MONDAY
• Battle Creek Public Schools Board of Education, 5:30 p.m., administrative offices, third floor of Willard Library.
• Marshall City Council, 6 p.m., City Hall.
• Springfield City Council, 7:30 p.m., City Hall.
TUESDAY
• Marengo Township Board of Trustees, 7 p.m., Township Hall. WEDNESDAY
• Calhoun County Road Commission, 5:30 p.m., Road Commission office, 13300 15-Mile Road, Marshall.
THURSDAY
• Calhoun County Board of Commissioners, 7 p.m., commissioners' meeting room, county building, Marshall.
• Post/Franklin Neighborhood Planning Council, 7 p.m., Community Action Agency board room, 175 Main St.
• Vermontville Village Council, 7 p.m., Village Hall.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Public Meetings
One thing I hope to do with this blog is post information about public meetings. Anyway, from the Enquirer..
Friday, June 26, 2009
Divisions in the Conservative Ranks?
The reason I ask is because of these two articles...
First...
This guy seems to be a one issue candidate. He's also a former factory worker and I doubt he will make much of an impact. Still though, if the teabaggers don't come out for Nofs or worse, run against him, it could cause enough of a problem to hurt him in the special election. This is unusual for a group that is normally very united and lockstep.
First...
A new, conservative grassroots organization that considers itself part of the tea party movement will be in town next week to warn people about the voting record of former state Rep. Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek.
Nofs is running in the Republican primary for the 19th District Senate seat. The New Patriot Revolution is not a fan. ``He is a nice guy. He just doesn't have a very good record in terms of tax and spending,'' group member Wendy Day said.
Now another independent right winger is joining the race...
Athens resident Steven Mobley announced Thursday he will join the race for Michigan's 19th District Senate seat as an independent candidate.
Mobley, 51, made the announcement in front of about 20 people at the Burnham Brook Community Center in Battle Creek.
Along with keeping a close eye on government spending, Mobley said he would push for passage of the Michigan Fair Tax, which replaces the state's income tax with a higher sales tax.
This guy seems to be a one issue candidate. He's also a former factory worker and I doubt he will make much of an impact. Still though, if the teabaggers don't come out for Nofs or worse, run against him, it could cause enough of a problem to hurt him in the special election. This is unusual for a group that is normally very united and lockstep.
Monday, January 12, 2009
NRCC Target List
It's up on Kos and Michigan Liberal and getting some discussion. Here are the targets...
The Bolds are mine. Anyhoo, the targeting of Schauer and Peters isn't a surprise given that they're both first term congressmen. I don't know much about the 9th but the 7th should be interesting. Despite being a Republican district the bench of GOP legislators is rather thin. The state representatives for Calhoun (a majority of it anyway), Jackson, and Lenawee counties are all Democrats. The last three congressmen have all been in the state legislature at one point or another. Walberg might try for a re-match but I doubt the GOP will be thrilled with a man who lost what was previously a safe seat for the GOP. Nofs is the former state representative but he is more interested in Schauer's vacant State Senate seat. Most of the 2004 GOP primary slate outside of Schwarz and Walberg has been out of the limelight for some time. The chances for the GOP to regain this seat are decent, but not as great as they could be.
The shock is that they want to go after Stupak who is a long time incumbent and won his seat with over sixty percent of the vote. Unless they know something we don't about his retirement plans, targeting the Michigan 1st is a waste of time and resources.
Of course, if the Democratic congress is an epic failure, then throw this post out the window.
Bobby Bright (AL-02)
Parker Griffith (AL-05)
Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ-01)
Harry Mitchell (AZ-05)
Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08)
Jerry McNerney (CA-11)
Betsy Markey (CO-04)
Jim Himes (CT-04)
Alan Grayson (FL-08)
Ron Klein (FL-22)
Suzanne Kosmas (FL-24)
Jim Marshall (GA-08)
John Barrow (GA-12)
Debbie Halvorson (IL-11)
Joe Donnelly (IN-02)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-08)
Baron Hill (IN-09)
Dennis Moore (KS-03)
Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Frank Kratovil (MD-01)
Bart Stupak (MI-01)
Mark Schauer (MI-07)
Gary Peters (MI-09)
Tim Walz (MN-01)
Travis Childers (MS-01)
Dina Titus (NV-03)
Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01)
John Adler (NJ-03)
Martin Heinrich (NM-01)
Harry Teague (NM-02)
Michael McMahon (NY-13)
Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20)
Michael Arcuri (NY-24)
Dan Maffei (NY-25)
Eric Massa (NY-29)
Larry Kissell (NC-08)
Steve Driehaus (OH-01)
Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15)
John Boccieri (OH-16)
Zack Space (OH-18)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03)
Jason Altmire (PA-04)
Chris Carney (PA-10)
Paul Kanjorski (PA-11)
Glenn Nye (VA-02)
Tom Perriello (VA-05)
Gerry Connolly (VA-11)
Chet Edwards (TX-17)
Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23)
Steve Kagen (WI-08)
The Bolds are mine. Anyhoo, the targeting of Schauer and Peters isn't a surprise given that they're both first term congressmen. I don't know much about the 9th but the 7th should be interesting. Despite being a Republican district the bench of GOP legislators is rather thin. The state representatives for Calhoun (a majority of it anyway), Jackson, and Lenawee counties are all Democrats. The last three congressmen have all been in the state legislature at one point or another. Walberg might try for a re-match but I doubt the GOP will be thrilled with a man who lost what was previously a safe seat for the GOP. Nofs is the former state representative but he is more interested in Schauer's vacant State Senate seat. Most of the 2004 GOP primary slate outside of Schwarz and Walberg has been out of the limelight for some time. The chances for the GOP to regain this seat are decent, but not as great as they could be.
