Mike's Election Guide (19 page)

Republican Jim McCrery has represented the district since 1989 and is one of nearly 30 retiring House Republicans to jump off a sinking ship. He has endorsed unknown attorney Jeff Thompson in the Republican primary. Thompson himself faces a primary challenge from two other unknown Republicans. Among Thompson’s key plans are increasing our military might and expanding oil exploration and refining capacity at home. The same old same old in a year when people want
change
.

The Democrats are likely to nominate
Paul Carmouche
, a respected local prosecutor, to fill McCrery’s seat. The district has a 33 percent black population, and it’s near districts in which Democrats have won surprising special election victories in the south. Carmouche says he will “fight for Louisiana’s working families and work to provide better healthcare for our veterans and reservists, give our middle-class families the tax relief they need, and stand up for Louisiana’s values in Washington.” Like the value of a good levee or two.

MICHIGAN’S 7TH DISTRICT

Mark Schauer

Republican Tim Walberg’s stay in the U.S. House of Representatives will be a short one. He is a freshman member who won his 2006 race with less than 50 percent of the vote. During his short stint in Congress, he has been one of Bush and Cheney’s biggest cheerleaders on Iraq, claiming that soldiers are telling him that Iraq is as safe as Detroit or Chicago. He said on a radio show in 2007, “80 to 85 percent . . . of the country is reasonably under control, at least as well as Detroit or Chicago or any of our other big cities.” Adding, “in many places it’s as safe and cared for as Detroit or Harvey, Ill., or some other places that have trouble with armed violence that takes place on occasion.” He also invited Dick Cheney to Michigan where they held a private fundraiser that raked in more than $100,000. Walberg is anti-abortion and opposes embryonic stem cell research. The Michigan League of Conservation Voters (MLCV) gave Walberg 5 points out of a possible 100 for his record on environmental issues in 2007. Of the 20 issues the MLCV tracked, Walberg voted in support of only one and against 19 pro-environmental measures, including tax subsidies to encourage the development of clean, renewable energy sources; setting higher fuel efficiency standards; and providing financing for water infrastructure projects.

Democrats have nominated
Mark Schauer
for Walberg’s seat. Schauer is the leader of the Democrats in the Michigan State Senate and has spent his career working and serving Michigan. He was a Battle Creek city commissioner and executive director of the Community Action Agency of South Central Michigan. Making Michigan’s wobbly economy a priority, Schauer says he’ll join Senators Levin and Stabenow to change our federal trade policies to help bring jobs back to Michigan. He has also voted to increase the minimum wage and protect the earned income tax credit.

MICHIGAN’S 9TH DISTRICT

Gary Peters

Eight-term Republican congressman Joe Knollenberg won a close race in 2006 despite heavily outspending his opponent. With the tide turning blue, what used to be a safe seat for Republicans is now up for grabs, and Knollenberg and his staff are starting to feel the heat. Knollenberg, who’s been a rubber stamp for the Bush administration, got some national attention when his chief-of-staff, Trent Wisecup, had a wild-eyed meltdown in front of a community activist who had asked Rep. Knollenberg about his policies on the war and why he voted against increasing funding for SCHIP, the popular children’s health insurance program. Wisecup called the constituent “anti-American,” and “pro-Toyota,” and said he was “against the country,” and wanted “Iran to win.” Sounds a lot like the Republican party platform—let’s give this guy a primetime slot at the Convention! To view a video clip of the diatribe, go to
www.retirejoeknollenberg.com
.

Democratic candidate
Gary Peters
was a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, a city councilman, and was appointed by the governor as Michigan’s Lottery Commissioner. He’s running hard against the Bush administration’s policies and Rep. Knollenberg, who supports them. He has the support of General Wesley Clark and VoteVets.org.

During his time in the Michigan State Senate, he authored a bill to ban drilling for oil and gas under the Great Lakes. He was also a founder and co-chair of the Senate Arts Caucus to promote culture, art and creativity in Michigan.

