Doctors' lobbying group says
Brian Calley's their 'boy'
It should have been no surprise Thursday when the Michigan Doctors’ Political Action Committee announced its endorsement of Brian Calley for 87th District State Representative.
This same group was one of the heaviest supporters of Gary Newell, the guy who has sat in that seat for the last six years, doing virtually nothing except the bidding of special interests. In case you didn’t know, Newell has been chairman on the House subcommittee on health and he’s done a fine job of advancing the agenda of the doctors’ PAC and health insurance companies. What has Newell done for Joe Citizen? Sorry, but ordinary people don’t have a lot of money and they don’t make big contributions to election campaigns so Gary Newell ignored your concerns and ignored the massive problems with our health care system in order to siphon off campaign contributions from his lobbyist buddies in Lansing.
The reason I say it’s no surprise is that Calley is the chosen one, the “boy” who has been selected by the Republican Party machine and its corporate backers and PACs to succeed Newell in Lansing. Newell himself has been said to be a big backer of Calley, an Ionia County Commissioner who has learned well the lessons of walking, talking, acting and being one of those cookie cutter candidates who are cranked out by the GOP insiders in smoke-filled rooms where the problems of the little people are not only ignored but actually made worse so the robber barons of the 21st century can pursue their profits on Wall Street while ignoring the sad sacks on Main Street. As I’ve said here before, Calley’s damn good at kissing babies, cozying up to the people with money, schmoozing and telling voters what he thinks they want to hear. But how much is he going to do for you?
Yes, I’m saying I believe Calley is as phony as a three-dollar bill. I’m even more alarmed there are plenty of people who will go to the polls on Aug. 8 and select this slick golden boy and then they’ll have the gall to tell me and others they’re tired of all those slick politicians who don’t care about us and only seem interested in collecting enough money to get elected and re-elected. Somehow they don’t understand they’re being hustled, flim-flammed, sold a bill of goods, taking it between the cheeks, however you want to call it. Collectively, we’re suckers. P.T. Barnum was right. We don’t recognize a slick politician when he comes up to us and bites us on the arse let alone when he shakes our hand and tells us what we want to hear.
The Michigan Doctors’ Political Action Committee is the political arm of the 15,000-member Michigan State Medical Society. In its press release, it said, “Physicians in Michigan want the best government possible for all citizens and we know Brian Calley can help move us to that objective... Brian Calley has shown dedication to improving our health care care system and we believe he will provide the experience necessary in these tough budget times.”
What experience? Has he been trained by Newell in the of doing the bidding of monied special interests while only giving lip service to the public? If you want more of the same- special interest-controlled government that works for big money types while screwing the little guys- then vote to re-elect Gary Newell, vote for Brian Calley. But if you want something different, if you want someone who's going to stand up and say no to the PACs and the lobbyists and their large campaign checks that allow politicians to ignore you then take a look around and find the candidate that doesn't look like every other politician, who doesn't talk like every other politician. You know who my choice is- Brian Reynolds. A lot of people are saying Brian just doesn't look the part. Well, if you want a guy who walks and talks like a typical politician then you give up your right to complain when they turn into politicians and forget about who sent them to Lansing. Go ahead and vote for another slick politician with lots of money to spend and see what you end up with. Just make sure to come back here so I can say I told you so!
Perhaps the most stunning part of all of this me is that I have learned maverick Barry County Commissioner Mike Callton supports this weasel, Brian Calley. This is another sign that Calley is lining up "the right people" to support his campaign and that it's really Brian Calley versus all the Barry County candidates. I ask the voters of Barry and Ionia County: Are you going to let this slick weasel represent you in Lansing and get himself six years of living high on your dime and a fat pension to keep him secure the rest of his life (probably spent as a lobbyist for the same groups buying his favor now)? Or are you going to stand up and stand together and support the kind of candidate who will go to Lansing with YOUR AGENDA? Time is running out. You need to make your decision by August 8.
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24 comments:
Calley out for me after the "Fire the Senate" so called "Debate." Another Newell, I'm hiding under my covers now! Did he ever do anything at all for us???????? Except spend our money. Calley is too slick for me, typical politician. And, Callton, however you spell it, did not impress me with a private discussion we had. Seems a little too "brainey" for me, the kind that talks alot of slow and big words and does nothing. His "No excuse" position on County Commissioners is also not acceptable to me. I want to know why they are not there! They were elected to BE THERE! Someone needs to keep score and why not let the record show the reason. Too many "personal reasons" and the next election I will deem them too busy to serve us!
