ken blackwell

Party Changes Happening

Howard Dean is now out as the head of the DNC and now we got Tim Kaine poised to take over the party. I think Kaine is an excellent pick. He has great fund raising potential, and it might help keep Virginia blue.

But over on the Republican side, things are more interesting. It looks like Ken Blackwell is positioned to become the new head of the RNC:

Ohio’s former Secretary of State has picked up some support in his effort to become chair of the Republican National Committee.

Saturday, Cincinnati’s Ken Blackwell picked up endorsements from several prominent conservatives, including Dr. James Dobson who is founder of Focus on the Family.

Other support was logged in from one-time GOP presidential hopeful Steve Forbes and Club For Growth president Pat Toomey.

The conservative wing of the GOP is seeking to maintain its influence in party leadership after experts say their position has lost ground along with legislative seats in the November, 2008, election.

So the RNC wants to pick a new head that is plagued with questions and lawsuits from the 2004 presidential election? Hmmm ok. Blackwell’s last run for public office was in 2006, when he ran for governor here in Ohio, where he lost by 24% to our current governor, Ted Strickland.

Fallout Continues in Ohio Voting Scandal

Last week, two election workers in Ohio got sentenced to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount in the 2004 presidential election. Now our new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner has asked the election board members to resign or be fired:

All four election board members for Cuyahoga County, troubled by recount rigging charges and voting machine problems, have been told to resign or face being fired, a state official said Monday.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said she called the four board members of Ohio's most populous count late Sunday, asking them to leave by the close of business Wednesday.

The county, which includes all of Cleveland, has had difficulty adjusting to electronic voting. Last May's primary, the first attempt at electronic voting in the county, was marred by absent or poorly trained poll workers, lost vote-holding computer cards and a polling place that opened hours late

If these convictions would have come down 6 months ago, nothing would have happened on the state level. This is what happens when you got a proactive Secretary of State, as compared to Ken Blackwell, who did nothing.

What About Blackwell?

There is a lot of talk going on right now about Michael Steele and what his future holds. There has been talk of him joining Bush's cabinet and even talk that he might replace Ken Mehlman.

With all that speculation, there seems to be something missing. We have another out of work politician that has been loved by the Bush family. What about Ken Blackwell? Blackwell served in Bush 41's administration and is unemployed come first of the year.

Considering all the troubles going on with HUD right now and their secretary, I am wondering if this will become the new job from Blackwell. He did serve as under-secretary for HUD from 1989-1990. True Bush could really scare us and end up appointing him to succeed John Bolton. Blackwell also has experience at the UN, serving as our ambassador to the Human Rights Commission from 1992-1993.

So will Bush come to the rescue of the man who gave him the Presidency in 2004? I am really expecting to see this.

My Voting Experience

I just got back from voting and we suffered from a "glitch". As I was voting, my ballot started off with governor and then worked down through the list. After voting for all the politicians, up next were the issues. My first issue was State issue 1, an issue dealing with Ohio's Worker Compensation. I was expecting to see this, but knew my vote didn't count on it:

In most elections, ''State Issue 1'' is something highly significant and its outcome closely watched. However, in Ohio today, Issue 1 doesn't count, literally.

That's because the issue, a referendum on changes in Ohio's Workers Compensation law, died in a legal challenge that determined the measure lacked sufficient valid signatures on petitions to put it before the voters. But that ruling didn't come until it was too late to remove Issue 1 from the ballot, both absentee and electronic.

So today, when you go into the voting booth, you will see Issue 1 on your ballot, even though it isn't a valid ballot issue anymore.

So after my voting experience went smoothly, the person I went down with had her turn to cast her ballot. She had the same ballot, the same ballot (iso) card, and the same machine, but her ballot did not appear the same. Instead her ballot started out with a blank blue screen and then went onto the candidates and the state issues, but issue 1 was not on her ballot. She called the poll worker over who said that "this has been happening on some machines". Well our polling place only has three machines and she was on the same machine as I just got done voting on, and this problem did not happen for me.

After we got done we did immediately call the Democrat hotline (1-888-DEM-VOTE) to report the problem. They connected us with a local person, who was very interested in the problem.

Is A Cincinnati Talk Show Host In Possession Of Illegal Documents?

I came across this clip via Glenn Greenwald. It is from Hannity and Colmes where Cincinnati's own midget version of Bill O'Reilly, Willie Cunningham, was a guest going on about the "Strickland is gay" school yard tactic that Ken Blackwell's campaign and the Ohio GOP has launched.

