Meet Sen.Portman, the tidy Un-Trump

When Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman stepped up to the  podium at  the
Akron Press Club luncheon, the well-behaved partisan audience got a closeup of the prototypical Un-Trump.

Casual open collar, lean,  unthreatening, a sweep of gray  hair  betraying his boyish manner, a regular guy - all of it Un-Trump evidence of his selfie as a "Common Sense Conservative".

As it happened, even his  speech as the candidate for reelection against former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland followed the  safest route, narrowly content  to tell us what everyone in the room already knew:  Good grief.  There's a  drug crises in the land. 

It wasn't until some  questions from the audience led him  down the unscripted off-ramp that we heard, if only  briefly,  that he wants to delay the nomination of Merrick Garland - a  highly qualified jurist, says Portman  - because  it would be "better for the country". Better than what?  His practiced imprecision can throw the unsuspecting.

There's more to fill out the image, unspoken.  Un-Trump Portman is still the same guy who voted to defund Planned Parenthood.  Vigorous pro-life supporter. Opponent of protection  of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems.  Climate denier.  Insists on repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with  something or other.

Don't get me started on the Common Sense Conservative who had tagged along with Mitt Romney throughout swing-state Ohio leading the political gurus to assume that he was in line for the vice presidency.

There are times when it would be fair to say that,as I occasionally read on my computer,    his message has no content.

That's an Un-Trump for you.

His Press Club audience  seemed unmoved by his speech, offering no more than muted applause at the end.

For once I could agree with that particular group.

Re DeWine: Shall we not pass the collection plate?

Re-posted from Plunderbund


When I am trying to absorb a monotonal speech by Ohio Atty. Gen.  Mike DeWine why do I feel I should  be sitting in a pew?  As I've noted in the past, DeWine comes across as bottled goodness. He's the people's lawyer, the righteous guy to defend the law, the go-to family man to protect all that is wholesome in American life.  Still,  Biblical scholars will tell you that there is nothing specific in the Book about modern pay-to-play.

There is nothing in his words to lead you to believe that this 67-year-old  social conservative is  the same wheeler-dealer who handed out a lucrative contract for debt collection to a close friend and contributor of   the Summit County Republican Party chairman who once worked for him. The contrast in his public profile is stunning.

So there he was at  the podium as a Akron Press Club/Bliss speaker explaining why he is sworn to uphold the sanctity of traditional marriage, his refusal to debate his opponent,  Democrat David Pepper,  and his objection to Federal court rulings that declared Ohio's newly minted voter restrictions  unconstitutional.

About the debt collection contract:  He's asking prospective clients to sign a written form. Problem solved.

About the voting system  placed in abeyance by the U.S. Supreme Court:  He doesn't think the law is unconstitutional.  Problem solved.

About same-sex marriage: Ohio law bans it, regardless of the court decisions, and he dutifuilly must support it.  That says nothng about the taxpayers' money his office has spent skipping around the country filing amicus  briefs to uphold of such bans in their states.  Look, his opposition to gay marriage is in his genes, not the law.

About his refusal to debate:  "My  opponent is not qualified to be attorney general."  The cheapest of shots.    Pepper is a Yale law school graduate with a string of student honors - Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude, managing editor of Yale Daily News, etc. etc. etc. (Should I also mention that when DeWine was in the Senate he could not practice law for 10 year because his license was inactive?)

More on the non-debates:  DeWine argued that he's already crossed paths in an unofficial "debate" with Pepper in a room interacting with Gannett Ohio editors.  In contrast, Sen. Sherrod Brown, then a congressman, debated then Sen.DeWine four times and creamed him by winning a 56 pct. majority vote as a liberal Democrat.

As a personal note, if I may:  I once interviewed DeWine for a half-hour TV program.    It was painful.  People who watched it said he froze on me.   And I didn't even  try to debate him!

Debates: Mike DeWine,the people's lawyer who isn't there

Re-posted from Plunderbund 

Ever since Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine put on his reelection campaign game face, he's been drifting across the masses like a UFO with the best wishes of a forgiving  press  and a looming Republican year at  the polls.

Now you see him, now you don't.  He prefers to cast his attention to his other interests that gives him a Deep South spiritual coating as a social conservative - nay, as a blessed Medievalist opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage, raising the minimum wage, defending  Hobby Lobby, opposing gun control  and above all, the Affordable Care Act.  On that point, he has long made his rounds outside the state to wherever he could pitch in to help defeat ObamaCare.

Of late, he has taken up the cause of restricting Ohio's new voter system, the one that a right-wing Supreme Court just delayed after two lower federal courts had ruled it unconstitutional. The Supremes would have overruled tfhe lower courts 5-4 anyway  if DeWine had gone fishing.  Or spent a little more time facing his opponent, David Pepper, a Cincinnati Democrat, in at least a debate or two.

Pepper put the debate issue in the right context when he spoke  at the Akron Press Club this week.    As a lawyer himself, Pepper gamely questioned DeWine's  rejection of any debate, including the invitation  from the Cleveland City Club. Some newspapers gently  questioned the UFO's decision, too, but for too many voters,  debates are best left to molecular physicists.

