Who are the scheduling wizards who picked the same time as the Backyard Brawl

A group calling itself "The Our Country Deserves Better" PAC is trying to make up for John McCain's decision to abandon Michigan and is conducting a bus tour with 10 stops in Michigan.

The next to last stop will be a rally in my backyard on Saturday at the Mill Pond in downtown Brighton at 3:30 p.m. I do agree with the bus tour's premise that our country deserves better, especially after eight disastrous years of Bush "leadership," but it will not get it with Bush clone Grampy McSame.

As just one more example of how out of touch McSame and his supporters are, I kind of doubt they will get that big a crowd. I would be there just to show my support for Sen. Barack Obama, but I will be sitting in my Lazy-Boy chair in Howell at 3:30 watching the kick-off of the Michigan-Michigan State football game at the Big House. I suspect quite a few of my fellow Michiganders will do doing likewise. It makes you wonder who schedules that stuff.

If you want to see a real bus tour, today is the last day to see the National Bush Legacy Bus Tour when it rolls into Ann Arbor from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at South State Street and South University.

You would expect the McSame tour will find a big crowd in predominantly Livingston County, but a couple of recent stories in the local daily are showing Obama is leading McSame in raising money in GOP-rich Livingston County.

The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus reported another story that says Obama has increased his money lead, raising some $53,000 compared to McCain's $39,000 from November 2006 through Oct. 1, 2007. In the earlier story, county GOP chair Allan Filip used the ridiculous excuse that Obama is charging for yard signs. With a bigger money difference this time, Filip dropped that ridiculous excuse and has found another alibi. I know his job is to spin bad news like this – and like the news yesterday that the EPIC/MRA poll shows Obama's lead in Michigan has increased by 14 points –but give me a beak. At one point does spin become a lie?

This time Filip used the excuse that most county Republicans probably gave more money to Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. That may be true, but he is, of course, ignoring how close the race and how late it went between Obama and Democratic Presidential Candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. That race went all the way to April, and like Romney, she won in Michigan; granted, Obama's name was not on the ballot, but technically she won.

Speaking of former Republican Massachusetts Governors, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld endorsed Obama, citing the senator's steady leadership, good judgment and ability to unify Democrats, Republicans and independents. Weld was governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. In fact, Weld campaigned for the Mittster before he yielded to McSame in February.

Weld joins other prominent Republicans endorsing Obama over McSame in the campaign's final weeks, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson and Scott McClellan, former press secretary to President Bush.

Quote of the Week: Morris gets it wrong again

This Quote of the Week is dedicated to the worst political pundit still employed: rightwing tool and noted Clinton hater Dick Morris.

Morris was the speaker at Cleary University in Howell's Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series, and he dished up more of his boring old hatred of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"Bill and Hillary Clinton have one central idea in their uncluttered, ambitious minds: Hillary in 2008. Let Bush get re-elected, use the '04 primaries and general election to clean out the underbrush of competing Democratic candidates, and proceed unimpeded to the '08 nomination. Use the book tours to build support and popularity, but let somebody else take the fall in 2004." -- Dick Morris

"I didn't do what they said I did ... I may have done enough so that I don't know if I can prove my innocence.” -- Dick Morris

"The stronger Hillary is, the weaker she is. The more she seems like a likely presidential winner, the more difficult the senate race becomes in New York. It's perfect.” -- Dick Morris

Drug-addled gas bag Limbaugh tries to incite riots

Drug addict Rush Limbaugh continues to flirt with breaking the law, this time urging his robot-like radio audience to incite riots.

Limbaugh has been urging his lemmings still voting in primaries to waste their vote by crossing over and voting for Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton because the GOP nominee has already been chosen. Limbaugh has labeled his perverting of the democratic process “Operation Chaos.” He took a step further last week when he urged his listeners to incite riots at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this fall.

“The dream end is this continues right up to the convention, and we have a repeat of 1968 with burning cars, riots and fires,” Limbaugh said on his radio show last week. “That’s the objective.”

