Posted on 03/15/2014 11:10:15 PM PDT by Libloather
Democrats are facing their toughest Michigan Senate fight in two decades.
A sour national political climate, a little-known candidate and big spending by conservative outside groups have given Republicans a real shot at winning an open seat and boosted their chances at seizing Senate control.
Republicans had all but written off the Democratic-leaning state last summer after they failed to recruit either Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) or Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) to run, leaving them with former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (R) as their nominee.
But President Obama’s dismal poll numbers, millions spent by conservative groups and Land’s high name recognition compared to Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) have given her a small lead in most recent public polling.
Land is also building a big campaign warchest, and has $3.4 million to Peters’s $2.9 million. Michigan also behaves a lot more like a swing state in midterm elections than presidential years.
“The race is close. It will be close. Off-year elections here are often close,” says Michigan-based pollster Ed Sarpolus.
Some Democrats are nervous.
“This is a national race. If we lose Michigan, it's over for us controlling the Senate,” said one Democrat involved in the race. “This race has become more competitive… We have to take this campaign to a different level now.”
Democrats also worry privately about infighting between the state’s unions, which Democrats rely on more in Michigan than anywhere else, and former Rep. Mark Schauer’s (D-Mich.) struggling gubernatorial campaign.
Most believe the race is still Peters’s to lose, however. No Republican has won a Senate race in Michigan since 1994, and Democrats think Land’s small edge in the polls is due mostly to her position as former statewide official. They say when both sides begin spending in earnest Peters will bounce back.
Americans for Prosperity, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, has already spent $2 million blasting Peters for his ObamaCare support.
Those attacks went unanswered for two months until the pro-Democratic Senate Majority PAC launched $450,000 worth of ads tying Land to the Koch brothers in late February. Democrats admit the ads hurt Peters some in the polls, and served as a wake-up call for donors and activists in the state.
“The Kochs beating up Gary was a big deal,” said the Michigan Democratic strategist. “This race is absolutely in a different place than it was before… For the first time people are saying 'this is going to be more work than we thought.’”
President Obama’s approval rating and ObamaCare’s early struggles are also taking a toll. Obama’s approval rating has hovered slightly above 40 percent in most polls in a state he won by 9 percentage points in 2012.
Peters recently replaced his campaign manager, bringing in Paul Tencher, a well-regarded Democratic tactician who helped Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) pull off his come-from-behind 2012 win.
Tencher, who’s leaving the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, acknowledged the high stakes.
“Michigan is an important state. It's a real middle-class place that Democrats fight for and is essential to our mission,” he told The Hill. “And keeping the majority is a very important thing, not only for Americans but for working-class people here in Michigan.”
Peters has been hitting Land for the Koch ads, attacking her for supporting a new Michigan law that bars insurance companies from covering abortion in most cases, and ripping her for opposing the auto bailout many in Michigan believe helped Michigan avoid major job losses.
Land’s campaign plans to rip Peters for his support of Obama’s priorities, including ObamaCare, climate change legislation and the stimulus.
“The number one thing in Michigan is jobs and the economy, and Congressman Peters's record is riddled with expensive, failed economic policies like the stimulus bill,” says Land spokeswoman Heather Swift. “Terri, as a mom and a small business owner, has the right ideas for Michigan families.
The race could hinge on how well Land presents herself when the race engages in earnest and she comes under closer scrutiny. She has kept a very low profile, mostly avoiding the press, and when she has talked publicly has committed minor gaffes.
“She misspeaks,” Sarpolus said. “For the last several months they have been hiding Terri Lynn Land, they haven't been putting her out there and letting her speak. She has a history of making misstatements.”
Embrace the suck RATs!!
......wonder if it will fall off..../snicker
Michigan ping
Tencher’s crocodile tears tell the whole story. If the Dems had cared for the “middle class working people”, they wouldn’t have let Detroit go under (esp. by electing a hardcore Communist Party member like Coleman Young as mayor, nor electing two other Party supporters like Maryanne Mahafey and Erma Henderson as heads of the city council. Never mind other leftists like Jackie Vaugh, Sander and Carl Levin, George Crockett, Jr., John Conyers, Jr., etc).
They got what they wanted, and got it in spades. And who suffered the most, the middle class that Tencher now wants to save.
Hypocrisy has no limits and neither do the Democrats.
Detroit is a textbook example of what liberal policies accomplish.
“big spending by conservative outside groups”
The media always point this out for a conservative. This one is in the second paragraph. Later they bring in the Koch brothers as agreed upon.
The media never point out liberal groups, or if they do, they are never “outside” group labeled.
Kind of like the claim of “gaffes” without giving any examples.
They’re just trying to set the tone.
I would like to see jail time for all in the not to distant future, but the piubs will let these snakes walk
Give 'ol Harry a comfortable chair---and tell him not to worry about all those silly electrical switches laying around.
Harry'll just love his brand-new cardboard desk (some assembly required)......, although I hear phone service isn't hooked up down there yet. Too bad.
Yet another example of how this election is shaping up to be the most competitive in years, as the ‘safe’ Democrat seats suddenly become ‘in play’ due to multiple conditions. First change is the simple math of more competitive campaigns means less money available for specific candidates. Second is the tradition that 6th year elections are almost always bad for the sitting President’s party.