Pepper,  however,  squarely defined DeWine's posture as unbecoming of a guy who must serve  as the people's lawyer and be  never fearful of airing differences with opponents in courts or anywhere else.      "If you're afraid to debate as the attorney general,"  Pepper declared, "something must be  wrong."

Indeed,  it is.  And that should include the many reports of how DeWine has converted his office into a pay-to-play cash cow, hauling in campaign cash from those who stand to sweeten their own pots in return.   In one recent exposed case, DeWine replaced a company that had ably served several  different governors in debt collections, giving the lucrative contract to a pal of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, despite the recipient's admission that he had little experience in that line of work. (Over the years, Alex has smelled money like a shark  attracted to blood. He was once on DeWine's payroll as the AG's liaison in northern Ohio. )

Still there is strong feeling that Mike DeWine towers so high in ballot strength that he is unbeatable.  That hasn't always been true.  Sen. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat,  no less,  thumped DeWine out of the. U.S. Senate in 2006 with room to spare. (56 pct. landslide.)   On that occasion DeWine had no more than an approval rating in the 30s, putting him just above Rick Santorum as the most unpopular  senator on Capitol Hill.

But DeWine has the ability to hover in politics.  In 2012 he was a Santorum supporter in the presidential.  He then startled the experts with a  mid-campaign switch to Mitt Romney when  it became increasingly clear that Ol' Rick wouldn't win the Ohio Republican  primary. Call his retreat from Santorum as a "course correction".

Four more years for this mercurial UFO?    You decide.

P.S. Pepper did speak to the Cleveland City Club luncheon this week, sans DeWine.

Debate-less Press Club series for state candidates

Through the combined efforts of the Akron Press Club and the Bliss Institute the  Akron area will get a closer view of some statewide candidates on the November ballot. Democrat State Rep. Connie Pillich, who is challenging Republican Treasurer Josh Mandel,  will open the fall series on Sept. 30.

Unfortunately,  there will be no political debates.  University of Akron political science professor David  Cohen, who does much of the  heavy lifting for the fall series, said the  process of setting up debates has simply become too complicated.

We experienced some of those complications when I served as the Press Club's program chairman.  Republicans simply  aren't keen on meeting  their Democratic opponents  on a debate  panel, particularly in Akron, where more than a few nitwits accused the Club of being a subversive Democratic hideaway.  (As Press Club president, I had at  least four Republicans on my board.) One critic even reported me to the national Veterans of Foreign Wars for catering to socialists!

In one instance,  we had succeeded in lining up a debate between Democrat Capri Cafaro, of Niles, Oh., and then-U.S.Rep, Steve LaTourette, a Lake County Republican.  We  later learned  that LaTourette had canceled his appearance for the age-old standby, a scheduling conflict. So Cafaro had the benefit of the entire program for herself.

The late U.S. Rep. John Seiberling, a towering Democrat who had  nothing to be gained from debates, agreed to more than a half-dozen encounters  with restaurateur, Mark Figitakis,  a Republicsn  running squarely and hyperactively  on the anti-abortion issue.  I covered the first one at the Tangier Restaurant  in which Seiberling calmly, cooly,  and collectively  left the Republican for dead.  (I told Seiberling  afterward that he  could debate as often as he wanted, but this was my first and last  one as a political writer.  He smiled gently and said he enjoyed  fulfilling his obligation to voters to debate, no matter what.)

Akron Mayor, Don Plusquellic, a Democrat , also accepted debate invitations from  the Press Club.   But over on the other side, Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff refused all attempts to haul him up to the debate panel against Republican Kevin Coughlin, who was challenging Arshinkoff for his job. The normally voluble  chairman flatly turned it down.    "I should have known," Coughlin told me.

I should have, too.

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Vardon arrives in Akron with a Dispatch mission

Joe Vardon, the Columbus Dispatch's poliltics and government writer, turned up at a news conference Wednesday following Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald's luncheon speech at the Quaker Square Inn.  Actually, it wasn't so much a news conference as we have come to know them.  With notebook and pencil in hand, Vardon turned it into an inquisition of the candidate regarding questions raised by the other side of the Cuyahoga county inspector general who has been accused of doing  campaign work on  public time.

In fact, State GOP Chairman Matt Borges has called for  the inspector's resignation, which was a little odd inasmuch as he once paid a $1,000 fine after he admitted "misusing public office".

That aside, Vardon was on a mission, determinedly consuming most the news  coference with  his repeated refusal to accept FitzGerald's reponse as several reporters stood around waiting for turns that never came. Way to go, Joe. The event was about you.

As we have commented in past posts,  Vardon is the apparent designated hitter for a paper that will unsurprisingly endorse Gov. Kasich's re-election  He has written glowingly  about Kasich's ubiquitous out of state appearances, which only counts if your paper is hoping to stage his rise to the Oval Office someday.

