Add former Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg’s name to the list of House Republicans defeated in 2008 who are seeking their former seats in 2010.
Walberg, who lost re-election to now-Rep. Mark Schauer (D-Mich.), announced Tuesday morning that he will run for his old seat next year.
“I cannot sit idly while Congressman Schauer votes to raise taxes, spend trillions we don’t have and bring the failed Granholm strategies he advanced in Michigan to Washington D.C.,” Walberg said in a statement, referring to unpopular Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D).
Walberg (a highly-enriched, weapons-grade wingnut) is our third GOP retread defeated in 2008 who’s looking for a rematch this cycle (Steve Chabot in Ohio’s 1st and Steve Pearce in New Mexico’s 2nd being the other two). Somehow I don’t think the NRCC is as thrilled with the prospect of a Walberg resurrection as they are with Pearce and Chabot’s candidacies.
RaceTracker Wiki: MI-07
If it wasn’t for the Club for Growth, there would most likely be no such thing as Congressman Schauer, as Joe Schwartz would still have his job.
When I saw that this morning, my reaction was that this is just going to be a major headache more than anything else.
Mark Schauer will be incredibly strong going into 2010. He was already a strong candidate and an amazing fundraiser, and now he’s going to have all the advantages of incumbency and a solid Democratic majority. The big money isn’t going to contribute to Walberg just to see him take his place in the extreme wing of a minority party. And Schauer has been playing it smart so far, making inroads throughout the district (including in Lenawee County, home to myself and Walberg).
Also, I don’t see Walberg having a clear nomination path. There are plenty of genuinely conservative state reps and ex-state reps who can run on the “I’m conservative but I’m not so crazy that I’ll lose a lean-R district” platform. I don’t know of anyone running yet, but there has to be someone that imagines himself as the guy who will unite the Walberg and Schwarz factions.
But if Walberg gets the CfG endorsement (not a given– they endorsed Brad Smith in the 2004 GOP primary over Walberg), then he’s got enough money to make this a single-digit race for at least most of the summer of 2010. He’s got the name recognition and he’s got a passionate enough activist base that he can compete. Even if he doesn’t win, he’s going to cost us a lot of time, energy, and money.
Even so, without a major implosion for Obama or the U.S. economy (or a Schauer scandal, etc.), I think Schauer is still in a good position. We’ll have to see how his second quarter was, but his first quarter fundraising was pretty good for someone who hadn’t drawn an opponent yet.
I did go and re-register walbergwatch.com this morning. Walberg Watch 2010 won’t be quite the same (I just don’t have the time or the energy for a regularly updated blog), but I will try to have some of Walberg’s greatest hits easily available. (“Iraq is as safe as Detroit,” “Let’s drill for oil under the Great Lakes,” “Global warming isn’t real because the president of the Czech Republic once flew somewhere hot, and look, he’s fine!” etc.)
I don’t know a whole lot about Walberg, other than that he’s a prodigious fundraiser. He’ll have the money, so hopefully the DCCC won’t have to go overboard to defend this seat. Regardless, this is going to be a major battleground of the 2010 House elections, along with the aforementioned OH-1. Even though this district is R+2, we have Democrats holding much more conservative districts throughout the region now, like Zach Space in OH-18 and Brad Ellsworth in IN-8, so I don’t think the partisan lean is a big deal.
I have a question for you Michiganders. Is Gary Peters really in any serious danger of not being re-elected in MI-9? He won by 10% last go around and the district has a democratic partisan lean. I’ve heard that race thrown around in the same breath as OH-1 and OH-15, which doesn’t seem right to me.
In other news, Charlie Cook just moved MI-9 from lean D to likely D. He also moved OH-18 from likely D to lean D. Wonder why he thinks Zach Space is suddenly vulnerable, the guy got 60% of the vote last time.
“I cannot sit idly by while I am derived one more day of making an ass of myself in our nations’ capital.”
I remember hearing about them getting in as well.