Walberg camp's cash race outpacing Schwarz
Conservatives give boost to GOP challenger

By Faith Bremner
State Journal Correspondent GNS (Gannett News Service)

WASHINGTON - Two dueling Republican groups are raising lots of cash and targeting Rep. Joe Schwarz of Battle Creek.

One is trying to defeat him; the other is trying to help him win the GOP primary in August for the District 7 House seat.

Quarterly campaign finance reports filed last week show that once again Tim Walberg of Tipton raised more money than Schwarz during the three-month reporting period, thanks to the conservative Club for Growth. The Washington, D.C.-based group has targeted the first-term Schwarz, a physician, for being too "liberal." His supporters call him a maverick.

Walberg, a former minister, raised $179,361 during the first three months of the year, 44 percent of which came from Club for Growth. Schwarz raised $153,873 during the same reporting period. However, he remains far ahead in total contributions.

The campaign finance reports show that 70 percent of Walberg's total came from Club members nationwide.

Club's fundraising clout doesn't mean that Schwarz should be quaking in his boots, said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, director of the Republican Main Street Partnership Political Action Committee. That group - which works to get moderate Republicans elected to Congress - has raised about $250,000 for Schwarz and plans to raise more, Resnick said.

"We will defend Joe Schwarz and uphold our record, 12 to zero," Resnick said. "They've never beaten us, and we don't plan to let them start here."

Defeating an incumbent, even if he's held the seat only two years, won't be easy, said Amy Walter, senior editor of the Cook Report, an independent, non-partisan political newsletter. President Bush endorsed Schwarz on Tuesday.

"Voters tend not to fire someone unless they've done something wrong," Walter said.

Walberg's campaign manager, Joe Wicks, said Schwarz deserves to be fired because he is outside of his district's Republican mainstream.

Club for Growth's Web site jabs Schwarz for, among other things, opposing oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, supporting Medicare coverage for the impotency drug Viagra and scoring 47 percent last year in the National Taxpayers Union's survey of lawmakers' fiscal conservatism.

"By any definition, he's a Republican liberal," Wicks said.

Schwarz's camp rebutted the liberal label and accused its opponents of sour grapes. Schwarz beat both Walberg and the Club for Growth's candidate, Brad Smith, two years ago.

Schwarz's National Taxpayers Union score is similar to scores earned by other Republican members of the Michigan congressional delegation and the Club for Growth is not going after them, Schwarz spokesman John Truscott said. Rep. Vernon Ehlers scored 50 percent and Reps. Candice Miller and Fred Upton each scored 52 percent

"It's personal, it's not based on policy," Truscott said. "He beat them last time, they were stung by it and they made him a target."