Cunningham said one thing that really caught my ear. He was talking about Strickland's former staffer who was allegedly convicted of exposing himself to minors in the early 90's. Cunningham said it is fact and he has a copy of the report. There was a conviction in 1994, but no one really knows (or should know) what it was. The case was sealed in 2002 by a judge during an expungement (something that can occur with misdemeanor charges). So how does Willy have a report that has been sealed by a court?

I believe that Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters should look into this. Has Mr. Cunningham obtained illegal information and using it now for a partisan trick? Is he using this information on public airwaves? I think that Mr. Deters needs to investigate that.

The Disgrace Called Blackwell

From this past Monday night's debate:

Blackwell's little baseless attack (something the liar is familiar with) has had some serious reprocussions. This is from the conservative Findlay Courier:

We've been following Ken Blackwell's career for years. Our file on him is more than an inch thick. We've talked with him personally and come away impressed with his intelligence and commitment to change -- both of which are much needed in this state.But while Blackwell may still get some of our individual votes, he's lost our endorsement, for whatever it's worth. His total nastiness at the Monday debate with his opponent, Democrat Ted Strickland, has proven that he's really not the kind of man we need as our next governor. Personal attacks of dubious accuracy should have no place in a political campaign. As Strickland said, "Mr. Blackwell, you should be ashamed of yourself."

Mr. Blackwell - Not only does Ohio want you to NOT be our next governor (well maybe Taft does because you would make him look like a saint), I know this Ohio resident is ashamed to even say you are from my state. We didn't like you in Cincinnati and we sure as hell don't like you in Columbus.

GOTV - Donkey Style

GOTV. It has been a key ingredient in Republican victories for the past decade. It is also something we need to counter in order to insure a win this November.

GOTV is simple. It is the “get out the vote” campaign. Republicans target key demographics on the days leading to the election and on election day itself. The main tool they use for this is phone banking to urge voters, who would lean to their side, to get to the polls.

This year the Democrats are working on a GOTV effort – an effort that must succeed if we are to win. To give you a general idea of how we are doing it here in Butler County Ohio:

The Monday night before Elections, we will be conducting phone banks to contact Democrats and Independents to urge them to vote the next day.
On Election Day – volunteers will go to the polling places throughout the days to find out how many people have voted. After that they will start calling Independents and lean-Democrats to urge them to get out. Some are even going to offer rides if people have no way to get to the polls.

I have had experience with this effort in the past (in 1992) and the results are very rewarding.

Right now the polls look very good for Democrats, but a scary rumor I have heard was confirmed last night. Here in Ohio, Ken Blackwell’s campaign for Governor has been urging their supporters to say they support Ted Strickland in any polls. This is obviously being done to push Democrats away from the polls on Election Day (why waste your time when the victory is all but guaranteed?). I can’t believe this tactic is unique to only Ohio. We must assume that Republicans are trying this in other races around the country as well.

The Lies Of Blackwell

A front page story in Today's Cincinnati Enquirer shows how desperate Ken Blackwell is to win:

With Republican Ken Blackwell trailing by double digits in almost every poll, Blackwell's campaign Tuesday tried to link his Democratic opponent to child sex predators - and the state Republican spokesman even raised questions about Ted Strickland's sexuality.

Blackwell and the state GOP say they are only questioning Strickland's integrity and judgment.

The Strickland campaign said the GOP ought to be "ashamed."

At Monday night's final televised debate, and again in a press release Tuesday, Blackwell charged that Strickland should have known that a man arrested for exposing himself to children was on his congressional payroll. He also suggested Strickland backed a U.S. House resolution supported by a group supporting pedophilia.

This who "Strickland is gay" issue started during the summer when the Ohio GOP hired a "social conservative coordinator" who circulated an email with the same claims. The claims were proven false and the author of the emails was finally fired. This new issue however could lead Blackwell into court:

A Cincinnati attorney who represents the former aide said he may take legal action against Blackwell and anyone else who releases information that was sealed by a judge.

Although details of the man's 1994 arrest and conviction were expunged in a confidential court order in 2002, the Blackwell campaign circulated an Internet column Tuesday that names the former congressional employee.

20 Days To Go - Great News For Blue Ohio!

Strickland keeps moving out in front of Blackwell, now with his biggest margin yet:

Democrat Ted Strickland has a nearly 2-1 lead over Republican Ken Blackwell with three weeks left in the race for governor, a poll released Wednesday shows.

The Quinnipiac University poll found 59 percent of likely Ohio voters favored Strickland, a Methodist minister and six-term congressman, while 32 percent backed Blackwell, Ohio's conservative secretary of state and a favorite of the religious right.

The attempt to prevent Strickland from voting this year has also hit a road bump. The Assistant Secretary of State returned the complaint to the county election board. It turns out the board didn't even investigate the claim and instead just voted.

