Every Vote Counts

On Tuesday:

• 300,000 Democrats stayed home, compared to the 2006 Gubernatorial election
• 340,000 Independents stayed home, compared to the 2006 Gubernatorial election
• there were only 72,300 more Republican votes this election than 2006.

In 2006, just like this year, the Governor, AG, Secretary of State, State Senate, State House, Congress, Supreme Court...all were up for election.  Granholm, unpopular, was facing Dick DeVos and his gobs of money.

300,000 Democratic votes, Indies notwithstanding (53% of whom were trending Democratic just 2 weeks out from the election), means Jocelyn Benson beats Ruth Johnson by 100,000 for Secretary of State.  It means David Leyton beats Bill Schuette for AG by 19,000.  It probably means Dems don't lose 9 incumbents in the State House, and win more than 2 of 13 "battleground" races.

It means Jennifer Haase, who led by double-digits less than a week before the election, doesn't lose her seat to a 23 year old waitress in a greasy spoon who still lives at home with her parents.

But Dem turnout was so poor - 15% in Detroit - that despite being up in the polls, the Jennifer Haases of the state lose.

Every vote counts.  I know loyal ATK readers vote.  But if any...any of your friends and colleagues bitch about the results, show them this blog post. If they, too, didn't vote and would have voted Dem, print a copy of this blog post and make them eat it. All of it. With no gravy or ketchup.

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Slaughterhouse 2010, Michigan Edition

Quite a night in Michigan politics. This is just a quick update; more detail forthcoming in the comments when I have time.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans took the Governor/Lt Governor (welcome Governor Rick Snyder and Brian Calley), The Secretary of State (Ruth Johnson) and the Attorney General (Bill Schuette).

Still somewhat unsurprisingly (but less so), the Republicans gained a super-majority in the State Senate. They have held that Chamber for a decade now, but Dems have controlled enough to be able to raise some procedural Hell when they needed to make a statement. But after last night, Republicans hold that chamber 26-12. The next Majority Leader in the State Senate is likely to be Senator Randy Richardville from Monroe. Actually a really good guy and a class-act. Little comfort for the Dems, though. No Democratic incumbents lost, but not that many were coming back anyway, what with 29 of the 38 seats being open due to term limits.

The surprise was that the Dems lost majority in the House. They started with 67 seats and last night the Republicans regained the House 63-47. That's nearly a 20-seat swing, folks. Equally shocking were the number of incumbents that lost: 9. 9 Democratic incumbents lost their seats, and Dems lost all but 2 open seats that were "in play." Jase Bolger, a Republican from Marshall (H/T to the home of Dark Horse Brewing Company!) is the next likely Speaker of the House. Of 13 "battleground" open seats (there were many more open seats, but many of those are safe...or were...), Dems won exactly 2 of them. 2.

Hell, Gary Peters, one of our Congressmen from Oakland County, barely won re-election against a guy who changed his name to "Rocky." Mark Schauer, a Dem with a mild manner, brains, and a decent policy mind, lost to the demon-spawn of Grandpa Simpson and Herman Munster. Gary McDowell, a Dem trying to replace long-serving Bart Stupak in the Democratic 1st District U.P. congressional seat, lost to a Tea Party candidate and birther.

In August, Michigan's Supreme Court was tipped 4-3 in favor of Dems when Granholm appointed Justice Alton Thomas Davis to replace outgoing "Republican" Justice Betty Weaver. Davis lost his chance at election last night, as voters returned incumbent Justice Bob Young and placed Mary Beth Kelly on the bench; it is highly unusual for a non-incumbent (Kelly) to beat an incumbent (Davis), but given how the votes went last night, and the fact that Kelly and Young ran together and even had their names together on yard signs, it's no big surprise.

At least we won't have to waste our time with a constitutional convention. That proposal get killed.

Now to pick up the pieces, figure out whose ass to kiss, and get busy!

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Lies, BS, and Campaign Ads

I was driving my 7 year old to school the other day and she commented on an ad she saw on TV. Basically, she said she wouldn't vote for one of the candidates because she heard he wanted to get rid of social security and she didn't think that was fair. While I agreed that wasn't fair, I also pointed out that most claims in ads are not true, or at least only partially true.

This year is no exception. If you are unlucky enough to live in the Mid-Michigan Area, you probably have seen the ads for Mark Schauer and Tim Walberg. I would seriously consider not voting for either of them based on how bad those ads are. That being said, they are not all that unusual. We are often treted to negative ads where one candidate distorts the record and positions of their opponent. Fortunately, a voter has some fact checking resources and can see what is what with a minimal amount of effort.

