So this is Governor Rick Snyder's (R. MI) brilliant plan to win over the voters:
http://www.mlive.com/...
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday announced plans for a series of ten town hall events across Michigan as he seeks re-election in a competitive race against Democratic challenger Mark Schauer.
Snyder will kick of the “Road to Recovery” tour with a September 29 town hall in Kalamazoo. Events are also planned for October 2 in Sterling Heights and October 4 in Detroit.
Additional details and locations will be announced in coming weeks.
“I look forward to talking with voters regarding the issues facing Michiganders today, our accomplishments over the last four years, and my plans for the next four years,” Snyder said in a statement.
Each forum will be run by a local moderator, according to Snyder campaign manager Kyle Robertson, who said local organizations are helping find undecided voters to participate in the campaign event. - MLive, 9/17/14
You know what also helps you win over undecided voters? Debating your opponent, Mark Schauer (D. MI) but that looks like it won't happen:
http://www.detroitnews.com/...
The governor's campaign said Schauer is welcome to jointly appear with the governor at the events and take questions from voters, but with no ground rules.
"Rick Snyder is a confident leader who has a vision for Michigan and Mark Schauer lacks the intelligence to keep up with him in a format like a town hall," Snyder campaign manager Kyle Robertson said Wednesday.
But the Schauer campaign said the townhalls are no substitute for televised debates.
"It's a shame that Rick Snyder is unwilling to debate Mark Schauer in televised debates that would allow the most voters to see the candidates side by side discussing important issues that affect them," Schauer spokeswoman Cathy Bacile Cunningham said Wednesday in a statement. "A carefully scripted town hall with a partisan Republican audience is not the same as a statewide televised debate. We've reached out multiple times to the governor's campaign to negotiate debates, with no response.
"Mark Schauer would be happy to do a televised town hall with Rick Snyder. But let's be clear, what the governor proposed today is a political stunt."
In 2010, Snyder made town hall meetings with voters a hallmark of his campaign, even venturing into vastly Democratic cities such as Detroit in search of votes.
This year, the Republican incumbent has shied away from debating Schauer in a televised and scripted setting. - The Detroit News, 9/18/14
It's clear Snyder's afraid of debating Schauer and he's trying to dupe voters into giving him another term by doing this:
http://www.chron.com/...
Gov. Rick Snyder on Tuesday touted Michigan's successful Medicaid expansion as part of his re-election bid, saying 63,000 more low-income adults have signed up than projected this year, with 3½ months left.
The Republican governor said about 385,000 enrolled between April, when the Healthy Michigan program launched, and Monday. His administration had expected 322,000 signups by year's end.
"At that level, we're adding over 9,000 patients a week," Snyder said at an endorsement event at the Michigan State Medical Society, an East Lansing-based professional association of physicians. "It's outstanding progress."
His embrace of a key component of the federal health care law roiled conservative activists. But Snyder's campaign is hoping expanded Medicaid's appeal among the broader electorate helps him in November.
He called it the "capstone" of health care policies that he said include promoting a wellness and fitness plan, requiring public schools to have epinephrine injectors to treat allergic reactions and focusing on infant health.
"We have lower-income but hard-working people getting health care that didn't before. ... What a difference in people's lives that's making," Snyder said, contending that the availability of health coverage is a matter of "life and death."
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer, who voted for the health care law in Congress, said Snyder was "right" to propose expanding Medicaid.
"But it took him a long time to get it done. It cost the state $600 million or so," Schauer told The Associated Press on Tuesday after a campaign event with retired autoworkers in Warren, north of Detroit. - AP, 9/16/14
Snyder needs something to run on because he's having a hard time convincing voters that the economy is just peachy under his watch:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
In a recent campaign ad, over the sounds of an angelic choir and in front of images of pristine country roads, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder plugs his economic record. "We're on the road to recovery for every Michigander," Snyder says. "You might not feel it yet, but you will soon."
As campaign pitches go, it's not exactly "Morning in America," Ronald Reagan's famed synopsis of the country's economic recovery in 1984. And it highlights a key problem that endangers Snyder and another neighboring GOP governor, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, this autumn. For all the talk of the two governors' potential as national Republican figures, we may never find out unless they can convince voters in 2014 that they have helped rebuild two improving, but slow-moving, Midwestern economies.
Despite an unemployment rate lower than the national average, Walker can't escape the echoes of an unmet pledge to create 250,000 jobs in his first term, while Michigan voters aren't optimistic the state will return to its past prosperity.
Voters recognize things are moving in the right direction, but Democrats are seeking to capitalize on areas where people feel a disconnect between positive economic indicators and tangible improvements in their everyday lives.
Bernie Porn, the director of Michigan's EPIC-MRA poll, said Snyder's line is "almost admitting what [his opponent] is claiming, that people think the economy is improving but don't think it's positively affecting them."
"He picked the one road in Michigan that looked good," Porn added.
Polling in both states shows that voters believe their state's economies are turning around—but they aren't willing to give Walker or Snyder full credit. That has helped Snyder's opponent, Democrat Mark Schauer, pull into a very close race with the governor. In polling for USA Today and Suffolk this month, 51 percent of Michigan voters said the state's economy had improved over the last two years. But those same voters still gave Schauer a small lead within the margin of error.
Schauer is trying to convey that Snyder's reforms leave behind everyday people. The former congressman and state legislator focuses his attacks on Snyder-signed corporate tax cuts paid for with higher income taxes, $1 billion in education cuts, and new taxes on pensions, all of which he argues disproportionately impact the middle class. - National Journal, 9/16/14
We have a serious shot a beating Snyder, we just have to get our base out to the polls. Click here to donate and get involved with Schauer's campaign:
http://markschauer.com/