Limbaugh is one of the most racist and hate-filled conservative radio talk show hosts among a genre celebrated for its hate-filed tirades against anyone they disagree with. It remains to be seen if Limbaugh will be held accountable for inciting a riot, but his past history indicates that will not be the case.
His “Operation Chaos” move almost got him in trouble, but the Ohio Attorney General's office stated that it would be hard to prosecute anyone for falsifying a change of registration, because of the difficulty of proving a voter's fraudulent intent. Never mind that it disgraces the men and women who scarified and died to win the right to vote. In my lifetime we saw African -Americans and patriotic Americans who were killed, beaten and attacked by dogs for the right to vote in the south, and we allow this man to get away with this.

Limbaugh’s other brush with the law was when he used his housekeeper to doctor shop for prescription OxyContin, aka “Hillbilly Heroin.” Before his brush with the law, he called addicts criminals, saying “they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.” He changed his tune pretty quickly when he was busted. He avoided jail time by agreeing to 18 months of drug treatment.

It makes you wonder why Republican’s heroes are all criminals.

The race for the 9th Congressional District features confrontations, videotape and Dr. Death

The U.S. Congressional race for Michigan’s 9th District may be a microcosm of the presidential election in Michigan, and it will also be an interesting race to watch that has already seen confrontations, videotape and now a guy with the nickname of Doctor Death as a candidate.

U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R- Bloomfield Hills, is seeking his ninth term in the U.S. House, and he will be challenged by Democrat Gary Peters, a professor at Central Michigan University and a former state Senator, and Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the well-known assisted suicide doctor, who plans to run as an independent.

The district’s boundaries are contained entirely in Oakland County, the second largest county in the state with 1.2 million residents. The county has long been known primarily as a Republican county, but that is fast changing as it trends Democratic. The Republicans maintain a 13-12 edge on the county Board of Commissioners, and the county executive, L. Brooks Patterson, is very active and well known in state and national Republics politics.

“Oakland County has been considered Republican, and most of the county commissioners are Republicans,” said Glenn Clark, the Republican Chair of the 9th Congressional District and a Troy resident. “However, it has gone blue at the top of the ticket since 1992.”

Michigan itself has been blue since 1992, and the last time it went for a Republican presidential candidate was for President George H.W. Bush in 1988. However, the decision by Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama not to campaign here for the primary, coupled with the decision by the Democratic National Committee not to seat Michigan’s presidential delegation in retaliation for moving up the presidential primary in violation of party rules, makes Michigan vulnerable to going red.

“It is definitely a swing district,” said Rochester Hills resident and Democratic activitist Bruce Fealk. “The district went for (Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John) Kerry in the last election”

Fealk, who operates the blog “Vote no on Joe,” is a story himself. He has been a vocal anti-war critic, and he began following Knollenberg around at events, as well as appearing at parades, wearing a huge papier-mâché likeness of Knollenberg. Fealk tried repeatedly to get Knollenberg to meet with him and other anti-war protestors to talk about the war, as well as the veto of the bipartisan SCHIP legislation. When that failed, Fealk began following Knollenberg around with a video camera.

That led to a confrontation last October between Fealk and Knollenberg’s then chief-of-staff, Trent Wisecup, in a convenience store. The incident made state and national news, and Wisecup called Fealk “un-American,” “not a citizen” and “blinded by” his “hatred of this country.” Fealk made more news when he was arrested in February in Troy while attempting to videotape a panel discussion on Black History Month, hosted by the Oakland County Republican Club.

But Peters also has a person trailing him with a video camera. CMU student Dennis Lennox has been following Peters around for months claiming Peters should not be teaching at a public university while running for Congress. That also led to a confrontation that made state news, although it was with a CMU dean and not Peters. Lennox has used that publicity to launch a bid for the Republican nomination for the 110 District seat in the state House.

The 9th District consists of the townships of Bloomfield, Oakland, Southfield, West Bloomfield, and pats of Orion and Waterford Townships, as well as the cities of Auburn Hills, Berkley, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Clawson, Farmington Hills, Farmington, Keego Harbor, Lake Angelus, Orchard Lake, Pontiac, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Sylvan Lake, Troy and Royal Oak. It is the home of many whiter collar engineers, the headquarters of Chrysler and the home of a major Division I university, Oakland University. It has elements of both suburban life and urban life.