But my point today, having covered one or two or these things in a half century of political reporting, is that there are some unwritten rules of courtesies to your colleagues that exclude boorishly pigging out on the candidates.   Say, a question and a follow-up. In Vardon's case, he was the transparent story, not FitzGerald.    Tsk. Tsk.

I gave up and left the room as he was asking still another question.  But I was later told the Beacon Journal reporter did manage a single question as time was running out.

Vardon did write a piece about the inquisition in which he dwelled on inspector general  Nailah  Byrd,  leading his  report with Borge's call for her resignation. Vardon obviously didn't come to report the speech itself, because there wasn't a word in the story about the Democrat's questioning references to  Gov. Kasich.

P.S. I didn't plan to ask a question anyway, so no sour grapes here. Over the years, my questions too often turned up on TV with the camera showing the station's own reporter.  So I stopped asking questions.

A frustrated LaTourette passes baton to Joyce

When former Ohio Rep. Steve LaTourette  arrived in Akron recently for a luncheon talk sponsored by the Akron Press Club and Bliss Instititute he recounted his frustration with trying to get anything done against the right-wing Tea Party fringe contrrolling the fate of most legislation.

They represent 40  or more House members  who come to the office each day, vote no, and go home praising themselves for a job well done.  It was left to  the memory of Groucho Marx to describe such heinous resistance:   "Whatever it is, I'm against it."

LaTourette faulted the Republican Party for failing to invite minorities, women, gays and others to come aboard. And as a reputed moderate Republican from Lake County, he decided to  give up his seat in 2012 after 18 years in the House.  He is now pacing a group, Main Street Partnership, which is supporting GOP moderates against the sweep of Tea Party insanity.  While a noble cause, it does seem to be an attempt to build a sand castle in a windstorm.

LaTourette has also had nice things to say about his Republican successor, Rep. David Joyce, who is being challenged in the GOP primary.  Here, we have shadings of where moderation ends and the ancient GOP texts arise again.  For example, Joyce has put out campaign ads saying he wants to cut taxes and repeal Obamacare.   And ,of course, he  wants the voters to know that he opposes abortion while favoring family, guns and prayers. the Plain Dealer noted in endorsing him.

The  paper had little choice  against Joyce's Tea Party primary opponent, State Rep. Matt Lynch.  It described  Joyce, the former Geauga County Prosecutor,  as "less combative."

But there's nothing in Joyce's campaign spiel to suggest that he is a...um... moderate..

Eliminate Lynch from the equation, and you still have a garden variety version of a modern Republican conservative that's not likely change much of the resistance movement in Congress.

Marcia Fudge: Much work to do, including voting rights

Reposted from Plunderbund:  

In her  recent talk at an Akron Press Club/ Bliss Institute program,  Rep.Marcia Fudge covered the entire spectrum of  the unfinished business of combatting racism in America.  A Democrat who chairs  the Congressional Black Caucus,  she represents Ohio's  new 11th District stretching south from Euclid to Fairlawn - graphic evidence of the liveried Republican map-drawers' free-wheeling ability to redefine the upside of hometown politics.

A compelling speaker, Fudge surveyed  the legacy of Martin Luther's King's  place in today's world that has met with no more than mixed results in a nation  that is more polarized than at  any  time in a  generation.

As we have mentioned many times, the seating of an African-American in the Oval Office has inspired his opponents to the excesses  not seen during the two terms served by George Bush.  From being the alleged peacemaker with the invasion of Iraq, to the amassing of public debt by a guy who had no inclination to cap it, we allowed Dubya  to comfortably enjoy his dream-swept environment.

The political right has been so traumatized, in Ohio and elsewhere,  by Obama's successive victories so soon after the Civil War, that it has spent a lot of its time determined to have Obama suffer a similar trauma rooted in a disgraceful legacy.

One of its biggest contracts  is  called voter repression.  And you'd think that by now the Republican public officials who are working deep into the night to purify the vote would at least confess the motives of the their scandalous schemes.

"Cutting back on our voting options has a disproportionate negative effect on certain populations,  among them communities of color, urban voters, students,  elderly and low income, not just minorities," Fudge told her audience.

There've been too many  attempts to stymie the voters  with the  clumsy efforts of people like Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted  to shape the electoral outcomes according to his party's needs. From cutting back early voting periods, to voter IDs, to shortening voting days to align with  business hours, to rearranging precincts - even the failed  attempt to blockl third-party candidacies to protect Gov.  Kasich in November . Etc. etc etc.

State Sen. Nina Turner, Husted's Democratic opponent this year, summed it up with one word: "Immoral."

Without being tempted to predict the outcome of the November balloting,  I can vouch for one absolute that will be a leading issue in the campaigns  It's the  various ploys, sometimes peddled as eradicating voter fraud (Huh!), that will be driven home on the stump from Cleveland to Cincinnati.

You can take it from there.

 Oh.  And let the honest votes fall where they may.

Is the silent majority really alive and well?

  Republican operative Mark Weaver, Mitt Romney's lawyer in Ohio, joined the few wagon-circlers that formed in the debris of the candidate's attack on President Obama over the violence in Libya and Egypt with a spin that I haven't  heard in political talk for years.   At an Akron Press Club luncheon, he said Mitt was merely saying what the "silent majority believes."