Now add to this, Obama’s anchor of the ACA / Obamacare and the lockstep of Democrat affirmative votes which is now haunting their campaigns. Add Obama’s sinking poll numbers that even the most sympathetic MSM hosts find difficult to deny and the reasons as well. Pile on top of this the fact that many of the funding and politicking sources, like unions, find themselves cash-strapped and in reduced membership.
Finally, add in a FECKLESS Community Organizer, who daily demonstrates his inability in foreign affairs, in a still struggling ‘recovery’ that has gone far beyond the previous meme of blaming Bush’43 and sounding increasingly desperate to make Executive Orders and Departmental rule changes (EPA, DoJ, IRS, etc.) the law rather than legislatively, and you have someone who appears to be depending upon societal guilt and his liberal base as his sole remaining justifications. Where previous administrations would turn to the center and work with the opposition, he hardens his stance and says he will rule with a phone and a pen!
It will be a FAILURE of our society if President Obama is not dealt a stinging defeat this fall but he has had so many rebounds that I take nothing for granted. I will be making my judicious contributions to candidates and causes that I believe in this year, far beyond what I have done before. I hope that my fellow FReepers, those who can afford it, will do the same!
Michigan Democrat Rep. Gary Peters threatens TV station licenses over Obamacare ad
Washington Examiner ^ | 2/22/14 | Charles Hoskinson / FR Posted on Sunday, February 23, 2014 by Libloather
While Julie Boonstra of Dexter, Mich., struggles to survive leukemia, she now also has to cope with being called a liar by Gary Peters, the Democrat who wants to be her next senator. And the campaign of Rep. Peters is also going after television stations airing ads in which her story is featured, threatening their licenses.
The ad by Americans for Prosperity features Boonstra talking about how her insurance was canceled under Obamacare and saying that Peters' decision to vote for the law "jeopardized my health." The ads are airing in Michigan as Peters seeks the Democratic nomination to replace Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who is not seeking re-election. (Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
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JUST A FRIENDLY SUGGESTION: Gary Peters should get
professional help---he appears to be having bouts of schizophrenia.
BACKSTORY Democrat Peters was once all gaga over Obamacare---dripping w/ pride b/c he had voted in lockstep with fellow Democrats to enact the "Big Effin' Deal" (as Joe Biden called it).
GO FIGURE Now Peters is toying with the First Amendment---
threatening TV station licenses over an ad that shows how much he likes Obamacare.
WATTA LUNKHEAD Peters is so dam unappreciative---heck, Joe Biden came to Detroit---Raising Money for Cong Gary Peters’ Senate Race. (Jonathan Oosting, “VP Joe Biden To Do Fundraiser For Gary Peters,” MLive, 1/15/14) <
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BACKSTORY As far back as 2008, at the presidential debate in Nashville, Democrat candidate Obama advanced his signature healthcare plan---ultimately enacted, by an historic straight Democrat party-line vote, into the "Affordable Care Act."
QUOTING 2008 OBAMA: "No. 1, let me just repeat, if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I’m going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You’ll still have choice of doctor.” Repeated over and over ---- with the promise that every American family would be saving $2500.00 on healthcare costs.
Significantly, Obamba NEVER corrected lock-stepping Democrats, all reading from the same Democrat talking points, all of them repeating the same Democrat promises---over and over again.
LOCK-STEPPING PARTY LOYALTY NOT SEEN SINCE 1930-40's ERA EUROPE Obama And the Dems marched in lockstep.....the persistent Dumbocrat drumbeat ---- in obeisance to Obama ---- kept ringing reassuringly in our ears: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
PETERS' AYE VOTE FOR OBAMACARE Democrat Cong Gary Peters Voted To Pass ObamaCare. (H.R. 3590, Roll Call Vote #165, Passed 219-212: R 0-178; D 219-34, 3/21/10, Peters Voted Yea)
PETERS CELEBRATES OBAMACARE In March 2013, Democrat Cong Gary Peters Celebrated The Third Anniversary Of ObamaCare’s Passage and Highlighted How O/Care Is Helping Michiganders.
“Today Rep. Gary Peters marked Saturday as the 3rd anniversary of the Affordable Care Act becoming law by highlighting the many ways it’s helping families across Michigan. Democrat Peters criticized Lansing Republicans for refusing to partner in the state health care exchange marketplace.”
FACT SOURCE: Press Release, “Democrat Congressman Gary Peters Marks The 3rd Anniversary Of The Affordable Care Act--Highlighting How It’s Already Helping Michiganders,” Rep. Gary Peters, 3/22/13)
Looks like a Democrat/Mainstream Media war on women. Of course, it if the women are Republicans it is a virtuous act to attack them.
Thanks for posting that. I recalled some details of it, but not enough to post about it. That smells like desperation and the GOP knows Peter’s breaking point. The Obamacare ads are going to sink him and he will become more unhinged.
Yup-—betcha Peters is swilling vodka and valium as we type (/snix).
The blockbuster Jolly campaign ad referenced lock-stepping Dems saluting smartly to der leader.
Jolly lit into Sink's DNC-approved campaign promise to go to Washington to "fix" the train wreck Obamacare.
Jolly said the district needs a rep who will defend THEIR interests---not those of Obama.
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