“This is a working class area with lots of white collar workers; kind of middle of the road,” Clark said. “It’s a great district to live in, and Troy was ranked as one of the safest places to live in the nation.”

Knollenberg – a U.S. Army veteran - owned insurance offices before going into politics, and used his connections as the former chair of the Oakland County Republican Party to run a successful congressional campaign in 1992. He has the makings of a political dynasty, and his son, Marty, is a member of the Michigan House. Knollenberg is the ranking member on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

Peters was born and raised in Oakland County, and he was a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve in a Construction Battalion unit (Seabees). In the private sector, Peters had taught at Oakland University and Wayne State University. He was the vice president of investments at UBS/PaineWebber. Peters also served as a vice president at Merrill Lynch.

His first foray into politics was serving on the Rochester Hills City Council. He was elected to the Michigan Senate in 1994 and served two terms before he was term limited. In 2002 he ran for the Michigan Attorney General and lost a close race to current AG Mike Cox by just 5,200 votes among more than 3 million votes cast. In 2003 Peters was appointed by the Governor to run the Michigan State Lottery. Last year Peters was named the Griffin Chair in American Government at Central Michigan University.

Kevorkian earned his reputation and nickname of Dr. Death by assisting in the deaths of nearly 100 terminally ill people. He ran afoul of the law in Michigan many times because it does not have an assisted suicide law, but he also managed to stay out of jail with the help of his attorney, Geoffrey Fieger. The cases earned so much media attention that Fieger parlayed that name recognition to win the Democratic nomination for Michigan governor in 1998, but he lost to the incumbent in the general election.

Without Fieger’s guidance, Kevorkian made a mistake that proved to be his downfall. On September 17, 1998, Kevorkian himself administered a lethal injection to 52-year-old Thomas Youk, who was suffering from terminal Lou Gerhig’s Disease. In past assisted suicides, the person committing suicide had injected themselves or used the machine Kevorkian designed. Kevorkian compounded his mistake by allowing the videotaped suicide to be broadcast on “60 Minutes” and then daring authorities to try to convict him or stop him from carrying out assisted suicides.

Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder by a Michigan jury in 1999 and sentenced to serve a 10-25 year prison sentence. Kevorkian, 79, is terminally ill with Hepatitis C, which he contracted while doing research on blood transfusions in Vietnam, and he was paroled on June 1, 2007 due to good behavior. He has indicated he plans to run as an independent. Many people have dismissed his run as insignificant, including many Democrats. Veteran Michigan journalist Jack Lessenberry, who was one of the first reporters to cover Kevorkian, dismissed it as just one more attempt at the publicity he craves.

But Republicans are hoping the lifelong Oakland County resident can drain off liberal vote for Peters.

“He’s a household name here,” Clark said. “It will be very hard to ignore him.”

As the incumbent, Knollenberg has had little trouble winning reelection over the years. He has had little trouble against a list of relatively unknown Democratic candidates, winning easily: winning 55 percent to 40 percent in 2000, 58-39 in 2002 and 58-39 in 2004. But 2006 was different. He had a close race with relatively unknown liberal radio talk show host and political activist Nancy Skinner. Knollenberg won by his smallest margin ever, 51-46 percent. Skinner indicated she was going to run for the seat again, but she got of the race early, deferring to Peters.

Ironically, she has ties to a candidate who many say may be a factor in this race. In 2004 she was living in Chicago and was a Democratic candidate for an open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, losing in the Democratic primary election to one Barack Obama.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took notice of that race after 2006, the current candidate and the trend of the district to designate it one of two targeted seats in Michigan.

“He is definitely on the edge,” Fealk said. “If we are ever going to unseat him this will be the year. Gary Peters is an excellent candidate and has done an excellent job of fundraising, and he has the DCCC and the unions behind him.”

Knollenberg votes with President Bush on most issues, and many people think he is vulnerable there because of the president’s low approval ratings, as well as Knollenberg’s position on the war in Iraq.