If I was too look for the silver lining of the previous comment, it would be being called "too brainy" even though it was meant as an insult. If I wasn't impressive before, then you will be even less impressed by this next statement. You're not going to change our flawed government by supporting good candidates that can't get elected...you can only improve it by being a positive influence on the ones who do get elected. Give me a call, I love the friction.
..Mike Callton...
Not really mean't as an insult, really. Just my inner thoughts of someone I could not support as my District Rep on the County Commission. Spend less time on arguing issues of whether to vote on excused absences or not, and more time on .5% interest on your bank accounts. How did this get past you???????? Are you asking the right questions?
It would be nice to have a positive influence on those who get annointed or elected! But, so far, we have not been able to do much in getting the County Commission off its arse. It's always been business as usual! "We did get a higher interest from Hastings City Bank", Clare Tripp says! Duh, not as high as Fifth-Third! How many deputies could we have hired over the last few years with something more than a measley .5%?
I will be the first to apoligize to you personally and publicly when I see some positive changes! Public safety before Parks sir! Parks are something which are nice, but right now we can't afford it, sorry!
Good luck with any positive changes you may be bringing to us, I do really want to see them!
Well taken. As far as the interest rates go, not being on the finance committee, I was blindsided by this one and was unaware until public comment at the last meeting. It is a significant issue. From what my commissioners on that group say, they're working on it. I look forward to seeing their resolution on this one...after all when dealing with that kind of money, small decimal points multiplied by millions of dollars translates into big bucks$$$
As far as Brian Calley goes, since he is the frontrunner, bashing him will not lead to a good dialogue once he's elected. Since I have stuck my neck out by endorsing him, I hope to have his ear when I speaking about issues that are important to us. I've already discussed our concerns about Gary Newell and I think that he's sincere when he says that he doesn't want to repeat that history. If he's a disappointment to us, then there will not be future endorsements and next election I will rail against him. This is the thought process behind the hard decision that I have made.
m.c.
Every time a politician like Brian Calley comes up (which is to say multiple times every other year) it reminds me of why I developed my particular reform proposal: Auction off the legislators every Monday on the Capitol lawn.
Okay, so this is pretty similar to what goes on already, but at least it'd be out in the open and not in the smoke-filled rooms.
What am I bid for the services of Brian Calley? Remember folks, we have the best government money can buy. They might as well make bribery legal.
Whats worse, owning a bank or robbing a bank? VP of Union Bank donated $1000, CEO of Independent Bank donated $500, and a couple of banking PACs donated another couple thousand dollars to Calley's campaign. Calley's giving lip service to voters on who he plans to represent if elected. Guess what? It won't be the average schmuck. Newell redux?
Not bashing to get Calley mad at me or us. To get the public not to elect the schmuck to office. What did sleeping with Newell get us?
Mike C. seems to be taking this .5% interest and loss of thousands of dollars very lightly. If this was a private business, except Enron, heads would be rolling. The buck should stop with the Chair, Tripp, who has tripped up again! The Board should ask for her resignation, if not the entire Finance Committee (I know, they have 4 votes themselves, but at least you stood up for accountability, counts with me).
Mike, how do you measure "sincere?" Calley is all for what you and I want to hear, as they all our. We must delve into their past and people who know them, who they associate with. Then compare them with Newell and others. Does he fall into a Newell-like Camp? Certainly looks like it to me and my one vote.
Sheriff Dept doubling cars up due to high rise in gasoline. Prosecutor could use another assistant or two. Could we have paid for these extra positions with the lost interest? Why does the Finance Committee only have Board Members on it? Good way to cover your tracks til Cichy and others sniff the impropriety out. Barb, start picketing the County Building with interest rate signs. Ooops, Hastingsville, Chief will probably get passed another unconstitutional ordinance, like the CCW one, to prohibit peaceful protest.
...maybe if we had a truly community newspaper that will cover politicians AND comment and circulate it widely all year long,....ahhhhell they haven't even kept up with the Grand Rapind Press on the current status of the Mexican speaking farmworker who was hit by his boss drivng a truck as punishment for allowing some cattle to wander...took weeks to even get Sheriff Leaf to even listen. According to the Grand Rapids Press the millionaire farmer's lawyer, Terry Tobias,has come up with 'new evidence' and is now quietly 'negotiating' with Julie to make it go away. And if the Mexican worker who does not speak english is an illegal, millionaire farmer can be finned $10,000 and cast into the fedreal pokey.
