way of an e-mail titled “Detroit News poll shows Schauer, Walberg in dead heat.” Sorry, but the race isn’t a “dead heat,” and anyone in the business should know that. All that anyone can say about the second ballot is that if and when voters get more information on the two candidates, they may find the Democrat appealing.

Actually, Walberg’s numbers in the race are far from terrible, given the problems the GOP is facing these days and given the numbers that some other Republicans are getting. He isn’t safe, of course. Not by a long shot. This is definitely a competitive race.

The bottom line here is that nobody involved in the story looks good. The Detroit News article did a terrible job of presenting the numbers and drawing implications from the survey. The EPIC-MRA pollster, assuming he was quoted correctly, failed to put the poll into context. And the Schauer campaign intentionally misled observers.
 

Pretty quiet around here...

Did anyone see anything about Walberg writing a book about global warming? I saw a link to michiganliberal, but cannot find the whole story.