There’s little doubt that Republicans love mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money in our political process and elections. And it’s no wonder. They benefit more from the increased limits on political donations more than Democrats. Considerably more. What they especially love is money where the donors can be kept secret. That way, the donors don’t have to answer to anyone […]

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Lt. Gov. Brian Calley has been taking off every Wednesday to hop a flight to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend classes at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in order to get a master’s degree in public administration. Calley defends this paid time off to go to school, saying, “I’ve got no scholarships or help […]

A new poll of 400 registered voters in Michigan’s 6th Congressional District, conducted by Hamilton Campaigns, done for the Paul Clements campaign, shows that Clements is in a statistical dead heat with Fred Upton. The poll shows Clements down by only 4 points, 47-43%, but within the margin of error of 4.9 points. This is an astonishing switch from a […]

I have liked Shari Pollesch from the first moment I met her. She is engaging, funny, and whip smart. When I learned that she was running for Senate against the ultra-conservative Joe Hune, however, I was dubious that she would stand a chance. However, Pollesch insisted that she did have a chance and was unshakeable in that belief. One of […]

Back in September, Harry Enten wrote a piece on Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog taking GOP pollster Steve Mitchell to the woodshed for adjusting his polling when he didn’t get the answer he wanted. Mitchell had polled several races in Michigan and, when the numbers didn’t agree with what he thought they should be, he went back to the phones to […]

Stuff just got real Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has been pretty deft at shrugging off the many scandals that have enveloped his administration. But the most recent one, the awarding of $26.4 million in state contracts to a campaign donor might be one he can’t shrug off. Today, my friends at Progress Michigan announced that they have filed a Hatch […]

I’ve never fully understood the loathing that the GOP feels for Obamacare. After all, it was essentially their idea to begin with and it was proven to work by their very own presidential candidate in 2012, Mitt Romney, when he implemented it in Massachusetts. But now I have figured it out. I realized the true answer after I saw this […]

A short time ago, I posted about the insane amount of money the DeVos family is dumping into the coffers of the Michigan Republican Party this cycle. As I said in that post, the only way to defeat that sort of cash buying our elections is by getting out the vote (GOTV). Last weekend, a coalition of labor groups and […]

The best democracy money can buy As we get into the final week of the campaign season before next Tuesday’s election, there is a massive amount of money being spent, mainly on television ads and mailings, trying to sway voters. On the Republican side in Michigan, it’s no secret that one family, the massively wealthy DeVos family, is dominating the […]

The Koch brothers are in the news a lot these days. Yeah, they are written about IN news stories, of course. But that’s not what I’m talking about. The Koch brothers are in the news by actually creating the news in a way that promotes their own corporatist ideology that anything that is good for private corporations is good. Period. […]

There are two judicial races on the ballot this year in Washtenaw County. One is for Probate Court. You can read my interview with Tracy Van den Bergh who is running in that race HERE. The other is for the Circuit Court. Veronique Liem is one of the people running for the Circuit Court seat. Her progressive values and concern […]