Has Prosecutor Julie refered this to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service?
More significantly why has the Banner not had the guts to follow up on the story...
Let the Banner explore the Calley property tax avoidance through his filing homestead exemption on two disconnected properties. 100% x2= 200% Do we owe Calley a property tax rebate? We know the Ionia Sentinel-Standard will NEVER investigate a local political issue...what a rag. Maybe the State Journal will pick it up. Bash the Banner if you will, but its the best game in town. Remember their investigative reporting on the casino-Abrahmoff connection when the GR Press and other conservative controlled GR TV media ignored it...because it went against their anti-casino stand.
Watching Dick on "To the Point" now. First segment "long term, short term investment of oil companies" had me dropping my jaw like the aflac duck listening to Yogi Berra!
Unless he can avoid a debate with Jennifer his numbers will surely drop.
Second segment:
Dick comes out for raising "different taxes" to replace AMT! While he is not specific, I feel a giant shoe overhead!
I thought the Banner was up front when they put the "millionaires" pic, I believe, on the front page, or awful close to it. I've heard some of the "clique" speak very poorly of Jacobs and Young, they want them to go away. Must be they're doing something right?
Can't blame Leaf directly for mistakes of his people. Sure, the buck stops at him, but if you're realistic I would guess he knew nothing about it until the ruckus hit the proverbial fan? The Sheriff Dept has thousands of issues they deal with. If you look at their Command structure, they don't have alot at the top to attend to all the concerns that come up. Not like Hastingsville that has two white shirts sitting on station every day, covering very little area and population than the County does! Counting their Detective you have about 3/18's of their cops on station duty! Is that .5%?
Julie has to move slowly and deliberately in "referring" an alleged "victim" to the Feds INS. Could be considered harassment and have the County in another lawsuit (Clare, means someone takes you to Court to get OUR money!) (Hastings City Bank still has it also, in case 3 months might have weakened your memory).
On DeVos, I never bought his products, except maybe the mosquito stuff, thought the rest was junk. I would love to hear how his "entire" employee staff fared under his family's control of this scheme that gave them so much. Wonder if Channel 8 checked out Amway like the others didn't do with Enron, until it was too late!
Ever heard stories of any of the retaliatory actions taken by the Hastingsville self-described "elite"?
I think the Banner does better than most other papers I read. Except maybe for the Detroit papers. But, they have so much to play with there!
Either the Mexican worker has a green card or he doesn't. Simple.
But, do we want to turn in our millionaire factory farmer?
His explosive personality was what got him in trouble!
INS wouldn't investigate possible illegals in Barry County. They were too busy looking at bigger operations they said. They did do a number of arrests in Cities across the State, at many of the oriental restaurants and such. Don't think they hit the small farms and berry pickers, probably won't. Ever been in the middle of a bunch of these "possible" illegals, like talking to a bunch of chickens. Feds too busy with Homeland Security elsewhere (Bin Laden should consider Freeport to hide out) to care.
Jay said...
Calley racked up Right to Life endorsement too. I think one of the others didn't pass muster (Reynolds? Trombley?) and they picked the "lead horse" like they sometimes do.
Regardless, it's pretty hard to sway a RtL PAC committee when not a single person on the committee was from Barry County. Way to pack the committee Mr. Calley.
If what you say is true Wade, Reynolds may have been the weakest link with Right to Life, because someone must of not been up to snuff for them to pull this.
Reynolds, without daring to speak on behalf of his campaign, is certainly not going to garner the nod from Right to Life. It may be they wanted to make sure he didn't win since he's the least friendly of the candidates toward their agenda but that would mean they saw him as such a threat they needed to stop him, which is entirely possible though a bit too conspiratorial when I believe in Occam's Razor- the most simple explanation is the one that is most likely to be true. In this case, Calley has been sucking up to Ionia Right to Life for years in preparation for this bid, the board was packed with people from his own district (and don't forget he's been chair of the Ionia GOP so he's surely got friends in high ((and low)) places), and he's got the money and charm to pull this off. Not to mention that in the Bailey-Newell race (if I recall correctly) Newell garnered the Right to Life nod even though Bailey was sufficiently pro-birth. If Bailey's pissy at not getting the endorsement he has only himself to blame since he had lots of time to lay the groundwork and could easily pack the board with his own children and gotten a unanimous vote.
