Last night, Gov. Rick Snyder held what was billed as a “public town hall” but was, in actuality a campaign rally given that the host and emcee were unabashed Snyder supporters and seven out of the eight questions he answered were softballs pitched by supporters. The room was less than half full despite Snyder’s press flacks claiming they had turned […]

After facing withering criticism for failing to agree to debate Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer, Republican Governor Rick Snyder announced with great fanfare that he was going to do ten town hall meetings where voters could ask him questions. They said Schauer was welcome to tag along if he wanted, and then slammed him with a truly unprofessional insult, calling […]

After claiming he was going to run a strictly positive campaign, Gov. Rick Snyder has a new negative attack ad out that features a retired teacher named Linda Thaler. Turns out that she lives literally right next door to Snyder’s vacation home on Gun Lake in Middleville, Michigan. The reality is that, despite Ms. Thayer’s contention otherwise, her neighbor and […]

ACCESS TO GOVERNOR’S CHIEF OF STAFF SOLD AT RECENT REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE An exposé by the New York Times shows that access to officials in the administrations of a number of Republican governors can be had by corporate America as long as they were willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars: [A]n error by the Republican Governors Association recently resulted […]

Ingham County Treasurer Eric Schertzing released an internal poll today showing him within striking distance of Republican Mike Bishop. Schertzing is down just 5 points, 42-37, in a poll with a 4.9 point margin of error. In the same poll, when respondents were read “a balanced series of positive messages about both candidates”, the two are tied at 43-43. This […]

Pam Byrnes, the Democratic candidate in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District received a key endorsement of her race to unseat Tea Party Caucus member Republican Tim Walberg. This morning was endorsed by the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce who call her “a champion of women’s economic priorities”. Here’s the endorsement statement from Margot Dorfman, CEO of the U.S. Women’s Chamber of […]

NOTE: With the impending election, trying to keep up with all of the news is like drinking from a firehose and, with a day job and other activities I’m involved in, I simply don’t have time to do an individual blog post for everything that is going on. I’m considering doing a “grab bag” like this one every day or […]

Several items of interest to report in Michigan’s 2014 gubernatorial campaign this afternoon. First, another poll out today shows Mark Schauer in a statistical dead heat with incumbent Republican governor Rick Snyder. This poll, by Vanguard Public Affairs, has Snyder up by just 3.2 points with a margin of error of 4 points. In the same poll, Gary Peters is […]

Back when Michigan legislators were debating whether to expand Medicaid in our state through the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), Rick Snyder expressed his concern that our state didn’t “have enough capacity to put essentially 400,000 more people into a medical home model with a primary care environment, as opposed to having them simply go to an ER”. That’s the sort […]

This past weekend, the Chairs of both the Michigan Republican Party, Bobby Schostak, and the Michigan Democratic Party, Lon Johnson appeared on Fox 2’s “Let it Rip!” program to discuss the upcoming election. Schostak showed up without a tie, carrying an aloof and almost derisive attitude. He struggled to defend his candidates time and again. In contrast, Johnson was well-dressed, […]

The national media has finally figured out what our Chris Savage has been saying all year — Republicans never wanted Terri Lynn Land as their candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan. Avoiding debates, skirting the press, and making no scheduled public appearances isn’t her strategy. It’s a reaction to self-destructing after just a few questions from the press during a […]