This isn't always the case. In the last few weeks, I have started to see ads for the Michigan Supreme Court. They started off with the typical "tough on crime" and "fair and just" type. Michigan, unfortunately, has s system where we elect the Supreme Court for a fixed term. The Court gets little coverage and I would guess that most people couldn't name a single Justice. Most people that are running just try and get their name out and hope that voters will remember come election time. Another interesting aspect of our state is that Justices are non-partisan. While this seems like a good idea, both parties still claim their candidates and run ads. In addition, a variety of other advocacy groups run ads.

These ads are especially annoying because they rely on people's ignorance of how the State Supreme Court works and present an overly simplistic view. They will take a case where a Justice may have supported the free speech rights of some obnoxious bigot and say that it shows the Justice supports the bigot. This is simply not true and is grossly unfair.

There is an ad that is being run against candidate Bob Young that was paid for by several environmental groups. I couldn't find that ad, but found a very similar one that was put out by the Michigan Democratic Party. Here it is:



Holy Shit! Bob Young would let polluters off the hook. That isn't good and voters certainly deserve to know if he would, or did, do this. The TV ad focuses mostly on the claim that Young would prevent citizens from being able to sue a company that perpetrated some major BP-style disaster. In support of this, they list a case at the bottom of the screen in tiny print, MCWC v. Nestle, 479 Mich 280 (2007). I was skeptical and wondered if this case could show that Young was as bad as the ad says.

The above mentioned case deals with an environmental group that sued Nestle to enjoin them from operating a bottled water plant in Michigan. I remember when this was going on and it was controversial. The rather dull 36 page case boils down to a question of standing. Young basically said that in regards to one of the lakes, the plaintiffs did not have standing and could not proceed. Standing is legal principal that goes back hundreds of years and was the topic of many of the first cases heard by the US Supreme Court. It has been well litigated and is very well established. In order to have standing, a plaintiff must establish 3 things:

1. Injury: The plaintiff must have suffered or imminently will suffer injury—an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized. The injury must be actual or imminent, distinct and palpable, not abstract. This injury could be economic as well as non-economic.

2. Causation: There must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of, so that the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant and not the result of the independent action of some third party who is not before the court.

3. Redressability: It must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that a favorable court decision will redress the injury.

Young said that the plaintiff did not satisfy the first requirement. The facts showed that none of the plaintiffs lived on or near the lake in question, so that they could not have suffered any injury. What the group should have done was add a plaintiff that lived on that lake. There is a ton of case law that supports Young's conclusion and it is not an area of law that is all that novel. In other words, Young most likely made the right decision that was supported by past cases, both at the state and federal level.

Young may very well be a tool of corporations, but this ad is deceptive and misleading. I have a hard time making the leap from that decision to say that he would allow polluters to have a free ride. I should note that I am in no way endorsing Bob Young, nor do I want to just pick on the people that oppose him. I would like to point out that if you are going to vote for a Supreme Court Justice, you should be basing your decision on logic and reason, not BS conjecture.

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Unhinged

Sure, it was a stupid political stunt, and this is a stupid season, but stomping on her head? Bet that took a real man to do this, dumb-fuck hick.

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Representative Murray Hill, Inc. (R - Maryland 8)

From Think Progress:

Corporation Runs For Maryland Congressional Seat To Protest SCOTUS Campaign Finance Decision

The PR firm's press release is priceless.

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress and released its first campaign video on www.youtube.com/user/murrayhillcongress

“Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”

Murray Hill Inc. is believed to be the first “corporate person” to exercise its constitutional right to run for office. [emphasis mine]

Yes, I know they are kidding, and this is satirical, but it proves a point about the bigger issue: this "corporations are people" thing. I know we had a really great discussion about it here, but I just can't agree with that notion and I think it has to change. Check out the rest of the presser. It has one quip after another about putting people 2nd, and antiquated "human-only" laws.

Their campaign ad:Funny stuff, and makes a point. After all, as their campaign slogan goes: Murray Hill Inc. plans on spending “top dollar” to protect its investment. “It’s our democracy,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “We bought it, we paid for it, and we’re going to keep it.”

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SOTU Open Thread

State of the Union Coverage:

Full Text at the New York Times.

New York Times coverage.

Washington Post coverage.

FiveThirtyEight coverage.

Mr. Furious reaction.

Thoughts? Comments? Critiques?

NOTE: If any of my ATK colleagues have a full SOTU post, commentary or analysis ready to go, feel free to bump this post.

