NOTES FROM THE WEEK END:
Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel is the little senatorial candidate who isn't there. At least he won't be at the University of Akron Martin Center upon turning down an invitation from the Akron Press Club for a solo appearance. According to David Cohen, a UA political science professor who has been trying to lure Mandel to the lectern for months without success, the Republican will not accept the same invitation that U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (shown in photo) has agreed to. Brown will speak on Jan. 6. The program is co-sponsored by the Press Club, Bliss Institute and League of Women voters.
Cohen, who arranges many of the programs for the Press Club, said this on his blog:
"Despite the fact that I have attempted to schedule Mandel for a separate appearance since May, and despite that fact that his staff indicated in September that he was willing to come in, his political director informed me last week that he is too busy."
Sorry, Josh. I would have used your picture instead of Sen. Brown's, but you gave me no reason to do it.
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Rick Santorum, the theocratic Republican presidential candidate who is hardly there, finally has something to crow about. Both Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, two of the trade's deepest thinkers, speak quite approvingly of his quest. Palin effuses that voters looking for "ideological consistency" ought to look at Santorum. Beck goes much farther, declaring: "If there is one guy out there that is the next George Washington, the only guy that I could think of is Rick Santorum. I would ask that you take a look at him."...(OK,Glenn, we did. Any other silly ideas?)
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Despite the alleged good-will of the holiday season, the congressional carnivores are getting nastier by the minute. For instance, POLITICO reports that Speaker John Boehner shares Herman Cain's fondness for chicken salad. The blog notes that Boehner huffed that President Obama's proposal of a temporary payroll tax cut was "chicken shit" instead of chicken salad. On the other hand, he chirped that Republicans were doing everything possible to allow "more American families and small businesses to keep more of what they earn." Somehow, Boehner managed to make more sense when he choked up and sobbed on TV.
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Gov. Kasich told the Plain Dealer in an interview that people have trouble figuring him out. That's debatable. His problem is that a lot of people have already figured him out during his first year in office, which explains his dismal approval ratings. Still, you get a sense from his recent remarks that after his Issue 2 disaster in the November election he is trying to cast a softer image, particularly as he told the PD: "I don't like when people are always so serious around me." And you have to wonder about his learning curve after so many years in
congress and now in the governor's office when he says: "You know, I haven't made any faux pas in really a long time. Have you noticed? You just learn. I learned that you have to be careful what you say. Everybody is listening. " (He's also learning that political Cialis is not for everyone!)
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4 comments:
http://youtu.be/OYTZmtyRDk4
I will gladly take Josh's place. My name isn't the only thing I share in common with the Bliss Institute, but also Ray Bliss' vision that "The People" need to be kept more involved in the political process and government. This I realize doesn't sit too well with the establishment. That is why I launched my campaign for U.S. Senate back in January, to start flushing out career politicians that do not share "The People's" best interests.
Yours in Freedom,
Capt. Rusty Bliss (R-OH)
U.S. Senate Candidate
Rusty,
If you are truly committed to participatory democracy than please answer this question. Why do you chose to run as a Republican? Given the recent history of the repug's and yours; you appear to have made choice based on habit and not on understanding. The GOP are 21st century "bolsheviks" and antidemocratic. They serve special interests of wall street and not the shared community interests of main street.
Comparing Rick Santorum to Geo. Washington is akin to comparing Tom Thumb to Abe Lincoln. As for Kasich's lament that he is misunderstood, he might try heeding the plight of working families instead of screwing them. His first impulse as chairman of the House Budget Committee during Newt's regime in the mid-1990s was to slash spending for programs benefiting the destitute and working poor. Now Kasich has turned his aim on Ohio teachers, firemen, cops and other public servants who work hard for modest pay and still keep tumbling into the widening income chasm between the middle class and the wealthy. And then he moans about why his popularity is in the pit!
NEO, you describe the establishment very well. THAT is not where I stand. Consider me anti-establishment in fact. A true Conservative and believer in our Republic. Remember we do not live in nor was our country founded on a pure democracy rather a representative republic. "The People" need to be more involved with government and flush the current scheme of career politicians. Congress, after all was never intended to be a full time job for millionaires.
Sure I could have run as a third party but the dilution factor 9 times out of 10 will bode for the incumbent. In Ohio we can't afford 6 more years of Sherrod Brown, a pure evil among U.S. Senators completely out of touch with the working-class.
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