Michigan tea party officials are in an uproar over an apparently successful effort to place a slate of tea party candidates on the state ballot in November. A previously unknown group calling itself the Tea Party submitted about 60,000 signatures to the state, and has entered the names of 23 candidates for inclusion on the November ballot. Opponents of the effort to will have until Aug. 17 to challenge the validity of signatures.
Official teabagger spokesmen and the Michigan Republican Party say the ballot effort is a scam by Democrats, meant to draw support away from Republicans.
The petitions to make the Tea Party a formal political party in Michigan were submitted by a group led by Mark Steffek of Reese, located in Tuscola County.
Both Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer and Steffek's attorney, Michael Hodge, say the Democratic Party has nothing to do with the group. In a recent Detroit Free Press article, Steffek — a retired United Auto Workers shop steward — said he hadn't attended tea party gatherings but described himself as an independent concerned with issues such as free trade, deficit spending and government debt.
The "real" teabaggers are not pleased. "We are not convinced (Steffek) is a true tea partier," said Jim Lefler, a Kalamazoo resident and board member of the Southwest Michigan Tea Party Patriots. "We are the real Tea Party."
It is interesting to note that the races the upstart Tea Party is contesting are for the most part competitive ones.
The party is running two candidates for U.S. House. One is the 1st district, where the retirement of Democrat Bart Stupak gives Republicans a possible pickup. The other Tea Party nominee is running in the 7th district, where Dem freshman Mark Schauer is expected to have a tough fight. He won in 2008 by 157,213 votes to 149,781.
The party nominated four statewide nominees, for Secretary of State, Attorney General, Board of Regents, and State Board of Education. For the State Senate, it nominated 6 candidates. Two of those races were very close in 2006.
For state house, the party nominated 8 candidates. Again, in two of them, in 2008, the vote had been very close between the two major party candidates.
It looks to this observer as if the Republican effort to stir up their Bircher/far right base is backfiring on them. These low-information wingnut voters will see "Tea Party" on the ballot and vote for them without knowing who they are or what they stand for.
At least one of the Tea Party candidates appears to be a Democrat. The guy running in the 106th state house district, David Polzin, is a former donor to Bart Stupak, and ran as a Dem for the 106th seat last time.
Of course, the tea party claims to be bipartisan, right?
UPDATE:
It looks like the wingnut blogs are all over this. They're calling it " the Bullshit Tea Party" and are busy digging up the Demonrat dirt on the Tea Party's candidates.
I guess that shoots their "bipartisan" argument right in the ass...