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Video Fun - Get Some Balls!

Timely, political, funny and related to beer.

What more could you ask for in a video?

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The Suppression of The Little Guy

The Supreme Court of the United States today ruled to ease restrictions on corporate campaign donations. This statement from CNN reflects my sentiments:

The Supreme Court has given big business, unions and nonprofits more power to spend freely in federal elections, a major turnaround that threatens a century of government efforts to regulate the power of corporations to bankroll American politics. [emphasis added]

.Says Obama:

The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics...It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.

This, again, reflects my sentiment well. Of course, I am not surprised Obama is not a giant fan of this decision; he raised gobs on money online a couple bucks at a time. But that was when raising gobs of money online could be competitive with limitations set on corporate giving. Now? There's no way you or I can compete. In my mind, the playing field was level when a Wall Street Exec or Random Mega Rich Guy had the same giving limits as me. But now? This Fall will make 2008 look like a school bake sale by comparison.

From supporters of the decision:

The Supreme Court's decision today is a victory for the First Amendment and the right of all Americans to participate in the political process," said Theodore Olson, who successfully argued the case for the conservative Citizens United

I get that everyone is protected by the First Amendment, but this statement is tied to a much older decision whereby "corporations" are "people." I'm not a fan of that train of thought at all. Where this sentiment really bothers me is in Kennedy's majority opinion:

When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. "The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."

Corporations can have PACs, and this is unaffected by this decision. A PAC is how they exercise their opinions, as corporations, about candidates. What a corporation has that I do not have, as a real person, not a "corporate" person, is enough money, unlimited in some cases, to really really really make my voice heard.

The problem extends itself. How many, say, progressive corporations and labor unions are there? And how many conservative corporations are there? And how many more of one is there than the other, and what are their combined voices, and more importantly, their combined media-buying power, capable of in terms of influence above and beyond the other?

And why the fuck should a corporation, who is not a person, have that kind of say anyway?

Let's take this out of the realm of "this is bad for Democrats/Progressives." This is simply a bad ruling that yet again places corporate interests above and beyond the ability of the average citizen to find equal voice in the political arena.

The issue hinged on whether corporations' ability to pour money into election campaigns could be strictly regulated, or whether corporations have free-speech rights to spend their cash to influence elections, just as individual donors do. In this ruling, the justices also nullified earlier rulings upholding the core of a 6-year-old federal law aimed at curbing corporate campaign spending. Under current law, there are severe restrictions on campaign ads used by corporations for federal elections. They generally must be issue-focused -- talking about abortion or taxes, for instance -- and not expressly supporting or opposing a candidate. Those limits have now been generally removed.

I think even giving corporations the ability to weigh-in on issues was bad enough, but at least their power to silence me was limited to a certain extent. Unless I really really cared about the issue ad, I'd skip it.

the bottom line for me: What this does is force political candidates to bow further to corporate interests so that they can reap the benefits of even more money.

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Does Obama Get It?

A small amount of hope that Obama understands the path to victory?

Read this ABC News interview with the President following Tuesdays election.

It’s a good read and a little reassuring.


(H/T Balloon Juice.)

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Lawyers for Terrorists?

One of the themes we should expect to hear in the 2010 election is that "Obama" gave a terrorist a taxpayer-funded lawyer hours after he tried to blow up a plane over Detroit.

Please can a lawyer tell me, once the guy landed in Detroit, wouldn't we be required to give him a lawyer? What were our other options?

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Well There. You. Go.

If these numbers change much over the next 3 hours before I go to bed, I will be shocked:

CNN has projected that Republican Scott Brown will win the senate seat formerly held by the late Ted Kennedy. Standby for further results.

Precincts Reporting: 1,939 of 2,168 (89%)

Scott Brown (R) – 1,036,855 (52.4%)
Martha Coakley (D) – 921,459 (46.6%)
Joe Kennedy (I) – 19,867 (1.0%)

UPDATE

No real change:

Precincts Reporting: 2,154 of 2,168 (99%)

Scott Brown (R) – 1,153,808 (51.8%)
Martha Coakley (D) – 1,052,391 (47.2%)
Joe Kennedy (I) – 22,080 (1.0%)

This should make things fun for the rest of the year.

A friend of mine pointed out an interesting paradox that I am sure will come true. To paraphrase, he said that when Republicans lose, they make an appeal to their base. When Dems lose, they make an appeal...to the Republicans' base. "We need to be more like them!"

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Why would a Republican win in Massachusetts?

