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.

Considering the American Spectator considers Blackwell “the real deal” is really interesting. He doesn’t even have that much support of his own party here in Ohio. He is considered to be “too extreme” for the base of the Ohio Republican Party.

If he is the “real deal”, then lets look at what conservatives consider the “real deal”. There has been numerous problems with Blackwell’s office that are highly questionable. In 2004, he was the state co-chair to re-elect George Bush. During that time a letter went out asking corporations for donations, which is illegal under Ohio law. His office blamed it on a “printer error”. Earlier this year, Blackwell had another accident in office, which is still under investigation. Here is the information on that from Wiki:

On March 1, 2006 Blackwell’s office accidentally published a list of 1.2 million Social Security numbers of Ohio citizens on a website along with their business filings. A Federal class-action lawsuit was filed by Darrell Estep who claimed that the release of the data had caused his Social Security number to appear three times on the website. [46] The lawsuit was settled on March 28, 2006 after the numbers were removed from the webite, a registration process was enacted to view the data and Blackwell’s office agreed to make monthly progress reports to the court. [47] The data was a part of a centralized voter database, which is required by Federal law. At that time, Blackwell promised to only retain the last four digits of the Social Security number in the database to prevent future problems. [48]

However, on April 26, 2006, it was discovered that Blackwell’s office had again, accidentally mailed out computer disks containing the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of 7.7 million registered voters in Ohio. [49] The list was intended to be used by political activism groups to contact voters with campaign information. Blackwell’s office recalled the twenty disks that were sent out with Blackwell’s assurance that the privacy of voters was intact. [50]

Jim Petro, the Republican Attorney General of Ohio, has launched an investigation into the accidental disclosure citing a legal requirement to “investigate any state entity where there may be a risk of a loss of private data.” Blackwell stated that he considered the issue to be closed, but Petro disagreed saying that he will use “maximum due dilgence” to ensure that the data was not copied before it was returned. Ohio law requires that individuals be notified if their Social Security numbers are comprimised. [51] [52]

Now how can he be a “proven leader” with this many mishaps while in office?

If this isn’t enough for you to question Blackwell, then there is his pushing for the Diebold touch screen machines in Ohio. A Republican State Senator, Jeff Jacobson, asked Blackwell to disqualify Diebold from the bid process in 2003 due to security issues. Blackwell did not and Diebold went on to get the bid. Later it came out that during the time of the Bids, Blackwell was a stock holder in Diebold.

Again – this is what makes the “real deal” for a conservative and proves him a leader? If this is true then it is no wonder why our nation is riddled with controversy and scandals involving the GOP and conservatives. Ken Blackwell is nothing but a greedy neo-con, who cares for no one but himself. His campaign has had to resort to some down right dirty lies this year for his bid for Governor and that has only given him a 20 point deficit in the polls. He not only needs to loose this year, but also possibly face charges for some of the things that happened while in office (see above). Now that is the real deal.