Yesterday, the New York Times published an editorial about Strickland's residency questions. The New York Times put a darker slant to the story, saying the Blackwell could decide if Strickland was eligible to run:

Voters in Ohio can be forgiven if they feel they have been beamed out of the Midwest and dropped into a third-world autocracy. The latest news from the state's governor's race is that the Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality. We'd like to think that his office would not ultimately do that, or that if it did, such a ruling would not be allowed to stand. But the mere fact that an elected official and political candidate has the authority to toss his opponent out of a race is further evidence of a serious flaw in our democracy.

(H/T Nicole)

Blue Ohio News For Monday, August 7, 2006 (93 days to go)

Today is the big day in Blue Ohio News, the day where we find out Bob Ney is out. The interesting part is that Ney is trying to pick his successor:

In a heavily Republican district, Ney reported last month that his own internal polls had him clinging to a 4-percentage point lead; Space said his internal polls showed him up by 11 percentage points. Ney hadn't gotten less than 60 percent of the vote since 1998.

Ney expects state Sen. Joy Padgett's name to surface as his successor in the fall race.

"She is a person of passion and conviction," Ney said. "I can think of no better person to represent this district."

Padgett is one who has been sticking up for Ney since his involvement with Abramoff came to the public light. The problem is that there will be another primary for Ney's spot and Padgett may not be able to run:

State Sen. Joy Padgett, Ney’s hand-picked successor for his seat, could fall under a little-known provision of Ohio election law, dubbed the “sore loser” provision. It prevents a candidate who loses in one primary from running in another during the same election cycle. Earlier this year, Padgett was the primary running mate of gubernatorial hopeful James Petro, who lost to the ticket of Ken Blackwell and his running mate, Ohio State Rep. Tom Raga.

Even if Padgett succeeds in getting her name on the new primary ballot, the controversy could invite other Republicans to jump into the unexpected race. James Harris, who lost to Ney in the Republican primary in May, said he’s considering running again — although the sore loser provision may apply to him, too.

Political Racism

With all this talk of race baiting and racism from people on the left (which I believe is utter bullshit), I want to raise a serious question.

Last week in Blue Ohio News, I posted about this flyer that the Blackwell campaign put out:

And here is the story that followed:

A group of more than two dozen black leaders and activists from Cuyahoga County met Saturday in Warrensville Heights, a suburb east of Cleveland, to coordinate an out-reach effort to black voters on behalf of Democratic gubernatoiral candidate Ted Strickalnd.

Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, one the city’s most influential black leaders, organized the meeting. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones and Warrensville Heights Mayor Marcia Fudge also attended.

Strickland’s rival, Republican Ken Blackwell, who is black, is actively trying to woo black voters from Cuyahoga County, the most Democratic vote-rich county in the state. Blackwell recently distributed a flyer that features a photo of a black man frightened by the sight of Strickland’s name. Blackwell also touted recently the endorsements of black ministers from Central Ohio.

So a black candidate's campaign puts out this flyer that the black community found offensive and decided to take action. So how does the Ohio Republican Party respond?

Blue Ohio News For Monday, July 13, 2006

One issue that will weigh in on Ohio voter's minds this election season is jobs. Ohio has lost an enormous amount of jobs to outsourcing and the two Senate candidates, Mike DeWine and Sherrod Brown have very differing views of free trade:

Akron businessman John Johnston might have had enough. Six years ago, the registered Republican, who is involved with two separate steel distribution and processing ventures, voted for Sen. Mike DeWine.

This time, Johnston is leaning toward voting for DeWine’s Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown of Avon. If so, the switch will result mainly from Brown’s vocal criticism of a series of freetrade agreements approved by Congress and supported by DeWine.

"A lot of the products that used to be made here now are made overseas," Johnston said. "Nobody is against trade. It’s all about what is fair.

"Pretty much everybody we compete against is subsidized in one form or another, especially with what you see in China," Johnston said, adding he thinks China and other countries also gain an advantage through currency manipulation. "It is about jobs. Where (Brown’s) trade policies stand is where this country needs to go for the future."

Blackwell has finally done one thing somewhat right. He has removed some of his duties over seeing elections here in Ohio:

In his push to become the next governor of Ohio, Ken Blackwell has handed some of his secretary of state duties over to his chief deputy.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Assistant Secretary of State Monty Lobb has been directing county election boards and breaking tie votes among county officials.

Blackwell's spokesman says the Republican nominee for governor is permitted by law to hand off those duties and is still responsible for every decision made by his office.

The president of the Ohio Association of Election Officials says Blackwell's leadership is especially needed this year because of changes to state election law.

