Not content to just fund Tim Walberg's attack ads, on October 7, 2008, the National Republican Congressional Committee released an attack ad of its own against Mark Schauer:



As the always-observant Chris Gautz points out, there's more than one side to the kicked-off-committee story:

More specifically than the ad states, Schauer was kicked off the Senate Campaign and Election Oversight Committee allegedly because he missed four meetings, all of which took place at locations around the state, where no voting was going to occur.

The Republican chairwoman, Sen. Michelle McManus booted Schauer, but not fellow Republican members of the committee who also missed a number of hearings.

The Democrats, and Schauer said this was a clearly partisan move, and retribution for action on the service tax.

Maybe I'm just a partisan Democrat, but I remember thinking at the time that it seemed like Senator McManus had other motives than just encouraging good attendance. But really, that line of attack strikes me as too inside-baseball to resonate with voters. When people are worried about jobs and losing their homes, "Mark Schauer is a troublemaker who got kicked off his committee" doesn't seem like it'll matter all that much to me.

You know, I can even see it going further the other way, too-- John McCain's popularity was partly from his "maverick" image, and getting kicked off your committee is one way to show your independence from the status quo. Maybe Tim Walberg should have tried harder to get kicked off of a committee...

But now I'm just getting silly. It's a creative ad, but I don't think it'll do anything other than reinforce the "largest tax increase" narrative. But if Mark Schauer's internal polling is to be believed, that's a narrative that's just not working. Schauer's taking the lead and is more trusted on taxes than Tim Walberg.

Labels: 2008 Election, Advertising, Issues, Mark Schauer, NRCC, Taxes, Tim Walberg