The Ohio GOP took action yesterday against the employee who sent out emails attacking Ted Strickland:

The chairman of the Ohio Republican Party fired an employee yesterday for disseminating a disparaging e-mail about Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ted Strickland and his wife.

Robert T. Bennett also issued a letter of apology to Strickland, saying the e-mail suggesting that the Stricklands are gay “was in no way authorized nor condoned by me or any member of my senior staff.”

Bennett dismissed Gary Lankford, hired this month as the party’s “social conservative coordinator,” for sending the e-mail titled “10 Things to Know About Ted Strickland.” The e-mail linked readers to a Web log that directly questions the sexual orientation of Strickland and his wife, Frances.

“Ohioans expect and deserve a competitive contest for governor focused on the substantive issues important to leading our state,” Bennett said in his letter of apology to Strickland. “While public records, comments, platforms and proposals are fair game, we will not engage in rumor and innuendo.”

Texas isn’t the only state with problems involving people being on the ballot. We have it going on right here, but this time the candidate is fighting to stay on the ballot:

Charlie Morrison would rather switch than fight, but he’s willing to fight if he has to.

Knocked off the November ballot by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell as an independent candidate for a 15th Congressional District seat, Morrison filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the Franklin County Board of Elections and its four members.

The Republican secretary broke a 2-2 party-line tie and disqualified Morrison earlier this month, ruling that Morrison was not a true independent candidate because he had unsuccessfully run in the May 2 primary for seats on the Madison County Republican Party Central Committee and the Republican State Central Committee.

The decision was particularly important to the GOP because Morrison is far more conservative than Republican incumbent Rep. Deborah Pryce and would certainly have taken votes from her. Pryce faces Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy, a Democrat.

In his lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Morrison argues that the statute governing the candidacy of independent candidates is unconstitional and violates his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and freedom of speech. The vagueness of the law, he says, allows boards of elections “to selectively deny ballot access for politically motivated or other illegitimate reasons.”

Now you can be certain if Mr. Morrison was a Democrat running as an independent then he would be allowed to stay on the ballot. Perhaps Blackwell needs to head over to Connecticut to bump Lieberman off of the ballot.

Sherrod Brown will be in Cincinnati on Sunday to hold a press conference on Medicare D. You can RSVP via his site here.