American Spectator- "Ken Blackwell Is The Real Deal"

The American Spectator has an article today, in which they are doing some major cheerleading for Ken Blackwell:

First, the conservative blogosphere has justifiably been full this week of reports from Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell's interview with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation. (For two examples, see here and here.) I therefore won't rehash most of what Mr. Blackwell said, although I will repeat these two quotes that, in person, sounded especially good in the context and forcefulness with which he put them:

1) "It's a simple principle:... Capital seeks the path of least resistance and most opportunity. ... A confiscatory tax code [is] the handmaiden of big government," and it harms the economy.

2) "The flip side of poverty is wealth creation....There is an upward-mobility tradition in our society." Black voters, too, understand that we can "build an asset base that actually wins the war on poverty." And Blackwell, who would become the first black governor in Ohio's history, said he is aiming for a majority of the black vote.

To which I add: If there is any one candidacy that should interest conservatives this year, it is Blackwell's. He's the real deal, a principled conservative on issues across the board, and he's impressive as can be. He has proved his vote-getting potential as mayor of Cincinnati and as a thrice-elected statewide officeholder.

The American Spectator needs to do some fact checking. Ken Blackwell served as mayor for Cincinnati from 1979-1980 (his first day as mayor was the infamous Who concert where 11 people died in a stampede). When Blackwell was mayor, he was a dual-party Mayor. He was a Democrat and a Charterite. Charterites is an independent party in Cincinnati that was formed during the 1920's to break away from a very corrupt Republican party that controlled the city. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that Blackwell became a Republican himself.

Blackwell did win three state wide races, but his first was more of a give me. He was appoint to be state treasurer in 1994 by then Governor George Voinovich to replace Mary Withrow, who was appointed U.S. Treasurer by Bill Clinton. He then won that seldom contested election later that year and then went on to run for Secretary of State in 1998, which he won and won re-election for in 2002. This is no major accomplishment in Ohio considering the state is very Republican.

Blue Ohio News For Thursday, July 27, 2006

The Ohio Republican Party is really sinking to new lows:

Responding to what Democrats and a political expert alike are calling a smear campaign, the state Republican Party is verbally disavowing an e-mail sent by one of its staffers that makes personal allegations against Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland and his wife.

But Republican party officials did not distribute a follow-up e-mail or take any other action to repudiate the e-mail, which suggests that the Stricklands are gay.

"Every time we think we’ve reached the sewer, there’s a lower level of sewer," said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, who has written about dirty campaign strategies in both parties.

The e-mail, obtained by The Dispatch, was sent to an undisclosed group of GOP supporters — with instructions to forward it to others — by Gary Lankford, whom the party hired in July as its "social conservative coordinator." He was paid $16,000 as a "voter contact consultant" for the primary-election campaign of GOP gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell before taking the party job.

This is how low these right wing fundamentalists will sink in order to win a race. They go against the very fiber of their religion and Ken Blackwell is the worse offender of them all.

OH-02 Update

Looks like we might get a debate (or more) between Jean "full of " Schmidt and her Democrat challenger Dr. Victoria Wulsin.:

One resident, however, wanted to know whether Schmidt would agree to debate at the Anderson Township Government Center and would agree to eliminate negative advertising from her campaign.

Blue Ohio News For Wednesday, July 26, 2006

The governor race here in Ohio is heating up even more. First off, Ted Strickland has picked up the support of the FOP:

The Ohio Fraternal Order Of Police endorsed Democrat Ted Strickland for governor today, turning away from a Republican gubernatorial candidate for the first time in more than 10 years.

The organization, which represents 24,000 police officers, had little to say about why it likes Strickland more than Republican Ken Blackwell.

“Congressman Ted Strickland has a long relationship with us and has consistently supported law enforcement," said Nick DiMarco, president of Ohio's Fraternal Order of Police. "Ted is an honest and decent man. Not only is he what law enforcement in Ohio needs, we believe he's what the state of Ohio needs, and we unanimously endorse him."

Sadly there is a flip-side to this. The FOP is backing Mike DeWine for Senate:

A day after the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police backed its first Democrat for governor in more than a decade, it threw its firepower behind Republican Mike DeWine for the U.S. Senate, whom it's backed before.

"Mike DeWine gets things done for police officers," FOP president Nick DiMarco said in a statement. "Ohio's police officers know that when Mike DeWine says he's going to do something, he means it. He proved that with his leadership in fighting violence and helping its victims."

And finally. Ken Blackwell is now pissing off the black community

A group of more than two dozen black leaders and activists from Cuyahoga County met Saturday in Warrensville Heights, a suburb east of Cleveland, to coordinate an out-reach effort to black voters on behalf of Democratic gubernatoiral candidate Ted Strickalnd.