The shock is that they want to go after Stupak who is a long time incumbent and won his seat with over sixty percent of the vote. Unless they know something we don't about his retirement plans, targeting the Michigan 1st is a waste of time and resources.
Of course, if the Democratic congress is an epic failure, then throw this post out the window.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
From my Inbox: The PCCC
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is a group dedicated to electing more progressive Democrats to office by providing them with the tools needed to run an efficient, effective campaign. Here is part of the e-mail where they discuss their current priorities...
Nothing much to discuss here. I had the honor to work with a well run campaign over the summer and fall. Having the right people in place is essential.
The first sentence I agree with. Video editing technology is sophisticated, widely available and can easily be learned. As far as using wikis for opposition research however, I'm a little more skeptical. I would never use Wikipedia as a source for a paper for class because it often is unreliable and entries can be falsified. In order for opposition research to be most effective it needs to be true. Also, if you just make stuff up or pull information from an unreliable source you lose the high ground which does not help a progressive campaign.
These days a well designed website which is updated regularly is essential and shows the public you have a well organized, vibrant campaign.
Overall, this e-mail shows that the PCCC is on the right track as far as taking organizing to the next level. There isn't much about the field program, but if this group continues to grow I suspect that will be discussed closer to the 2010 midterms. This also shows that the Left is still light years ahead of the Right who is fixated on Twitter.
Job #1 -- helping candidates find super-competent, progressive campaign managers. Too often, folks hire their "political friends" or inexperienced staff. Every relevant decision of the campaign will stem from the campaign management -- including whether to spend money wisely and whether to campaign progressively. And to the extent that consultants are needed, we'll introduce campaigns to outside-the-box-thinking progressives like Bill Hillsman (Paul Wellstone and Ned Lamont's ad guy) and Steve Eichenbaum (Russ Feingold and Tom Perriello's ad guy).
Nothing much to discuss here. I had the honor to work with a well run campaign over the summer and fall. Having the right people in place is essential.
Job #2 -- working with campaigns to implement best practices. One top progressive campaign in 2008 went months with a large field staff that had no daily metrics for success. Basic stuff like that can't happen.
Best practices also means innovation. Technology gives us a golden opportunity to replace some formerly-needed consultants with modern-day people power. As I said in the Huff Post piece, paying TV consultants thousands of bucks for a YouTube video is a waste of money. Opposition research consultants will someday be replaced by the wiki. The examples go on and on. Campaign spending must transform to account for and embrace people-powered technology. Our team of former MoveOn organizers, labor and campaign organizers, and the co-inventor of RSS & Reddit is uniquely suited to help campaigns know how to use the Internet to run people-powered campaigns. And we'll show candidates how to work as partners with the blogosphere and overall progressive community (emphasis mine).
The first sentence I agree with. Video editing technology is sophisticated, widely available and can easily be learned. As far as using wikis for opposition research however, I'm a little more skeptical. I would never use Wikipedia as a source for a paper for class because it often is unreliable and entries can be falsified. In order for opposition research to be most effective it needs to be true. Also, if you just make stuff up or pull information from an unreliable source you lose the high ground which does not help a progressive campaign.
Job #3 -- economies of scale. As mentioned above, why do so many candidates spend weeks of staff time and thousands of dollars designing a lackluster website that doesn't have people-powered functionality? It makes no sense. Why not just have a progressive entity that designs the perfect website once and gets it to progressive candidates? There are a bunch of similar economies of scale that can be had to avoid reinventing broken wheels.
These days a well designed website which is updated regularly is essential and shows the public you have a well organized, vibrant campaign.
Overall, this e-mail shows that the PCCC is on the right track as far as taking organizing to the next level. There isn't much about the field program, but if this group continues to grow I suspect that will be discussed closer to the 2010 midterms. This also shows that the Left is still light years ahead of the Right who is fixated on Twitter.
We're All Keynesians Now
A little side project blog of mine. It may very well be the main project. Local stuff just isn't as cool and stuff doesn't happen as frequently as it will with Depression 2.0.
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