MINNESOTA’S 3RD DISTRICT

Ashwin Madia

Republican Erik Paulsen is a state representative and a former staffer to the retiring Rep. Ramstad, who has held this seat since 1991. Dick Cheney held a private fundraiser in Minnesota in June that some local Republicans didn’t attend because they want nothing to do with him; Paulsen’s spokesperson admitted, “Paulsen did stop by the event.” Even though Paulsen was willing to attend a fundraiser with Dick Cheney to help raise funds for his campaign, he’s not as willing to talk about Mr. Cheney’s most controversial policy—the Iraq War. A search of Paulsen’s website—from “Issues” to “About Erik” to “The Paulsen Record,” and even using his website’s search engine, turned up no hits for the word “Iraq.”

His opponent, Democratic challenger
Ashwin Madia
, served in Iraq and isn’t afraid to use that four-letter word.

Madia’s parents came to the United States from India with $19 in their pockets. Their son Ashwin, born in Boston, went on to attend University of Minnesota and New York University Law School. He joined the Marines and is one of many Iraq war veterans running for office in the Democratic Party in the hopes of ending the war before another 4,000 soldiers perish.

After his time serving in Baghdad, Madia is now calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq over a period of 18 to 24 months.

MISSOURI’S 6TH DISTRICT

Kay Barnes

Republican incumbent Sam Graves needs to come out of the closet—the
congressional closet. Roll Call
, the inside-the-beltway newspaper, has noted that Graves’ TV ads state everything about him
except
that he’s the incumbent in this race and that he’s a Republican. Though he has represented this district since 2001, he’s too ashamed to admit that he’s a member of Congress and the Republican Party in his own paid advertisements! I sympathize with the guy, but I don’t think he’ll fool the people of the sixth district of Missouri again. This is a swing district that gets attention from both national parties, and one of Graves’ funding sources has been the disgraced former Representative Tom DeLay’s political action committee.

Even though he’s a closet-Republican and closet-Congressman, he’s voted with his fellow Republicans 91 percent of the time in the current Congress. He’s even in a dwindling group of Republicans who are still publicly claiming that China is drilling for oil off American shores near Cuba. In an effort to drum up support for offshore drilling, Republicans have falsely claimed that China is currently drilling for oil near Cuba. Dick Cheney went so far as to invoke the Red Menace to drive his point home: “‘Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply. Yet Congress has said . . . no to drilling off Florida.” In an unprecedented move, after being corrected by many sources, Dick Cheney admitted that he was mistaken when he said this (and said that conservative columnist George Will was his source for this false info. Yes, they have begun to eat their own.). Republican Senator Mel Martinez went on the Senate floor and corrected the record saying that the China-Cuba oil drilling story was not true. After both Martinez and even Dick Cheney’s corrections, Sam Graves continues to use the fake China-Cuba drilling story to push for more offshore drilling. Hey, Sam—I heard bin Laden and the Boogeyman are drilling in Cuba, too!

In 1999 Democratic candidate
Kay Barnes
became the first female mayor of Kansas City, the largest city in Missouri, where she served two terms. She is currently a Distinguished Professor for Public Leadership at Park University and holds Master’s Degrees in secondary education and public administration. She also ran her own small business, a human resource development firm, and has served the community as the first coordinator of the Women’s Resource Center at the University of Missouri—Kansas City and as a staff member of Kansas City’s Metropolitan Inter-Church Agency.

On the environment, Barnes believes the U.S. should have signed the Kyoto Protocol and gone even further to raise the environmental standard and lead the world on this issue. She’s also a potential supporter of Rep. Conyers’ HR 676—she says she’s dedicated to universal healthcare and is “willing to consider all options to provide real health security” and that “we must look at every option before choosing the one that best fits our economy.”

Oh, and she’s a first cousin of Walter Cronkite. What more do you need, Missouri?

NEW JERSEY’S 3RD DISTRICT

John Adler

You know, one thing I’ve always said is that we need more defense contractors and war profiteers in Congress. Leave it to the great state of New Jersey to give us Chris Myers, the Republican candidate gunning for the seat being vacated by Jim Saxon. Myers is a vice president of defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Atop his list of accomplishments at Lockheed, Myers specialized in developing more efficient, effective and innovative tools for killing people, such as advanced sensors and weapons systems for the U.S. Navy.