There it is. Silent majority - the term that fell from Richard Nixon's lips back in the darkest of ages.

After the session,  I asked Weaver to clarify his  response to Romney's widely criticized intrusion into foreign policy at the height of an international  crises.

I should have known better. He shrugged off the critics as representing the "liberal media" That's a dog-eared-term kept alive by the Mark Weavers of the world when no other useful explanation serves their side.

So I mention, um, Peggy Noonan , the Wall Street Journal columnist and  once the speechwriter for Ronald Reagan who accused Romney of "not doing himself any  favors" with his bluster.

He dismissed her, too.  "Peggy Noonan is part of the Republican establishment," he sniffed.

Sorry, Mark.  We miss so  much living way out here in ihe Akron area.



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Camera-shy Josh Mandel' s black-suited guys

A SKIRMISH BETWEEN Josh Mandel's troops and an Akron Press Club officer caught the eye of the Huffington Post this week, which reported it in full. As noted in Grumpy Abe earlier, Team Mandel tried to shut down a photographer for the other side when the Republican U.S. Senate candidate spoke at the PC on March 1. It was an amateurish intrusion into standard Press Club practice of letting all sides record an event.

It didn't go well for the guy who is hoping to oust U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. Indeed it drew a sharp rebuke from PC Board member David Cohen, a University of Akron political science professor who was trying to manage decorum in the camera section at the back of the room. ,

"Mandel's staffers acted unprofessionally and were clearly trying to intimidate the folks that came to record the event," Cohen said. "They tried to prevent one individual from even entering the room until I intervened and also tried to obstruct their view with their heads and holding up pieces of paper until I told them to stop. "

Well, that's one way of using their heads in this instance because they simply don'thave a clue to understanding the freedom the club accords anyone who wants to video the event.

"Those folks that came to record the event, by the way, despite what has been reported, did not try to disrupt anything, " Cohen said. "In fact they did not say a word while they were recording nor did they ask for help while they were being harassed."

Every mature campaigner can expect trackers from their opponents and this was no exception. Cohen noted that when Brown spoke at a club luncheon on Jan. 6 his opponents would have been granted the same opportunity.

I happened to attend the Mandel program and noticed a very important-looking Mandel team in black suits moving about the room checking something or other (bugs?). They should have known better. And Mandel, the Repubican whiz kid state treasurer, wants to be a U.S. Senator?

Well, yes. So much so that the Plain Dealer reported that he flew to the Bahamas on Friday to speak at the payday lending industry meeting and held a fundraiser at the resort. The payday lenders who think nothing of charging borrowers preposterous rates? Tsk. Tsk.

Whiz Kid Mandel: a growth industry for shoemakers

WELL, WE GOT OUR first look at Josh Mandel the 34-year-old Ohio treasurer and self-reputed Republican whiz kid who is now running for the U. S. Senate a little more than a year after he stepped into his current four-year job. But more importantly, he visited us with stage props in the form of some worn-out shoes that he held up at the end of his Akron Press Club speech Thursday - optics to prove that he's feverishly interested in moving to Congress.

It was tempting to wonder why anybody would care about the candidate's worn- out shoes after lunch with cookies for dessert.

Although Mandel assured his audience that he has a fresh young vision for remedying governmental ills, the shoes schtick is not really an innovative badge of political character. In 1952, Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign may be best remembered by an unposed photo that revealed a large hole in his left shoe. That was soon followed by people wearing tee-shirts commemorating the historic shoe with his remark that "Better a hole in the shoe than a hole in the head!" And eight years later, Nikita Khrushchev threw a tantrum at the United Nations and banged his shoe on a desk. ( And didn't an old woman once live in a shoe?)

Still, Mandel's moment - allegedly the official announcement of his candidacy that has been under way for months - had come to tell us that he had worn out three pairs of shoes and knocked on more than 19,000 doors (who besides him is counting?) in the Cleveland area in an earlier campaign for the state legislature. That preceded his dash for state treasurer (won during a nightmarish year for Democrats in 2010) which now is quickly morphing into his Senate space probe. He's still a tad too young to declare for president, so there is still some good news to report on the footwear front.

Listening to Mandel's shrill populism, I was carried back to a much earlier day in 1972 when as a reporter I followed young Dennis Kucinich back and forth across Cleveland in his first thrust at a congressional seat. He was forever eager, in a hurry and angry. We had never met, but agreed by phone to spend some time together for a day or two of campaigning. When I arrived at his door on the city's west side, five minutes past the appointed 7 a.m., he flew past me

to the car while scolding me that I was late. For God's sake, I said, I've never been in this neighborhood before and missed a turn. I knew it was going to be a long hard day.

There are similarities. Maybe this is the inevitable spinoff from the ways of Cleveland politics since Mandel is a Cleveland area (Beachwood) lad himself.

