Posted on 07/31/2006 4:57:57 PM PDT by Kieri
Jim Berryman is no Republican. But he will vote like one next week.
The former Democratic state senator will vote in the Republican primary so he can support U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz over challenger Tim Walberg.
Four Democrats are running for the same seat, too. But Berryman expects a vote in his party's primary won't matter. The winner likely will lose to Schwarz or Walberg in November.
Berryman should know. He ran for Congress in 1998 and lost to Republican Nick Smith.
"God bless the Democrats for trying," he said. "But you have got to be realistic: The winner of this Republican primary will be elected in the fall."
Lots of Democrats feel the same way. Almost everyone expects big numbers to cross party lines in the Aug. 8 primary because the hotter races are on the Republican side.
The hard-fought contest between Schwarz and Walberg may draw more attention, but Republicans also have the only contested state House primary in Jackson County. Rep. Rick Baxter and challenger Bob Ross will square off, while Jackson Mayor Martin Griffin is the only Democrat in that race.
Many expect most Democratic defectors in the congressional race to vote for Schwarz instead of the more conservative Walberg.
Schwarz won't discourage them.
"I encourage anybody who wants to vote for me to vote for me," said Schwarz, a doctor from Battle Creek.
Walberg, a former pastor from Tipton, said he believes Democrats provided Schwarz's margin of victory in a six-way GOP primary in 2004.
"It was a factor last time," Walberg said. "Joe Schwarz, by our analysis, received 10,000 crossover votes."
Schwarz beat the second-place finisher by less than 4,000 votes.
"It's the Democrats who actually put Joe Schwarz in office last time," said Democrat Sharon Renier, who lost to Schwarz in the 2004 fall race.
"I've talked to even some Democratic elected officials who plan to vote for Joe Schwarz" next week, said Renier of Munith. "I'm not too happy about it."
Others aren't, either. Jonathan Williams, who chairs the Jackson County Republican Party, said independent voters are welcome, but Democrats should stick to their own primary.
"If you are a hard-line Democrat and you are crossing over to select Republican candidates, that doesn't smell right," Williams said.
"It would be like the Jackson High Vikings choosing the captains of the Lumen Christi Titans football team."
Leonard Smigielski, chairman of Jackson County's Democrats, said he tries to discourage Democrats from switching over.
But he acknowledges some Democrats will undoubtedly choose to support "the lesser of two evils" on the Republican side.
"They're free thinkers and they're progressives," Smigielski said. "They'll do what they want."
Schwartz won the primary with only 27% of the GOP vote. He was the only pro-death candidate who ran; the others were all pro-life.
I'm going to beat my relatives if they don't vote next week.
Joe Schwarz is a Soros puppet.
I don't know about Soros, but most GOP voters here are pi$$ed that a 27% pro-death vote WON in a very conservative district. Schwartz has run for office before and lost, and this time he won because there were 5 others in the primary.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
They could have wrote this entire article from my posts about this for the past few weeks, RATS elected Schwartz last time!
This time is still different, only 2 Republicans running, not 5-6 !
Check it out. Soros is buying quite a few republican congressmen.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1519618/posts
Just in RI and IL, RINOs can't win without crossover Democrats.
http://www.mlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-17/115332517759250.xml?jacitpat?NEJ&coll=3&thispage=2
A related article, written by the same RAT ( Brad Flory ) that wrote the one you posted.
The point this guy is trying to get across to all the RATS...Cross over and vote for Schwartz!
It won't surprise me if I run into Mr. Flory when I attend the MCRI meeting with Ward Connerly and Jennifer Gratz on Wednesday.
I'm bringing my 12-year old daughter with me. She wants to hopefully meet Jennifer, since she could one day experience the same sort of discrimination when she applies to college if MCRI isn't passed.
It's the one area where Mr. Butler and I part company on the issues.
Brad Flory lives in Lansing, so he will likely be there.
My sister used to play 'chicken' against Bunning on their bicycles in my OLD neighborhood of Detroit. Small world, but thankfully it has Freeper moments.
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/bunning_jim.htm
The same thing is happening to the dems in Lansing right now (6 names up for the 68th dist) and the pubs north of here (I think it's the 93rd, Clinton county, 6 GOPers). With that many names it becomes a nightmare,and that's exactly how Herr Doktor Josef "Mengele" Schwartz won the primary. Closing the primaries is an idea that is forever getting kicked around, but I'd like to see it go further. If candidates were chosen in a GOP caucus, we'd have folks who actually represent us.
Novel idea, isn't it?
Everyone should have to declare a party 90 days before the primary.
Anyone have any idea if Schwarz can really be defeated this election?
I think he can. Part of our district includes the western suburbs of Ann Arbor but are counterweighted against the eastern burbs of Battle Creek and the entirety of Jackson. The area is very conservative and most people don't feel Schwartz stands for what they believe in. At the moment Schwartz has the backing of the GOP as the incumbent, but I really do think he'll lose. And I'll celebrate that!
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