So John Schwartz has threatened to run against Tim Walberg as a Democrat. It figures.
I learned about it from Pat Toomey’s article in the WSJ titled, “In Defense of RINO Hunting.” And to think, Tommey gets criticized on the grounds that he shouldn’t do anything to get Republicans unelected.
Here’s what I wrote about John Schwartz just after he got elected in 2004. It was in response to someone who said, “I actually like Specter.” (I’ve edited it slightly and cleaned up my language a bit. Maybe I’m mellowing.) My reply was:
Then I’ll bet you’ll like my new Republican congressman, John Schwartz, who is also a slimy, two-faced, backstabbing [deleted].
My old congressman, Nick Smith, is one who didn’t go along with all of Bush’s spending plans, so Bush’s people and Delay retaliated, threatening to see to it that his son, who ran for his seat this year, didn’t get elected. Not that Schwartz will support Bush — I don’t think he likes him.
Schwartz, unlike the previous rep, is from my end of the district. I’ve gotten to see a lot more of him than I would like. He made small talk with my youngest son when I took him to an election-night uncelebration 16 years ago. He’s a physician. I know people who were in his graduating high school class. I’ve seen him come out of the operating room to talk to family members in the waiting room. He once got into a parking-lot fist fight with another doctor who [happened to have] been one of my daughter’s physicians. His opponent made use of that episode to sink an earlier run for Congress for him.
But that’s not what makes him a slimy, two-faced, etc. In the early 80s the Republican challenger for congress was a woman named Jackie MacGregor, a slightly crackpot rightwinger. I think she had had a job in the Reagan education department. Anyhow, Jeanne Kirkpatrick had gotten to know her and had promised to campaign for her. I don’t know if she regretted that promise, but she came to our district and there was a $50/plate dinner, the only such event my wife and I ever attended. All the local Republicans were there, and all of them got to say a few words before Kirkpatrick’s speech.
All except John Schwartz. He didn’t want to be on the same platform with Jackie MacGregor, and maybe Kirkpatrick, too, for all I know.
OK, I can understand that. It happens that sometimes one person wants to distance himself from another in the same party. But did he stay away like a decent human being would do? No, he has to have his say too. He comes to the outside door of the hall where were meeting, just off the downtown mall, and stands in the open doorway to say how busy campaigning he was so he was sorry he couldn’t join us, but blah, blah, blah. Instead of just staying out of sight, he has to [go out of his way to] give a visible snub to the candidate. What a lowlife.
Later, when he ran for Congress himself and lost, he waited until AFTER the election was over to tell the newspapers just how much he detested conservative Republicans.
He has been the top guy in the state senate, ran John McCain’s campaign in Michigan, had a run for governor, and now the slimy piece of RINO finally has his national office.
He and Arlen Specter are two of a kind. They suck up to conservatives when they need their votes, and then after they’re safely elected, are the first to turn on them and stab them in the back with their snot setting turned up to high.
Was I glad when Pat Toomey and the Club for Growth helped defeat him in 2006? You betcha. I would never vote for the guy. In 2004 I cast one of my rare votes for a Democrat in order to vote against Schwartz. If he wants to run as a Democrat, fine. He should have done it long ago.