Is there ever any reason NOT to endorse a GOP state candidate?

Re-posted from Plunderbund


The arrival of October not only offers us the annual radiance of autumnal colors but also, unfortunately, the dismal folly of another newspaper editorial endorsement season.   The candidate interviews have been held, the editorial boards have met and now we can sit back in wonderment at  how the corporate  media are  prepared to lead the voter into their secure grasp.

As the years passed,  the media not only lost  readers but also  credibility. Editorial support  is now a lesser matter of influence than a fading obligation.  Sort of like trying to lead a horse to water with fewer and fewer horses in the corral.

The Columbus Dispatch - no need to go into its past profile again - has led the enfilade  with its soaring endorsement of John Kasich and then on Sunday packaged the entire Republican state ticket as the Masters of the Universe. Not entirely unexpected.  Still there was a surprise tucked in the GOP group, namely the paper's support of Ohio Treasurer  Josh Mandel as its unapologetic choice.

Mandel, it's painful to recall,  was one of the principle characters so often mentioned in the Ben Suarez money laundering case.  Here's what the Dispatch reported  back in July:

"While Suarez was found not guilty of making illegal campaign  contributions in 2011, no one is questioning that he gathered $100,000 for Mandel's Senate campaign [against Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown].  And no one is questioning that Mandel took up Suarez's cause in a California legal battle at the same time.''

The story further noted that Mandel's  fundraiser, Scott Guthrie, "twice helped Mandel solicit campaign money from Suarez: $30,000 in one instance, $100,000 in another.  Guthrie personally picked up an envelope containing the $100,000 in checks after hours at Suarez's company." Hardly beer money, wouldn't  you think?

So what does the Dispatch have to say about that apparent pay-to-play transaction?  It rebranded Mandel  by asserting that he has "performed his duties ably and helped put the state on a sound fiscal footing."  It concluded that Mandel had "weathered a bit of a scandal" in the Suarez matter and was not charged, as suspect  as it all seemed.

True to his style, Josh immediately posted the brief endorsement in his flow of fund-raising letters, mournfully pleading for financial contributions to help him fight  negative attacks by his opponent,

Mandel has experience in negatives.  He once denounced Sherrod Brown as "un-American" for supporting the auto industry bailout.

And he wants you to help pay for his re-election.   Clip and save.

Must read: New Yorker Magazine report on ISIS

Today's recommended reading:

Dexter Filkins' long and revealing report on ISIS in the Sept. 29th New Yorker.  In the end, you might conclude that there is no bumper sticker answer to the threat, that it is a nasty condition that won't go away soon and will still be around for the next president or two to confront.  This is an enemy active around the world, with even strong ties in Australia. Don't look for simple answers.  There are none.    Some of our friends are our enemies, and some of our enemies are our friends but unfriendly to others.

The Dispatch endorses Kasich. Who knew?

I never know whether to take a Columbus Dispatch editorial endorsement seriously.  That's especially true after it awarded John Kasich the  Gubernatorial Medal of Honor  without a hint about his imperfect tenure as a leading force in the Political/Industrial/Crony Complex.

Not a word about his anti-union sentiments, or his allies (think:Mark Kvamme) who raked in millions of dollars in the glow of his office, nor his claim to lead Ohio out of the Bush recession poverty without telling us that the state ranks 41st in economic growth since he took office, nor that he opposed the Obama administration's stimulus package while now enjoying its  job-saving benefits.  No sense marring the Medal of Honor.

Don't get me started.

I mean, we're dealing here with a family-owned Republican newspaper that hasn't endorsed a Democrat for president since 1916 (Woodrow Wilson)  and has treated the legislative halls across the street as its very own plantation.


With giant holdings in banks, real estate and TV-radio media, the Wolfe family owners
have been brutal about  political dissent and ideological heresies that forever reminded the paper's critrics of Dante's admonition to "abandon hope of all ye who enter here''  as they approached the gates of hell.

I had the misfortune of working for years within the Dispatch's shadow as a reporter and later as a liberal magazine editor who felt some of it sting.   Close quarters some of that time when the Dispatch entered joint operating agreement that moved the fading Columbus Citizen into the mezzanine of the Dispatch as the Scripps-owned  Citizen-Journal.  The latter, more or less the  mad relative in the closet,  was said to be independent, but the Dispatch controlled advertising. circulation,  news space for the CJ and the minds of the establishment around town.

