MI-7

[Adlai Stevenson]

Now that the centrist GOP congressman Joe Schwarz has suffered a defeat at the hands of an evangelical conservative State Representative Tim Walberg, does this bode a competetive race now the seat is open?  In this election year climate Walberg may be able to win amongst grassroots Republicans, but then only by 55%-45%.  If moderate Republicans voted with the Democratic nominee in this race I feel it could potentially be a toss-up.  MI-7 voted 58%-36% for Schwartz in 2004, he had a base there and outran Bush who won by 54%-45%.  The Democratic nominee is Sharon Renier, who lost to Schwartz in 2004.  However, I suppose this does mean she is known to most voters and surely her support will rise this year?

[Sam Spade]

I'm quoting my post here in the other thread:

Renier has zero money.  She also ran in this CD in 2004 on a campaign pledge to not raise any funds.  Maybe she's changed her mind since then, but she hasn't shown it yet.  She ran about 9% behind Kerry.

Until I see her raise money worth mentioning, I can't seriously put the race on the list, maybe on the lower edge of Likely R at best, but the best place is probably the Watch category.  Remember, Bush still got 54.7% in the CD, which already puts it close to the outer edge.

Interestingly, the Daily KOS/liberal blogs were backing Fred Stack, one of these military Dems.  He simply got killed (no pun intended) in the primary tonight.

Also, I think that Michigan, because of the economic problems, might be one of the few states that bucks the national anti-GOP trend come 2006.  It does happen, even in wave elections (and 2006 certainly might not be a wave election).

We'll see.  I think the GOP lucked out here, frankly.

[Nym90]

Hopefully the Democrats will start putting money into this race. It's definitely winnable. Plus, it would be nice to see a competitive House race in Michigan, something we haven't really had the last few cycles.

I'm not necessarily sure that Michigan will buck the anti-GOP trend. The economic problems bode poorly for incumbents across the board, which is hurting Granholm, but there is still a lot of anger and blame for the economic problems on the President. I can't really think of any examples where voters who were angry about a poor economy took out their anger soley on the party out of power in the Presidency. The bad economy hurts incumbents in both parties, but overall the mood in Michigan is still against the GOP since they are in complete control in Washington.

[TheresNoMoney]

I love how the defeat of Lieberman gets blated by the media but no one says a word about Schwarz's defeat.

Some "liberal" media....

[minionofmidas]

I love how the defeat of Lieberman gets blated by the media but no one says a word about Schwarz's defeat.

Some "liberal" media....

He's just a Representative. (Mind you, this is a qualifier, not a contradiction.)

[Nym90]

I love how the defeat of Lieberman gets blated by the media but no one says a word about Schwarz's defeat.

Some "liberal" media....

True, the conservatives in Michigan have shown just as much "intolerance" of moderates as have the liberals in Connecticut. In both cases they figured they could still win the general election anyway with either nominee, so why not vote for the one who is closer to their own views politically? Although I wanted Lieberman to win because I feel it is good for the party to have a more moderate face nationally and because I thought he was an excellent Senator overall, no one should feel obligated to support him simply because he's the incumbent.

[Sam Spade]

Hopefully the Democrats will start putting money into this race. It's definitely winnable. Plus, it would be nice to see a competitive House race in Michigan, something we haven't really had the last few cycles.

Possibly, though I should let you know that a Congressional watcher I correspond with on another site who knows a whole lot more about Congressional election-predicting than I do used the line "The boy would have to be dead for Walberg to lose". 

On the other hand, I personally believe there is a shot, if fundraising arrives and she actually accepts it, but she is a real no-name candidate (her profession is organic farmer/musician) and socially she is quite too liberal for this CD, as you probably know.  Walberg is in tune with the social beliefs of the CD, but not the economic ones.

Remember that in 2004, Schwarz won a contested primary with only 28% of the vote.  Walberg was in that primary, but there were a lot of other conservatives and I have no doubt they undercut each other (like in TN this year).  That's the reason why I always rated this primary higher than lots of others did, especially the MI establishment.

One other thing, her website is also a joke and needs to be improved.

http://www.renier4rep.com/

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We'll see.  I'm just saying that since the issues in play are different than they are for most of the rest of the country, different results can, and often will occur.  Certainly in the Michigan GOP primary of yesterday, we saw the conservative base of the Republican party energized, fwiw.