Schauer seems to be the sleaziest kind of politician, willing to use any tactic for the means of gaining votes or taking them away from his opponents. Neither using an opponent's ethnicity against him, nor blatantly violating campaign promises, nor ostentatious violation of campaign finance regulations seems to have occupied his conscience for long. The last item on the list has, however, occupied the office of Secretary of State Land; it may soon come before Attorney General Mike Cox.
Add this to the Granholm/Cherry tax fiasco and the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal, and Michigan Democrats are facing a veritable epidemic of crimes and gaffes. Will it give Republicans momentum going into November? Not a chance! Ever the optimist, I. Still, I suspect Tim Walberg will be re-elected. That is one congressmen that I want to be rooting for for many years to come.
One note about Nick's column though: I understand that Mark Schauer is as sleazy as they come, that he would flip a reliably conservative seat to a reliably liberal seat, and that he's part of a Michigan Democratic Party that has done its best to run Michigan into the ground and found great success. But words must be used carefully, and I can see very little that is constructive about calling Schauer a "racist," which he most likely is not. Yes, he did use an opponent's Jewish background to call his electability into question, and yes, it is heinous. But it's heinous because of the depths to which he would stoop to win election, not because of any truly racist beliefs. I'm not defending what he did, but it is always best to use accurate descriptions. Exaggerated invective is off-putting; criticism should be measured, proportionate to the crime.
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