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    Who are the NERD fund donors Mr Snyder?

    Raise the curtain.

    Percentagewise, A Significant Improvement Over 2010


    By Kevin Rex Heine, Section News
    Posted on Thu Aug 09, 2012 at 04:54:19 PM EST
    Tags: Michigan's 11th Congressional District, Kerry Bentivolio, Michigan's 6th Congressional District, Jack Hoogendyk, Michigan's 74th House District, Rob VerHeulen, Michigan's 104th House District, Jason Gillman, Plainfield Township Supervisor, Jay Spencer, Plainfield Township Clerk, Scott Harvey, Plainfield Township Treasurer, Bill Brinkman, Plainfield Township Board of Trustees, David Grant, Dale Pomeroy, Jon Rathbun, iCaucus of Michigan, 6 for 8 in the 2012 Michigan Republican Primaries, Michigan's 3rd Congressional District, Justin Amash, Michigan's 76th House District, MIGOP September 2012 State Convention, MI-CD-11 Special Primary Election (all tags)

    The iCaucus of Michigan was involved in eight races in Tuesday's Republican primary:  The 6th Congressional District (Jack Hoogendyk endorsed over incumbent Fred Upton), the 11th Congressional District (Kerry Bentivolio endorsed over write-in candidate Nancy Cassis), the 74th House District (Rob VerHeulen endorsed over Steve Maas), the 104th House District (Jason Gillman recommended over incumbent Wayne Schmidt), and all four races in Plainfield Township, Kent County.

    As a percentage of the involvement, the results were rather impressive.


    In 2010, the iCaucus of Michigan endorsed in 35 Republican primary contests, plus Ruth Johnson's convention bid for the Secretary of State nomination.  Of those 36 races, 15 candidates won their primaries, for a success rate of ~41.67%.  This year, there were 34 state house races and 7 congressional races with a Republican primary contest, plus the senate primary, for a total of at least 42 primary contests that the iCaucus should have been involved in.  (We're also supposed to have the infrastructure to reach all the way down to the County Sheriff race, but it isn't there yet.)  In the intervening time between the 2010 election cycle and this one, the previous state leadership did effectively nothing to build on the 2010 successes (10 of 18 ≈ 55.56% statewide / 10 of 38 ≈ 26.32% nationally) or to strengthen membership numbers and organizational reach.

    However, back in early June, two problem members of iCaucus Michigan's state leadership team were successfully pressured to resign, and the almost entirely new team (only two members from the 2010 leadership team were still in office by that time) quickly sat down to figure out what we could do with the little time we had and the bare-bones infrastructure we had to work with.  It wasn't easy, but initially three congressional races and five state house races were targeted.  One of the congressional races and three of the state house races ultimately had to be abandoned, because the necessary tea party coordination couldn't be accomplished in time, and an additional state house race had to settle for a recommendation, because the interim coordinator for the overarching congressional district dropped the ball with regard to assembling an interview panel.

    The reason for getting involved in a mere township race perhaps requires some explaining.  Earlier this year, our Kent County Community Watchdog Group got wind of some backroom shenanigans going on in its own backyard.  What had happened was that, after the adjournment of a regularly-scheduled February meeting, and after the public (as well as the Township Clerk and one member of the Board of Trustees) had left, the remaining four (Supervisor George Meek and Trustees Jack Hagedorn, Vic Matthews, and Charles Weldon) discussed a strategy to bypass the Open Meetings Act, without appearing to do so, and appoint Hagedorn to the Treasurer seat recently vacated by Jim Stover (for which Hagedorn had pulled only 40% of the vote in 2004).  They also planned to alter the pay and benefits structure, as well as the workload, of Hagedorn's new position, so as to accommodate his government-sector job in another county.

    However, and you'll love this wrinkle, apparently none of the four co-conspirators noticed that the microphones in the meeting room were still live and recording.  The whole 20-minute conversation was captured for posterity.  When Scott Harvey, the township clerk, pulled the recording in order to transcribe the minutes, he discovered the extra airtime, and apparently publicly objected at the March 5th board meeting.  He also seems to have turned the information over to the watchdog group, who promptly filed a lawsuit against the co-conspirators, and also recruited primary challengers against Meek and Hagedorn, as well as two challengers against the Board of Trustees (thus effectively ensuring the removal of either Matthews or Weldon).  Since there were no Democrats on the ballot in Plainfield Township, this would all be settled in the primary election . . . one way or the other. iCaucus recommended the incumbents Scott Harvey for Clerk and Jon Rathbun for Trustee (because both had publicly stood up to the other four incumbents and called them out on their misbehavior), and challengers Jay Spencer for Supervisor, Bill Brinkman for Treasurer, and David Grant and Dale Pomeroy for Trustee.