While I was being drawn to the connection, Mandel was declaring that he wanted to rise above the scandalous politics of Washington for the sake of future generations, and it was impossible for him to ignore his calling. "We can't wait six more years," he declared, noting that Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown has been in one office or another for 37 years (which, at Mandel's own age, would be quite impossible for him to duplicate for now. But I'd say give him time. There are at least six shoe stores in the mall near my home.)

So he hauled out the customary Republican chant to lower taxes, create jobs, kill Obamacare (with a few exceptions) and throw out Brown. "The country is being driven over the cliff and Sherrod Brown is at the wheel.", he declared, with a bit wheel spinning himself. He would be the guy who would assume the role of saving America because he couldn't turn his back on all the people who urged him to run. A year ago, he said, he never thought he would be standing before this audience declaring yet another candidacy. Nor even three or four months ago when he turned down an invitation to the same lectern because he was "too busy." But it takes true leadership to understand that we live in an ever-changing world, right?

Refreshingly, he didn't pick up on some of the current garbled right-wing notions that it was God's will.

But on some major issues, he simply indicated little understanding of Brown's record. I'll give the most puzzling example: Brown's long pursuit of retaining jobs in America rather than staffing Chinese assembly lines. The senator has proposed more equitable free trade policy that has earned him broad support from organized labor. Josh didn't mention it.

Oh, he was asked whether he supported Issue 2 restricting unions, which was trounced by Ohio's voters the past November. I wasn't clear about his response. So I asked some others around the room. They weren't sure, either.

Still this young man will have staying power with deep pocketed supporters like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, which have already flooded TV with anti-Brown ads. So if Mandel tells you he will be his own man independent of Democrats and Republicans and will have only "11.5 million Ohioans" as his bosses, I wouldn't take that one to the bank!

Aside to Josh: I know it was a learning moment, but please understand that when you address any press club, the doors are open to all chroniclers of your appearance, even your opponents. Don't you think it was sort of amateurish for your people to attempt blocking a video camera managed by one of the senator's guys? I wouldn't be surprised that you'll get a chance to see clips from your speech in a TV ad or two.

Mandel: Does money-raising trump all else?

IT'S GOOD TO note that Josh Mandel is taking a break from his ubiquitous fund-raising to speak at that Akron Press Cub luncheon on March 1. Mandel, the rookie Ohio Treasurer who has decided he would rather be a U.S. Senator, had put off an earlier Press Club invitation with word that he was "too busy".

(Full disclosure: Although I had long been active as a Club officer and chaired the luncheon programs for too many years, I am no more than a garden variety member today with no official duties - NONE! For that, I and maybe a few of the members today are quite satisfied.)

Now, back to our state treasurer pro tem, and probably longer. So far as I can tell, his greatest strength is raising campaign money, wherever it might raise its ugly head.

To this point, the Associated Press recently noted that one of Mandel's responsibilities as treasurer is to preside as chairman over the Ohio Board of Deposit, the group that decides where to deposit state money. Hold it right there.

The AP reported that Mandel has yet to attend a single meeting, earning him the claim to be the first treasurer in Ohio history to ignore his role on the board. Moreover, he missed the last meeting because he was fund-raising in Washington. Obviously we can't count him to be a multi-tasker.

Well, to take a little of the edge off his absence, he has boasted of high credit ratings for certain state portfolios. But as the Columbus prime blogger, Plunderbund, notes, the porfolios have always enjoyed such glowing ratings.

It does appear that Republican Mandel, who is challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democrat, will have loads to talk about at the Press Club. Do you think there's a chance that somebody will raise a question or two?

Preacher Santorum's vain bonfires

ONCE UPON A TIME, a 15th century monk named Girolamo Savonarola, driven by his own fiery vision of sin, sent his helpers door to door in Florence to collect books, artworks, knick-knacks, whatever, to purge society of evil. They made a huge pile in the piazza and torched it.

In those days, such spectacles were called 'bonfires of the vanities". Alas, in the end, not even the Dominican monk was spared the flames by his opponents.

And then we have Rick Santorum. He's now moved his pulpit into New Hampshire, where he unapologetically says we need a "Jesus candidate," and who better than Rick to fill that role.

That, of course, is not what non-Christians (and many Christians) have in mind for a president. Despite his over-the-top pro-Israel offerings, Santorum was even rapped by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman huffed that Santorum's remarks were "unacceptable" and "un-American." I would add: crazy.

Maybe the time has come to ignore the hyper-righteous crusader on the stump. Wasn't it Santorum who once said the government ought to stop issuing food stamps because poor people were already too fat. So there!

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Scam artists! Those are the beasts that Sen. Sherrod Brown says will have the most to fear from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In his talk to the Akron Press Club Friday, Brown praised President Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray to head the agency that congressional Republicans have stonewalled as an intrusion into the financial industry's privately operated free enterprise system.

Unless you are a scam artist yourself, who can argue with the appointment that will activate the oversight of the CFP watchdog? Well, the jittery GOP praetorian guard that looks out for Big Money's best interests, that's who. And if you're still in doubt about the cause of the home mortgage mess, may I recommend Gretchen Morgenson's book, Reckless Endangerment/How outsized greed, and corruption led to economic Armadgeddon.