“He is very vulnerable on the war,” Fealk said. “If you look at his campaign web site, the war is not even listed as an issue. He is also very vulnerable on health care and the economy. People really need to look hard at his votes.”

Clark disagrees, and he said most people in Oakland County do not want the U.S. to leave Iraq before the mission is complete.

“That will be just one of many issues,” he said. “The fact is most people don't want to be there forever, but hey want to win. Most people I talked to who are against the war are not in favor of an immediate withdraw.”

There is also speculation on the effect the top ticket candidate will have on this race. Fealk says the historic nature of the potential Democratic nominees is sure to increase voter turnout for the Democrats, but he thinks Obama’s nomination will have a larger effect on turnout in the more urban Pontiac area and benefit Peters.

“I don’t want to make it a race issue, but I expect to see more turnout if he is the nominee,” he said. “I definitely think Obama will have a positive effect on turnout.”

Clark thinks Republican nominee Sen. John McCain will rally the district's many independent voters.

“John McCain is a candidate that will send a strong message to independents, and I think John McCain is the type of candidate we need to carry Michigan and Oakland County,” he said. “Michigan will be very important, specifically Oakland County, and I think we can win.”

Presidential primaries spawn the next crop of impersonators

Not only have voters been watching the results of the country’s presidential primaries with anticipation to see who the major political parties’ nominees will be, but so have the country’s entertainers and impersonators.

A convincing impression of a presidential candidate or president can be a huge boost to a career, and we only need to look at NBC’s "Saturday Night Live" for evidence of that. The long-running late-night comedy show has even been a factor in the recent Democratic debates when Sen. Hillary Clinton brought up a recent SNL skit where the cast parodied the alleged kid glove treatment her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, has received from the press. Clinton even appeared on the show last week next to cast member Amy Poehler, who does a pretty good imitation of the New York senator.

Original SNL cast member Chevy Chase’s send up of former President Gerald Ford launched his career, and other SNL alumni who have scored big with presidential impressions include Dan Aykroyd’s Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter; Joe Piscopo’s Ronald Reagan; Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush; Phil Hartman’s Bill Clinton; and Darrell Hammond’s Clinton and George W. Bush.

Taking a recent listen to some radio and comedy shows, it appears some impressionists have gotten Republican nominee Sen. John McCain down with his signature catch phrase, “my friends.” In addition to Poehler, many entertainment bureaus already have Hillary Clinton impersonators in their stable because they often get requests for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. That has held true for well-known first ladies and their spouses, like Ron and Nancy Reagan and George and Laura Bush. However, no one has yet mastered the voice of Obama.

“I have a few George Bushes, I have a Bill Clinton and a Laura Bush,” said Kathy Krajewski, the owner and founder of Rochester, Mich.-based Double Exposure. “I go out all the time to look at national acts; we need more impersonators in Michigan.”

Double Exposure primarily handles weddings, but it provides planning for every kind of party imaginable. It, like most party and entertainment bureaus, has stables of look-alikes and celebrity impersonators it can call on when a request comes in. Depending on the medium the impression is intended for, a good presidential impression may consist of a physical resemblance or having the speech patterns and gestures down.

“Every four years around election time you get more interest than you normally do,” said Bernie Stevens, owner of the entertainment bureau and party planning company Bernie Stevens and Associates, based in Holly, Mich. “Normally, you don’t get a lot of calls for political figures.”

If you bear a striking resemblance and have the speech patterns down of former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, for example, seeing him drop out of the race was not a happy event. The same thing would be true if you had former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee or Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson down cold.

George W. Bush is an impression many people have down, and those comedians who do him well hate to see him go. However, Stevens said there is usually a market for former presidents, depending on their popularity and if they are still alive. Doing an impression of a recently deceased president may not strike some people as funny.

Famous impersonator Rich Little’s career took a bit of a nosedive after Richard Nixon left the limelight and then passed away. However, Little is making a comeback, and on a recent successful appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman" he told the audience: “The key to staying on top is keep your act fresh and keep coming up with new people all the time.”

Historical reenactors are also in demand, and presidents like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are in demand. The good news is no one is going to hold them to having the voice right.
“Lincoln, Jefferson and (Mark) Twain; those are the big three,” Stevens said. “They are in such demand because most elementary school students recognize the face right away.”