    Sure enough, when the dust settled on Primary Night, all six of the iCaucus-recommended candidates in Plainfield Township won . . . and for the most part not really close.  In the 74th House District, the early returns (including Grandville) had Steve Maas up by about 130 votes; but the late returns from the City of Walker, and Algoma, Alpine, and Tyrone Townships put Rob VerHeulen on top by 1,229 votes.  (Democrat Richard Erdman was unopposed.)  As Jason reported yesterday, his primary run on a RINO, who flatly refused to vett with iCaucus, didn't turn out in our favor.  We also split in the congressional primaries, with Bentivolio winning and Hoogendyk not.  That's a 75% success rate overall, which I submit isn't bad for a group that had barely a month and a half to put together their efforts from effectively scratch.

    A few notes going forward:

    • iCaucus Michigan is going to reach out to all of our 2010 endorsed candidates who are standing for re-election this year.  (Justin Amash has already been re-endorsed.)  Those whose voting records support automatic re-endorsement (such as perhaps Tom McMillin) will likely be automatically re-endorsed without trouble.  Those whose voting records don't support automatic re-endorsement (such as Tim Walberg) will have to go through the entire process from scratch.

    • iCaucus Michigan will not (as in: no way, no how, hell no) be endorsing Roy Schmidt, who won the 76th District primary against Bing Goei by 623 votes.  Instead, we'll be reaching out to Winnie Brinks (Democrat), Patricia Steinport (Libertarian), William Mohr (U.S. Taxpayer), and Keith Allard (Independent) to see if any of them are willing to go through the vetting process.  Normally, as a matter of policy, iCaucus doesn't endorse third-party candidates.  However, given the circumstances of Schmidt's party-switch, particularly the violations of nearly every principle of integrity, iCaucus national leadership has approved a one-time exception to the policy.  (It should be noted that a legal challenge may be forthcoming over approximately 2,000 absentee ballots cast in that Republican primary.)

    • iCaucus Michigan will be endorsing in the contested MIGOP State Convention races.  At this point, most of the candidates have filled out the Candidate Qualifying Questionnaire, and the interview process has already started.

    • The iCaucus Michigan endorsement of Kerry Bentivolio in the 11th Congressional District will carry over to the special primary being held on Wednesday, September 5th.


    < Mr. Finley, Exec Patterson: Enough is ENOUGH! | Who Needs Anecdotal? >


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    Damn fine job, KRH (none / 0) (#1)
    by Corinthian Scales on Fri Aug 10, 2012 at 03:08:30 PM EST
    The tides are slowly changing.  The focus now is getting Bentivolio elected in September, AND November.  Just thumbing through the local rags... 'ol Brooksie and Welday are beginning to buckle already, and I suspect it all has to do with Nancy being not only a sore loser, but the completely classless old bag that she is after election night.

    CD-6?  Well, them folk continue to put a face to who they really are.  Jack, it just isn't made for you there.

    The CD-6 upside?  Freddie's Mangina Mart (yes, he created it) is slowly fading away on him.  Snowe? Toast: the old nag went out to pasture.   McRINO?  '08 loser troll that lives in the shadows of Sarah.  Thad McQuitter? May have been an illegitimate candidate for years, owes folks $650g for election: prolly have to move from state in shame.  Austria? Dreier? Latourette? Lewis? Platts? Turner?  Poof! ALL Retires.

    The only thing that explains that is an electorate becoming more engaged and wise to their BS.  Hell, even RINO Upton has been pulled a degree to the Right, even though he's still useless as teats on a boar.  Same goes for Camp.

    I guess that's why Freddie dangles candy out for his twatwaffle kids.  Only a mushmind campus indoctrinated twit would go out and stump for him.

    OABTW... Keith Allard?  Really?  Jenny's houseboy.  Why?  Why would iCaucus extend the offer?

    A significant correction: (none / 0) (#3)
    by Kevin Rex Heine on Sat Aug 11, 2012 at 10:33:24 PM EST
    In the third paragraph (second below the fold), I wrote:

    "... back in early June, two problem members of iCaucus Michigan's state leadership team were successfully pressured to resign ..."

    I've since been informed that the sentence is question, as written, is not necessarily a matter of objective fact.  It may be fairly said that whether the two people in question were or weren't pressured to resign was a matter of perspective; I wrote from mine.

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