Brown's appearance filled the room at the Martin Center with about 200 guests, who gave him a standing ovation. (His Republican challenger, State Treasurer Josh Mandel has yet to accept an invitation to appear at the same Press Club podium. He has already turned down an offer on grounds that he was "too busy". ) Josh, for God's sake, is that any way to demonstrate your interest in serving the people?

* * * * *

To all of the naysayers who suggest the unemployed aren't trying hard enough to find work, I'll refer you to some photos in the current Atlantic magazine. One shows a line as long as the Chinese wall that turned up for a job fair in Atlanta, Ga. Another shows a lineup of Trenton, N. J. (isn't that Chris Christie's state capital?) police officers who were among the more than 100 cops laid off. The caption says they are offering their "final salute" with their empty boots resting on the sidewalk in front on them.

Mandel: Sorry, I'm busy...and other stuff

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?)

* * * * * * * *

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!)

In Akron, debating the need for a debate

THE SECOND AND FINAL (!) debate of the Akron mayoral campaign was a gentle sparring match that left some of us wondering why anybody went to the trouble. Maybe the earlier clash between Mayor Plusquellic and challenger Mike Williams in the Democratic primary convinced most people that the mayor was assured a seventh term when they count the general election ballots on Nov. 8. To the chagrin of Republicans, the mayor is usually decided by the winner of the Democratic primary.

On this occasion Plusquellic is sort of challenged by Republican Jennifer Hensal, an Akron West Sider who practices law in Medina and is said to be hopeful of being appointed to some judgeship when the planets line up for her. In her opening remarks, she advised the Martin Center audience of more than 200 on what a good mayor ought to be doing to lead the city. It was an opening for Plusquellic to respond that his opponent had just described him for what he is already doing.

Later, the mayor accused Hensal of not being a serious candidate while declaring that he is.

Otherwise, the conversation brought up public safety, finances and other matters that came up in the party primary. The real contrast was how both candidates approached the hottest issue on the November ballot: the SB 5 repeal. Plusquellic clearly asserted that he wasn't pleased with the way the anti-public union law was scripted. I wasn't clear on Hensal's response and engaged in one of the shortest post-debate interviews in my years that included too many post-debate interviews.

Q. Inasmuch as SB 5 is a Republican initiative, how do you plan to vote on it?

Hensal: (Without hesitating.) "Oh, I will vote [yes] for it."

Why did I have to ask?

(By the way the event was a nice try - but only a nice try - by the Akron Press Club, the League of Women Voters and the Bliss Institute to promote democracy in action. But it's true that after all of the nonsense spurting from the Republican presidential debates in the candidates' long year's journey into night, the respectful Akron mayoral thing was a much-needed relief.)

Mike Williams, Point 41: 50 free tickets for his side

A FEW WEEKS AGO, Mike Williams, the candidate who wants to unseat Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic in the Sept. 13 Democratic primary, proposed an astonishing 40 points that he believed would carry him to victory in the Sept. 13 Democratic primary. Somehow, it didn't include his demand for 50 free seats for the scheduled Aug. 8 debate with the mayor and a third candidate on the ballot, Janice Davis.

That 41st point arrived this week and the combined sponsors of the Akron Press Club and Bliss Institute delivered on his request. At $20 a head for a program series that raises money for college scholarships, that comes to a $1,000 gross gate, even if the freebies would not include lunch. (The seat could have been sold to paying guests.) The event is already sold out at nearly 300, so the hosts agreed to move the event from the traditional Martin Center ballroom to the more accommodating Student Union. The freebies will await their entry until lunch is served before arriving at a specially designated section of the room.

How nice. And with a huge crowd, it could be a seating and parking nightmare. But I'm sure that a room with a view was all that Williams had in mind. I was told that he first asked that everybody get a free ticket in a public spectacle. The Plusquellic forces were left with little leeway to respond to the 50-ticket request, the first of its kind in the many years that I once served as the program chairman.

The response is as puzzling as the Press Club's preferential treatment for then Republican congressional candidate, Tom Ganley, in his losing campaign against Rep.Betty Sutton. When he refused to debate her, he was offered a free pass to appear alone (She spoke at another time). Ganley's solo appearance also was a club first in a series that called for a debate. But in the latest retreat, there was no explanation as to why a minimum 50 free-seat package was included in the deal.

This shouldn't be a big problem for the mayor. He could settle the issue by asking for 50 free tickets for his side, too. Fair enough, Mike?

UPDATE: David Cohen, the University of Akron political science professor and Press Club board member who is handling arrangements for the mayoral debate, has contested my report that Mike Williams was solely offered 50 free reservations for the event. Cohen insists that the 50 freebies for folks who will not be eating lunch will be open on a first-come first serve basis to Williams, Mayor Plusquellic or any public spectator as long as the supply lasts. He did confirm, however, that Williams had first asked that all of the tickets be free for the debate at a venue big enough to accommodate the anticipated crowd. The event has now been moved from the Martin Center to the UA Student Union. The seating assignments dividing the payers and non-payers may still be complicated when the crowd presses forward.