Should Scott Brown (R) beat Martha Coakley (D) in today’s special Senate election in Massachusetts as FiveThirtyEight is leaning, it will not be due to a left to right electoral shift. While the right-wing pundits will surely portray it that way, if you ask me, it is far more complicated than that.

My thoughts of why a Republican would win this seat, without any substantial detail and in no particular order:

1) Lazy Democrats – Democrats have horrible turnout in special elections.

2) Short voter memory – one year is enough to say that Republican administration wasn’t so bad after all?

3) Impatient electorate – one year is enough to start blaming Obama/Democrats for our problems and lack of economic turnaround?

4) Disenfranchised Democrats – While these fools hold out hope for the liberal utopian health care plan, they actually believe that no health care bill is better than what is proposed, so they won’t show up at the polls. My sister, with a preexisting condition, who buys her own health care would argue with them on that. (Considering Coakley would likely vote for a public option, if given the chance, this is especially stupid postion to hold.)

5) Crappy candidate – sounds like Coakley was a lazy and poor performing candidate. She did win a primary, so not sure who is to blame for that one.

Well, if this sinks the health care plan, it won’t be the first time the death of a Kennedy created disastrous consequences for the nation.

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A Public Service Announcement

This year is going to be a massive election year in Michigan, and probably a total disaster. But that means we "political insiders" on ATK will have plenty to talk about as Michigan's political season gets under way. Stay tuned for half-assery and mockery.

In brief, up for election this year:

• The Governor
• The Secretary of State
• The Attorney General
• All 15 members of Michigan's Congressional delegation
• All 38 State Senators, 31 of whom are term-limited and unable to run again
• All 110 State Representatives, 35 of whom are term-limited

As you can see, this will be an unmitigated disaster. The 31 open Senate seats will force competitive races between State Reps, some of whom are not term-limited, thus actually potentially opening up more House seats than the 35 already open.

The race for Governor is already, a week into the New Year, turned interesting. Democratic forerunner (and current Lieutenant Governor) John Cherry just announced his withdrawal yesterday, as Bob astutely pointed out. This nearly guarantees that Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero will end up entering the race, seeing himself as the only Democrat able to run against and beat a Republican this election cycle. Virg potentially faces former State Rep and health care nonprofit manager John Freeman(who??) and current State Rep Alma Wheeler Smith.

The Lansing Rumor Mill says to look out for one or both of these folks to enter the race because of Cherry's withdrawal: U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, and former Congressman David Bonior. Bonior ran with Alma Smith a cycle ago on the Extremely Liberal Wing of the Dem Party ticket. The Stabenow rumor comes amidst speculation that former GOP Governor John Engler is looking to move back to Michigan to run against Debbie is 2012. Debbie may allegedly decide that Governor is the best move for her, thus most likely sacrificing another Dem seat in the U.S. Senate, which Engler will most assuredly win. He is a political animal, and the infrastructure he created still functions (though having gotten rusty in his extended absence as Executive Director of the U.S. Manufacturers Association). But again, these are just rumors right now. The point is that Cherry's withdrawal does more to the Dems than just help Virg. It opens-up all sorts of possibilities and problems as the Dems search for a candidate that can somehow retain a Democratic Governorship despite Granholm's....performance.

**UPDATE**

As Bob pointed out in the comments section, I forgot one of the biggest wild cards: The current Speaker of the House, Andy Dillon (D - Redford Twp.). He was considering entering the race as an Independent, but again, with Cherry's withdrawal, the question deepens. Not only is it will he run, but will he run, and as an Indy? Or a Dem? Oh, sweet drama...

As for the Republicans, Ann Arbor businessman and former Gateway computers CEO Rick Snyder can be pretty much written-off as the Guv candidate. This leaves an interesting race between Congressman Pete Hoekstra (yeah, that Hoekstra), current Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard. Hoekstra has been under fire from even some of the folks in his West Michigan ultra dutch reform conservative base for his fundraising letter attempting to capitalize on an averted disaster to raise money for Governor. Hoekstra is current the GOP frontrunner in Michigan, with Cox a very close #2. Bouchard's #3 is not that distant, and there are still rumors all over Lansing about Congressperson Candace Miller and current Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land entering the GOP primary for Guv as well, but again, those are just rumors, and those ones have been sort of mainstay rumors. They have a truth of their own, even if they never happen.

More to come. It'll be a fun year...

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Governor of Michigan?

Now that it looks like Michigan’s Lt. Governor will be dropping out of the Governor’s race, I have one thing to say…

Smitty for Governor!

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