Corriveau said he hasn’t been approached to run against McCotter (R-Livonia) and hasn’t given the idea much thought. Corriveau said he’s determined to stay in his State House seat.

McCotter, who won re-election with 51 percent of the vote in 2008, is viewed as being potentially vulnerable to a Democratic challenge in 2010.

“I’m motivated to stay in this direction until I’m told that I’m not wanted anymore,” the state representative said. “If that means looking at different seats as they come up, I’ll always look but right now I’m focused on this two-year term,” he said.

In the next six months, Corriveau said he’ll consider whether to run for reelection to his State House seat or perhaps try to unseat State Sen. Bruce Patterson (R-Canton) in the 7th district.

Last week former U.S. Rep. Lynn Rivers (D-Ann Arbor) told Michigan Messenger she won’t run against< McCotter either.

“Did you know Congressman Thad McCotter voted against President Obama’s economic recovery plan, endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?” says the script of an automated telephone call that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to direct to homes in his district this week. The message will encourage voters to call Mr. McCotter and “ask why he voted to raise taxes on middle-class families.”

Both parties are really gambling on this bill. If it fails to help the economy recover, the Republicans will come out much stronger as a result. If it helps significantly, the Republicans will have a difficult time explaining their unified vote against it as anything but partisan politics.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stashed a “necessary” high speed rail project in the bill. But how does this $8 billion “Sin Express” from Los Angeles to Las Vegas put someone like Greg from Milford back to work?

This is a nearly verbatim repeat of a statement made by House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, who said, “Tell me how spending $8 billion in this bill to have a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is going to help the construction worker in my district.”

The problem, as Matthew Yglesias points out, is that there is no such project and there likely will not be. The $8 billion is not for a rail line between L.A. and Las Vegas, it is for the development of high-speed railroads between major cities all across the nation. The money will be targeted at areas that the Federal Railroad Administration has designated as “high-speed rail corridors.” There are ten such corridors identified that are ideal candidates for a high-speed rail system. And guess what? L.A. to Vegas is not one of them.

But here’s something McCotter didn’t bother to mention: Detroit to Chicago is on the list of high-speed rail corridors that may well receive these funds for a project to connect those two cities with a high-speed railroad line. Here’s the map from the FRA:

So that $8 billion is far more likely to be used to build a high-speed rail from Detroit to Chicago than for one between L.A. and Las Vegas. Greg from Milford may well be able to get a job building that railroad. He may well even be close enough to build another line you can see on that map, between Chicago and Toledo.

His other complaints about the bill? A $300 million expenditure for STD prevention and a $30 million item for something in Speaker Pelosi’s hometown. Those two items combined amount to approximately .0004% of the money allocated. But hey, why worry about pesky little things like facts when you’ve got a perfectly good talking point to spread — especially when you can sell that talking point as something sinful?

In the blog, McCotter slams Dems for holding Republicans’ feet to the fire, while letting the Dems who voted against the bill — most of them members of the Blue Dog Coalition — off the hook. He calls it hypocritical.

So why is McCotter opposed to the bill?:

Evidently, the hypocritical House Democrats are shocked Americans are disgusted by a trillion dollar fiscal obscenity that does much for hiking artists who are trying to stop smoking and avoid STDs, but does nothing – or worse than nothing – to create jobs for working families and respect taxpayers.

As noted earlier this week, House Republicans have declared the $475 million in STD prevention and screening and smoking cessation as wasteful spending.

McCotter, who opined from the floor of the House about how Republicans liked children and not just with a “side of fries,” might have a wee bit of an ulterior motive in attacking the Democrats. The guitar-strumming Republican is targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) of the Democratic National Committee with radio ads questioning his failure to support the stimulus. McCotter won only 51 percent of the vote in November, putting him on the list of most vulnerable Republicans.

Rep. McCotter fiddles on the guitar.

As the epic ongoing crisis of the American financial markets developed over the past two years, Rep. Thad McCotter, R-Livonia, was missing in action.

Now as U.S. taxpayers face a staggering $800 billion bill to repair the damage and voters ask who is responsible, Michigan’s attention may turn to the three-term representative from the Detroit suburbs. McCotter is the only member of the state congressional delegation who sits on a committee that deals directly with the financial, mortgage, housing and insurance markets.

A Michigan Messenger investigation has found that, in two years of membership on the House Financial Services Committee, McCotter failed to attend a single committee or subcommittee hearing on topics directly related to the current financial crisis.

As a member of the two most important subcommittees — the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises and the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity — McCotter paid little attention as the financial hurricane gathered and grew.

He did not attend any of 13 committee or subcommittee hearings for which there are transcripts available on issues directly related to the current crisis. While representatives of the minority party have little opportunity to influence the committee’s work, the hearings offered repeated opportunities for McCotter to hear expert testimony, question witnesses, and stake out policy positions for the benefit of his constituents.

McCotter’s interests seem to lie elsewhere. In the 2007-08 session of Congress, McCotter sponsored resolutions supporting National Dog Bite Prevention Week and the pope’s visit to the United States, and also the establishment of a National Kidney Cancer Awareness Month. He sponsored a resolution to wish hockey star Gordie Howe a happy birthday and submitted a bill to prohibit all government employees from attending the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

What he didn’t do was attend the following meetings of the House Financial Services Committee, which he joined in March 2007.

April 16, 2008: Subcommittee hearing on “Examining Proposals on Insurance Regulatory Reform.” 15 members, including 7 Republicans, attended — but not McCotter.