Tom Ganley: The bombast of wanting your country back

TOM GANLEY, whom we all know as a wealthy auto dealer, opened his remarks at the Akron Press Club luncheon Tuesday with a cry that must have echoed across the entire University of Akron campus. Adding his voice to the current Tea Party manifesto, the Republican nominee for the 13th Congressional District declared:

"I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK."

We can only hope that we will get at least some of it back when the shouting ends moments after Election Day, but not for the reasons that have so steamed up Ganley and the right-wing candidate class this most discordant election season. Still it was Ganley's moment to preach to his choir what it already knows. Since the guy loves to come at us with statistics, let me add a few: More than 80 pct. of the 103 in attendance were seated at tables reserved by their boss. There was a handful of mindful Republicans at another table. As a seasoned regular at Press Club luncheons, I can only say they used to be a lot more fun.

Attendance figures would be remarkably insignificant except that he went down the same road when he said that he refused to debate Rep. Betty Sutton at the Akron Press Club and Cleveland City Club because he will only show up on a "fair" playing field where his opponent wouldn't have packed the hall with her friendly "outside" organizational supporters (notwithstanding the 10 tables his campaign reserved!) . Obviously not aware of a press club's open door policy, Ganley later backtracked on the insult to the Akron Press Club, saying he was largely talking about the Cleveland City Club. Too late, Tom. You did show up at the very same lectern when you had it all to yourself. Go figure.

He did want you to know in an imperious delivery that he was (1)a successful businessman (2) that he was a successful businessman and (3 to 32 ) that he was a successful businessman with 32 aut0 dealerships in Ohio.

Easing slightly away from the Tea Partiers' aroused attacks on President Obama's religion and birthplace, Ganley said he honestly didn't know what religion Obama practiced nor where he was born. For God's sake, Hawaii, Mr. Ganley, Hawaii, where all of those darker skinned Americans wear outrageous floral shirts and hula skirts.

Not much else is worth reporting because you've already heard it so many times as we tiptoe through a landscape of Halloween goblins: we can solve our economic problems by cutting corporate and individual taxes, Obamacare must be defunded ,the budget must be balanced, it was wrong to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, government is wrong to fund the arts, and corporate and individual taxes should be - oops, I already reported that, didn't I.

But there's no need to tell him, in the lingo of the day, to man up. He assured us that nobody owns him and that he packs a concealed weapon. Won't argue with that.

Betty Sutton: Don't just stand up to fight

REP. BETTY SUTTON reset the boundaries of this year's election in a few sharp words at the Akron Press Club yesterday. Dismissing the aimless rhetoric that has sent too many fearful politicians to their hideouts, Sutton asserted that our critical need today is for some plain talk, a vanishing ingredient in the flow of laundered comments from rostrums across the political landscape. Instead, Sutton, a Democrat, asserted that our representatives in

Washington need to "stand up and fight for solutions, not just stand up to fight."

That message would extend to both sides of the aisle. It hasn't been surprising that Republicans have used health care reform and other progressive breakthroughs as weapons against their opponents. But there's evidence everywhere that Democrats who voted for these measures have been seeking lower ground when challenged. As The Economist magazine observed in a review of the political season: "...most Democrats running for re-election are staying mum or apologizing for their votes for reform." That would dramatically exclude Sutton, who has been on the cutting edge of many issues (including Cash for Clunkers) from job creation to health care.

The problems with strategic retreats is that voters can rightfully ask why the candidates voted for this measure or that one in the first place. It's a sign of weakness that has given the Party of No new opportunities to pursue its mulishness with still greater zeal (if that's possible!).

It has been an election in which Republicans have called for solutions without a hint of specifics, and squirmy Democrats have meekly stood aside and conceded that even without those specifics, their rivals might be right. What a way to lose an election!

Congressional debates: What makes Ganley run?

SHOULDN'T SOMEBODY take auto dealer Tom Ganley aside and whisper to him that he is supposed to be a Republican congressional candidate and not a passenger in one of his cruise-controlled demos with a new car warranty? As we have noted more than once, he has rejected invitations to debate his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, for the flimsiest of excuses - this from a financially powerful operative who boasts that even as a political rookie in his late 60s, he will turn Congress around as a hard-nosed businessman with no seniority.

The Beacon Journal took note of his evasiveness Sunday. His campaign manager strung out the Akron Press Club for more than a month before agreeing to no more than a solo flight at a club luncheon on Oct. 26. That was sort of an undeserved reward for his adamant refusal to face Sutton on the dais. (She agreed to debate but accepted a luncheon slot on Oct. 20 - alone, of course.)

The Cleveland City Club, the state's prestigious political forum, was not as accommodating to Ganley's rules for a walk on the red carpet. It invited the candidates to debate, but when Ganley refused, it simply said something that sounded like, "Too bad, Tom - Betty Sutton will have the audience all to herself when she appears on Oct. 22." As it should be.