When newspaper critic and author A.J. Liebling spoke at the Ohio State University campus, he effectively referred to the phony setup as "two hermit crabs living out of the same shell".

Now there is just one hermit crab, but the message hasn't changed.

In its endorsement, the paper didn't even overlook the possibilities of more early voters. Closing its long anticipated blessing for Kasich, it opined:

"As voters take advantage of Ohio's early-voting opportunities, The Dispatch urges them to re-elect [bold face] Gov.John Kasich.

P.S  As Plunderbund reported, in an interview with  Columbus CEO Magazine, Mark Kvammea gave a soaring account of Kasich's brilliant economic works.   And who owns Columbus CEO Magazine?  The Dispatch Printing Company.

Kasich brings message from God to Cuyahoga Falls

Now that Gov. Kasich has assured us that God  has given him a purpose "to allow everyone to be lifted", there really isn't much of a safe passage left for his opponents through Election Day. There, in his campaign stop in Cuyahoga Falls, the governor defined his burning bush moment to the delight of his immediately uplifted audience.

More and more these days, Republican politicians are invoking their personal messages from God to save the country, the state and more importantly their precious jobs. Had they not heard from their Maker, they doubtless would have had to settle for a dull but lucrative life buried in hedge funds.

I do wonder, however, whether God actually told him to  reward college students  with credits  for volunteering to help oldies.  It would be, he said, a vital learning experience for the kids to hear about WWII from the seniors.  My guess is that they would rather hear about ways to get out from under their student loans.

The governor was joined by Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor.  She told reporters Kasich should be credited for creating jobs.  Not the least of which was hers.  

NEED A CAPTION

The Roosevelts: Then, and now

As I viewed Ken Burns' compelling series about the Roosevelts, the comparisons with modern politics soon became evident:  the attacks on FDR  (read: Obama)  as a socialist, communist, dictator and king; the steeled resistance of the industrialists to converting to a wartime prooduction  line,  fearing loss of profits;  the Republican opposition to labor unions, Social Security, minimum wage and other safety nets for a nation mired in the Great Depression.

Does the equation ever change?

The heroics were particularly dramatic with Franklin,  whose legacy will be that of one of America's greatest presidents.  Pained and limited by more than 10 pounds of steel pressing against his polio-stricken legs,  he maintained a can-do optimistic tone in his fireside chats  and countless personal appearances that earned him four terms to the disgust of his bitterest enemies.   He connected with the commoners, or as one of the voices so eloquently  told us in one of the episodes:  "I didn't know him.   But he knew me."

He was, his critics asserted, a "traitor to his class"  - quite a stretch, I''d say, for a leader whose playing field must embrace the poorest of the poor who were far more plentiful than the clubby rich stiffs.

From coal miners to the Dust Bowl victims to the black Americans who were denied so much of  their country,  FDR rose to their needs. And then, driven by the disaster at Pearl Harbor,   he successfully led a tattered nation in regaining its equilibrium in destroying Hitler and the Japanese warlords.   That's not my version of history.  That's history, so well revealed  by Burns' series. Only the smallest of minds set against FDR will quibble.

And Eleanor, who suffered  pain from her husband's longtime affair with Lucy Mercer.  But she soldiered on as one of history's  great social reformers.  (Shouldn't her enormous contribution to humanity be somehow  recognized in a Rushmore setting?)

Still, if you were to look for a common denominator between the Roosevelt era and today's cheapies on Capitol Hill, check the attacks (Swiftboating!) on Elliott Roosevelt, the Roosevelts'  oldest son, an Air Force general who flew 300 combat missions who was targeted by his enemies at home.  Unlike that of the conservative icon, Ronald Reagan, Elliott's military uniform was the real thing.

Meanwhile, during those 14 hours of a memorable documentary, one other notable fact stood out:  In contrast to FDR's efforts for the hurting underclass, there was House Speaker John Boehner, today's conscience of the Republican class, damning the unemployed in his speech to a conservative group.

He said,  "this idea that has been born, maybe out of the economy over the last couple years, that you know, I really don't have to work.  I don't really want to do this, I think I'd rather just sit around.    This is a very sick idea for our country."

