Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Michigan senator
Published on October 20, 2006 By Brad Wardell In Republican

Here in Michigan, the senate race isn't as close as one might hope. It's Democrat Debbie Stabenow vs. Republican Mike Bouchard.

Bouchard claims that Stabenow has been cynically avoiding any sort of televised debates. But I have not seen any real evidence of this. Right now, she's got a 9 point lead over Bouchard.

As a business owner, I tend to vote for candidates who favor policies that help businesses. For instance, when my taxes are lowered, I have more capital to hire more people which creates jobs. Debbie Stabenow has often given me the impression that she doesn't understand or agree with the concept that businesses create jobs and when you tax them, you are taking capital away from them. And the federal government is particularly wasteful when it comes to using that confiscated capital.

Still, it's hard to get very excited about Bouchard.  I believe you can tell a lot about a person by their website.  At least in politics, it's hard to sen da message of competence if your website is bad or non functional.  Bouchard's website is far inferior to Stabenow's.

Here is Stabenow's page: http://www.stabenowforsenate.com/

Now here's Bouchard's page: http://www.bouchardforussenate.com/

The first thing you see on Bouchard's page is a blog item about his daughter. Okay, fine. But then you start to click on the top-most buttons and none of them work. You get blank pages. Such sloppiness sends a pretty negative message on competence.  Having such a poor page is certainly going to cost him votes.

I realize that you can't judge a politician by their website (and to be fair, I'm sure this will get fixed in a jiffy) but it makes me less inclined to vote for Bouchard and more inclined to vote for Stabenow (what can I say, I like her). 

Lest someone takes the above paragraph as meaning that I'm a "Cut and Run Conservative" (as Rush Limbaugh kindly labeled me on his show this past week) note the distinction: I am making a pretty obvious observation: Having a web page that looks amateurish is going to cost him votes. I am not saying that I wouldn't vote for him.  But that's only because I've kept closer track on the issues than the typical voter would.  A more casual voter who happens to go to his page and sees that his "Issues" tab is broken is going to not have a positive impression (I'm going to email the webmaster).

 


Comments
on Oct 20, 2006
First of all, it says on Stabenow's Web site that there have already been two debates. Second, if Bouchard isn't competent enough to put together a decent Web site, how can he be expected to be competent in the senate? His only experience, as far as I can tell, is enforcing existing laws. Writing laws takes a little more ability. Stabenow seems like a decent senator from what I've read about her.
on Oct 20, 2006
It says on the site that they were televised, plus you can watch them on line.

Debates
on Oct 23, 2006
Since when is it the Senator's job to attract jobs for his or her state? I was (I guess my mistake) that they were elected to represent the state's point of view at the federal level. To bring jobs 'home' could also be called pork...

TC