Apparently at a loss for even a mildly lucid explanation on where Ganley is these days, his communications director, Meghan Snyder, told the BJ:

"Tom is ready to debate Betty Sutton, if we can do so in a situation where the only thing on the agenda is the issues. We will not grant her the opportunity to continue to lie about him in a public forum." Good grief, Ms. Snyder. Who decides the issues? And what better way to counter those "lies" than in a public forum with your rival?

On the other hand when a candidate is prepared to spend millions in unchallenged TV ads, he might just as well be campaigning from an isolated pad back in the parts department.

DeWine: Bland speech, tiny audience: Recipe for disaster

WELL, IT has to be called a train wreck for the candidate and for his host. I refer to Mike DeWine's solo (in nearly more ways than one!) appearance at the Akron Press Club luncheon Tuesday. DeWine, as you may know, is the former Republican senator who is trying to unseat Ohio Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray in November. Speaking almost inaudibly, head down, into his prepared text, DeWine wanted to leave us with the the notion that as attorney general, he would provide "leadership" and would "do better." At least, that's what I think he said. He also opined that the Tea Party had brought into the system "a lot of people passionate about politics." Right.

He reminded the sparse audience (fewer than 35!) which included a few Cordray aides, (one of whom filmed what there was of the speech) and DeWine's wife Fran, that being an unyielding defender of the law and the Constitution, he would file suit against ObamaCare because he considers it unconstitutional. He also attacked Cordray for a sloth-like work of BCI, the state crime lab - delays that have since been dismissed by such independent sources as the Plain Dealer's PolitiFact/Ohio.

DeWine had turned down a Press Club invitation to debate. If he had been the futurist that he claims to be, he would have also rejected the later Press Club offer to let him speak alone. It was an embarrassingly inertial moment for some of the folks. and it could be felt hovering in the dead air. (Cordray, accepted the Press Club's debate invitation, and had to settle for his own solo appearance on Oct. 7.)

He did score a first, however. The skimpy crowd was the smallest audience for a statewide candidate since the Club started sponsoring debates at least a decade ago. Even his former part-time employe, Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff didn't show up for his ex-paymaster. Nor was there a table reserved for Republicans, which was the chairman's call in the past. Tsk. Tsk.

Ok, the event wasn't a total loss. Dewine passed out his wife' s recipe booklet - "Fran DeWine's Family Favorites" - before heading to the lecturn. Besides recipes, that booklet prominently showed his wide-ranging belief in God, Mother and Country. The back of the booklet featured a photo of Mike and his wife, an American flag and what might be mistaken for a religious leaded window. Actually it depicted blind justice.

It couldn't have been more unsettling for the candidate, what with the rain outside and chill in the room.

FOOTNOTE: It was a troubling day of setbacks for the DeWine campaign. The Ohio Tea Party PAC had just announced its endorsement of one of its own, AG candidate Robert Owens of the Constitution Party; the Dayton Daily News, the newspaper in DeWine's Southern Ohio neighborhood, endorsed Cordray, saying the case for him was "overwhelming"' and the Toledo Blade hardly mentioned DeWine in editorially supporting Democrat Cordray for his "honesty and dedication."

DeWine, Ganley: Candidates on cruise control

IT'S NOW official that there will be NO debates at the Akron Press Club involving two Republican candidates who appear to have put their campaigns on cruise control. Both Tom Ganley, the GOP challenger to U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, nor Mike DeWine, who is trying to unseat Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray, have unequivocally turned down invitations to debate their Democratic opponents.

As one who moderated many of the previous Press Club debates before stepping aside a couple of years ago, I'm not inclined to salute this wary twosome for their political wisdom and courage. For better or worse, debates come with the territory, particularly for these guys whose yearnings tell them they ought to be in political office for awhile until something better comes along.

Item: Ganley, the mega-auto dealer who is relying heavily on TV ads, did make a solo appearance at the Press Club last fall when he was running for the U.S. Senate. But he has flinched at the thought of facing an incumbent now that he is running for Congress. (He didn't even show up for Alex Arshinkoff's big finance dinner.) DeWine finally agreed to speak alone on Sept. 28 without the bother of an opponent staring him in the face. So Cordray has had to settle for an appearance sans DeWine on Oct. 7.

There has been a long tradition at the Press Club that when both candidates are invited, there would be an empty chair for either candidate who didn't show up. The Cleveland City Club has played by those rules, too. In this instance, however, Press Club board members tell me that club president Bruce Winges, the Beacon Journal editor, is skittish about having Sutton speak alone without offering Ganley another date for his solo even though he's already been there in a campaign mode. Inexplicably, Winges, in a conciliatory mood, is said to feel that unless he gave Ganley a similar opportunity now it would look too "political" by the Press Club. Good grief! Will there next be an agreement to have Ganley address the club's audience from his patio?

Time out for a little history here: Over the years Democrats have always agreed to debate their opponents. The late Rep John Seiberling never turned down a challenge from his opponent. When the Press Club series began a decade ago, neither Mayor Don Plusquellic nor former County Executive Jim McCarthy failed to show up at the Martin Center on time to face their rivals.

The rules of combat have now changed and the Press Club's front office is riding the fence when there shouldn't be the slightest question about what it should do. Why now?