No, John.  You and your party are a very sick idea for this country.    You have no chance of Ken Burns doing a half-hour on your assumed greatness.

The TV networks: What climate change protests?

The herd mentality of the Sunday morning TV news panels was remarkably affirmed again as the networks shamefully chose to ignore the massive climate change demonstrations in  New York City and around the globe.  As Media Matters and other sources reported, except for one "stray reference" to it on ABC's This Week, the major networks decided to dismiss it from its Sunday news panel agenda as  more  than 300,000 folks demonstrated in Manhattan against the toxic plague affecting our air and water.  Wanna bet that if John McCain had  somehow entered the picture, he would have been the preferred panelist on all of the talkie programs?

No, Rush. What don't you know about No?

Rush Limbaugh, the arbiter of all matters sexual,  has created an entirely new niche audience for his deranged rants.  Rapists.

Continuing his  crude dismissal of campus rapes as an American fiction, Rushbo  had this to say to his  unique group:

"How many of you guys in  your experience with women have learned that 'No' means 'Yes' if you know how to spot it?"

Time to haul out the Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award  for the Republicans' Great White Whale!

We are seeing Gov. Kasich in pantomime .

Re-posted from Plunderbund 



John Kasich has apparently  found his comfort zone for re-election in a kind of political pantomime  in which he is silently acting out his role  to the voters in paid-TV imagery while his narrators assure you that he means well in everything he sets out to do for you.

So until election day we will be served with body language and thoroughly encrypted feel-good messages without him really showing up as a real person. (Exception: When the governor, anticipating a generous contribution,  called upon God to bless Sheldon Adelson, the Midas-like casino owner. Those are the moments that don't appear in the TV ads).

The keepers of conventional wisdom shrugged when Kasich passed the word through his flaks that he wouldn't debate his opponent  Ed FitzGerald. Never intended to, for that matter. Nothing to be gained by it, one  Cleveland TV reporter supposed  without a hint of discomfort over a candidate's refusal to face the voters  with his opponent on hand.

After all, Kasich explainer, spokeswoman Connie Wehrkamp, said the decision was regrettable "despite good-faith efforts on our side" that were halted a couple of  months ago when FitzGerald's campaign suffered an "implosion".

Good-faith efforts?   Kasich had said earlier  that he knew nothing about any  debate discussions because these were in the hands of his "campaign".    Anybody from the distance of Mars who has a hint of the man's brusque hands-on  style knows that absolutely nothing occurs in a campaign that he does not know about.

His pantomime will continue when he and Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor turn up in the well-vetted  Summit County Republican Headquarters  Tuesday afternoon.  There he will be joined by some  local Republicans and Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, a lobbyist who gets a $10,000 monthly paycheck to connect the governor with the University of Akron.

In return for  Kasich's appearance, we have a hunch that Alex, never at a loss for hyperbole,  will describe him as the greatest  governor in Ohio history.  Kasich will act out his response with  a modest  smile and leave the scene in full command of  his unfettered campaign to run for president.

GOP to voting reforms: We're outta here

IF you need any further  evidence of how our Republican friends are gaming redistricting reform, check out  how the idea was sent to die in the hands of  a committee of the monstrously named Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission.  A meeting to set the gears in the motion by November was cancelled.

Just to be on the fail-safe side against a pinch of progress, Fred Mills,  a Republican lobbyist and legislative  veteran  who heads the the reform committee, offered this explanation to the Columbus Dispatch as to why he cancelled the meeting:.

"We're in the middle of an election season. A lot of people who are making the decisions are involved in the elections,  and it's hard to get them to focus on this right now."

You had to figure that it would take something this momentous to get into the way a plan to make the districts  more equitable.

In this instance the committee was to take up the matter of how many minority votes would be needed on a vote to approve a map.

Democratic Rep. Vernon Sykes, of Akron, a committee member,   told me he hasn't  been informed of a new date to meet, although he sounded pessimistic about the prospects.

He said such reforms are the "single most important factor"  to determine which party controls the process "and it sure should be a fair process."

Problem for Sykes and other Democrats is that both legislative houses as well as the governor are in Republican hands and see no critical need to change rules that guarantee the party a continued long and happy life..