April 16, 2008: Subcommittee hearing on “H.R. 5679, The Foreclosure Prevention and Sound Mortgage Servicing Act of 2008.” 8 members, including 4 Republicans, attended — but not McCotter.

Oct. 30, 2007: Second subcommittee hearing on “Additional Perspectives on the Need for Insurance Regulatory Reform.” 20 members, including 11 Republicans, attended — but not McCotter.

Oct. 24, 2007: Full committee hearing on “Legislative Proposals on Reforming Mortgage Practices.” No McCotter.

Oct. 3, 2007: First subcommittee meeting on “The Need for Insurance Regulatory Reform.” No McCotter.

Oct. 2, 2007: Full committee hearing on “Systemic Risk: Examining Regulators’ Ability to React to Threats in the Financial System.” No McCotter.

Sept. 20, 2007: Full committee hearing on “Legislative and Regulatory Options for Minimizing and Mitigating Mortgage Foreclosures.” No McCotter.

Sept. 6, 2007: Joint hearing of the two subcommittees he’s on about the Homeowners’ Defense Act of 2007. No McCotter.

Sept. 5, 2007: Full committee hearing on “Recent Events in the Credit and Mortgage Markets and Possible Implications for U.S. Consumers and the Global Economy.” No McCotter.

July 25, 2007: Full committee hearing on “Improving Federal Consumer Protection in Financial Services.” No McCotter.

June 26, 2007: Full committee hearing on “A Review of Investor Protection and Market Oversight with the Five Commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission.” No McCotter.

June 20, 2007: Full committee hearing on “The State of the International Financial System.” No McCotter.

March 15, 2007: Full committee hearing on “Legislative Proposals on GSE (Government Sponsored Enterprises) Reform.” No McCotter.

In short, McCotter has made no effort to regulate the industries whose massive losses have led to such devastating consequences for the country. Indeed, he scorned the idea of regulation. “Big government doesn’t stop chaos,” he declared in a speech on the House floor last December. “Big government is chaos.”

Where he stands now is hard to discern. Last week McCotter joined a group of 31 congressional Republicans to send a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke condemning “government interventions to prop up failing private sector companies.” But he also released a statement to the press that called for Congress to “responsibly enact legislation creating a pro-active, 21st Century (sic) regulatory system that brings present stability to our free markets.”

What such a regulatory system might look like is not detailed in his statement, but the letter he signed to Paulson and Bernanke last week indicated that he favors “reforms based on free market principles to restore certainty to our markets.”

McCotter has received approximately $141,000 from banks, insurance companies, real estate and investment firms during the 2008 election cycle, a relatively low figure compared to other members of the Financial Services Committee.

Repeated requests for clarification from McCotter’s Washington office went unanswered, as did questions about his attendance record.

In short, this was a chance for me to see the McCarthy of Michigan — a one man battle against the evils of communism! It is important to note that the few people I was able to talk to are unaware of any communist organizations in Livonia. And while the Congressman should be applauded for standing up for Georgia in the recent conflict with Russia, one has to question just what the Congressman is going after.

Anyway, this was a fundraiser for the Congressman, at a cheap $25 a pop. It was his birthday celebration, but he was a no show (at least by the time I left). But his mother, a genial woman named Joan, told attendees Thad was in D.C. and was coming back on the 6 p.m. train. “Or maybe that is when he arrives,” she said with a giggle.

So Mom manned the fundraiser, complete with cake, party favors, a barbeque, tent and pony rides. But where was Congressman McCotter? Since I did not get an opportunity to say to him, I will take the opportunity here. Happy birthday, Congressman! And Mom, thanks for holding down the fort for your son!

Altogether, Republican candidates raised $9,518,684 between April 1 and July 16. Democrats collected $8,722,489 for the same period.

In Michigan’s 1st, 2nd, 4th and 6th districts, money flowed to incumbents. Outraising their challengers by enormous margins were Democrat Bart Stupak (vs. Republican Tom Casperson — the only of the three Republican challengers to file a finance report) and Republicans Peter Hoekstra (vs. Democrat Fred Johnson), Dave Camp (vs. Democrat Andrew Concannon) and Fred Upton, who outpaced Democratic challenger Don Cooney and reports $1,137,631 in cash on hand while Cooney claims only $16,857.

In the 7th and 9th districts, candidates appear more evenly matched.

Democratic challenger Mark Schauer, currently a state senator, has $928,686 on hand while incumbent U.S. Congressman Timothy Walberg has $855,137.

Republican incumbent Joe Knollenberg reports $1,891,010 on hand. His Democratic challenger Gary Peters raised $570,065 in the second quarter and has on hand $1,080,765.

Note: This story was edited to reflect that Gary Peters raised $570,065 in the second quarter instead of the initially reported lower number of $240,456. It also corrects his cash on hand from the initially reported $1,082,326 to $1,080,765.

A group called Catholics United recently began running ads in the home districts of 13 U.S. Representatives who call themselves pro-life but voted against legislation reauthorizing the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which provides health insurance for children who lack it. The targeted group includes two Michigan Republicans, Thaddeus McCotter and Joseph Knollenberg. The ad said:

I’m the mother of three children, and I’m pro-life. I believe that protecting the lives our children must be our nation’s number one moral priority. That’s why I’m concerned that (Congressman X) says he’s pro-life, but for the second time in a month, he

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