The next few years bring us House races, Senate races, a Gubernatorial race, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, a couple of Supreme Court seats... the whole kit and caboodle, as it were.  Periodically, as I find interesting bits of information that are maybe a little too "inside baseball" for a general conversation (read: it'll bore some of you to tears but many of the hard-corp politicos might get a real jolt from it) I wanted a vehicle where I could share it without pretense or narrative.  The facts, ma'am.  Just the facts.

OK, the facts and maybe a little bit of my personal perspective, praise, adulation, derision, snark, what have you.  But mostly just the facts.

Enter, the "Inside Pitch."  Catchy, right?

Anyways, that's what THIS is conceptually.  And the specific occasion today...

I've learned that the Cox for Governor team have brought Neil Newhouse of Public Opinion Strategies in-house to handle all of their polling operations throughout the campaign.  

Newhouse is big-time and this is a pretty strong signal that the Attorney General and his campaign crew are taking 2010 seriously and are officially on the ground running.  His previous client list reads like a who's who... Jeb Bush in Florida, Michigan's own Mitt Romney, William Weld, Charlie Crist and Governor Dave Heineman who won Nebraska's gubernatorial primary race over Tom Osborne, easily the iconic sports hero in the history of the state.

That list includes men who legitimately had no business winning.  Romney was a Senate campaign loser before winning as a Republican in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.  Osborne had the name ID and the public good will to swat his opponents away like flies.  Heck, even Jeb Bush has the baggage of that four letter word after his first name.

But the insight and opinion information Newhouse brought their opponents helped them hone their message and deliver it better than the guys they were up against.

In other words, this is probably a pretty good decision by Team Cox.  

(If you've got a tip, a tidbit or a topic you'd like to pass along, anonymous or otherwise, don't be a stranger.  Email me at RightMichigan@gmail.com.)