While some are grousing that the Barry County camp is divided, I am pleased since it gives an opening to my pick, Brian Reynolds, to pull off a shoot the moon strategy which he is working beneath the radar and which I certainly won't divulge here. And yes, from what I've heard Bailey told the others to clear the field which only shows his massive ego when he couldn't even beat Gary Newell and then disappears and now expects to be crowned King of Barry County. The five way race with lots of candidates going after the same voting block could hand the race to a dark horse that goes after independent and moderate voters- and even Democratics who won't really have anything to vote for in the Democratic primary and can easily move over and vote the Republican ticket and pick the lesser of two evils (or even try to pick the weakest candidate for defeat in November if that's the way they choose to go- but that could be a risky strategy). The unions and the FOGLI (Friends of Gun Lake Indians) people could have a major effect if they choose to by coming out and voting for the candidate(s) who might be less openly hostile to their agenda, if not downright friendly.
I tell you, as much as I try to handicap this race (and I've been mentally preparing a prediction of the final tally which I will hopefully post in the next couple of weeks) the 5-way race has really got be going back and forth on who can grab enough votes to pull it out. I think it's going to be a tightly bunched group with Calley edging out the others- unless one of the Barry County crowd can pick up a major endorsement or similar silver bullet from the Ionia folks. Six weeks to go!
wish I could believe in your 5-way race, shoot the moon strategy for Reynolds, but the odds are stacked against him. I don't see him doing the basic items associated with voter outreach.
If you look to a race where FOGLI/Gun Lake Tribe had influence look next door back in '02--88th District currently held by Fulton Sheen.
5-way race. Very similar to this, only there was no woman, one pro-casino candidate, and geography was a bit tighter.
Fulton had his signs up in April. Fulton financed on credit cards (wisdon of a financial planner), but also got a big boost from DeVos' education group (now defunct). Fulton was the only one to utilize the Right to Life list (everyone qualified).
VanVolkinburg (the casino candidate) built an early base too. He was also heavily endorsed by MEA. Since two candidates were from Holland area, they cancelled each other out.
In the end, Fulton's early work and name ID prevailed and it went like this:
Sheen 33%
VanVolkinburg 20%
Dewey (Holland) 17%
Kraai (Holland) 16%
Farnsworth 14%
I've talked to FOGLI folk and they are very wary to get into this race. They put a lot of heart and soul into Geiger & VanVolkinburg last time for naught. With two pro tribe candidates, Reynolds edge is gone. VanVolkinburg had secured FOGLI's endorsement in March. I haven't heard a peep from them on this race.
Here's my poll prediction:
Calley 30%
Vlietstra 20%
Bailey 20%
Reynolds 15%
Trombley 10%
Lower 4%
Doster 1%
Calley will run away with it. You have no one that really draws from his base, except Lower. Being the only woman, and coming from a populous area of the district I think Susan will tie Bailey for votes. Bailey's strength will come from those that remember him and his Barry connections. I wanted to go higher on Reynolds, but I thought Wade would go double digits. Both are competing for the same segment. On Doster and Lower, I may have gone a bit high, but they are on the ballot. I also hear Lower is working his base. This also could change depending on who gets MCRGO, NRA, and Farm Bureau. This is an educated guess based on past trends in the area-- +/- %4.
Calley-28% (fancy suit vote)
Vlietstra-27% (chick vote)
Reynolds-18% (few people who care)
Beetle-17% (few people who don't care)
Wade-10% (His own worst enemy)
rest-scattered few friends/family
+/-.5% LOL (Hastings City Bank Vote)
LOL, no offense intended! While your definition of the "chick" vote is probably more politically correct than mine, I count the number of men potentially voting for an attractive young lady also!
agitator--
Your numbers are my "if the stars aligned and someone came close to defeating Calley senario". Although I like how Susan is positioned in the race, Right to Life is part of the holy trinity of packs, and the holy ghost at that (the other two are NRA/MCRGO and Chamber).
Because of Calley's hard work and endorsements, no candidate coming in second will get more than 20%, so Susan's 27% "Chick" vote is flattering for Susan, but far from realistic.
Sex does factor in when it's a race of 3 or more and only one female in the pack. Patty B's sex didn come into play in her State Rep and State Senate races. Even with the "advantage" Patty had to result to last minute tactics to edge out her opposition (endorsement from sitting rep and negative piece on her main challenger in the other)
In most races in the area, it can be 3-5% bounce.
Jay: I took her from your 20 to 28, a little more than the 3-5% bounce you mention. Being a blonde didn't hurt Jennifer! Yes, I realize I am stretching it, but you got to have hope in hard times!
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