Veteran journalist says no vote for income tax increase jeopardizes Michigan

NOVI - Veteran journalist Jack Lessenberry told a group of West Oakland County Democrats that the budget and economic situation in Michigan is the worst he has ever seen it.

“However bad you thing the situation is in Michigan, it’s worse,” he said. “There is no way to exaggerate the situation.”

Lessenberry has worked as a foreign correspondent and executive national editor of The Detroit News, reporting from more than 40 countries. His writing has appeared in such national publications as Vanity Fair, Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Boston Globe. He is also a professor of journalism at Wayne State University, and his freelance columns appear in The Metro Times, The Traverse-City Record Eagle and The Toledo (Ohio) Blade. He is also a senior political analyst for Michigan Public Radio.

Lessenberry was extremely critical of the state Legislature’s inability to pass a budget, or approve a much needed income tax increase. He said no company would want to move to Michigan with the government in disarray, the roads and infrastructure crumbling and the state’s biggest assets, the schools, being starved. He says as a professor at Wayne he sees far too many promising students drop out of college simply because they cannot afford the tuition, especially in light of an 18 percent increase in tuition this summer.

“It’s not even a raise in taxes, it’s a restoration,” Lessenberry said. “I’m not a farmer, but farmers settled this state.
“They know that to prosper they cannot eat next year’s seed corn,” he said.

He lashed out at the Republicans refusal to vote for the income tax increase because of the fear of a recall from a man who has never had a job where he was not paid with tax dollars.

“Republicans believe in taxes they just believe in taxing the poor,” he said. “They are turning Michigan into Mississippi with ice storms. It’s very scary for those of us left in Michigan.”

Despite speaking in front of a room full of Democrats, he pulled no punches and also had hard words for Democrats too. He took Gov. Jennifer Granholm to task for a lack of leadership on the budget. He said she should have bought a half hour of TV time to tell people the budget situation in a quasi fireside chat and use the political capital she gained in the election with an overwhelming victory and being term-limited.

“We will be the laughing stock of the nation if we have a shutdown,” Lessenberry said. “The governor took far too long to take a principled stand. She let Mike Bishop take a major role.”
“I just do not understand why the governor did not take the lead on this,” he said. “She has no political capital to lose.”

Lessenberry was also critical of the 10 freshman Democratic House members in vulnerable seats who did not cast an up or down vote for the income tax increase during last weekend’s marathon House session.

“They are gutless wonders,” he said. “They refused to vote because they want to hang on to a job they are going to lose in six years; the state of Michigan is at stake here.”

Lessenberry had some bold predictions for the presidential primary, saying Hilary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. He also said he did not expect Barack Obama to be her running mate no matter how well he did in the primaries because Lessenberry thinks asking voters to vote for two firsts in the same election – a woman and African-American for president and vice-president - was asking too much. He expects her running mate to be a male Senator from a Middle Western state. However, he had no idea who the front-runner was in what he called a particularity weak Republican field

“Hilary Clinton is already the Democratic nominee; she has already been anointed,” he said. “Usually, it’s the Republicans who settle this first.”

He said the U.S. Congressional districts have been so effectively gerrymandered he expects little change there, but there could be a race in the 7th District where GOP U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg faces a challenge from the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer and in the 9th District where long-time Republican Joe Knollenberg faces a challenge from Democrat Gary Peters.

“He (Walberg) is somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan. The last time I said that I got an angry note; Genghis Khan was angry at being compared to Tim Walberg.”

Lessenberry said he was less than excited about Peters' chances of winning because he called him a “lousy campaigner.” He said Peters was qualified, smart and capable, but he is not a good campaigner. He said he singe-handily allowed the first Republican to be elected to the position of attorney general in Michigan in almost 40 years.

“You need to get Nancy Skinner out of there first," he said. “The last thing the Democrats need is a bruising primary.”

The state House will be an interesting place next year with 44 members term-limited, but Lessenberry said it will be a good year for Democrats.

“Democrats will pick up a few more seats,” he said. “I do not see Republicans taking control of the House.”