Ken Blackwell, now a Tea Party huckster

 Slate  Magazine reports that Ken Blackwell,  the former  Ohio Secretary of State who played  a less-than-illustrious official role in managing Ohio's elections, is appearing in a TV ad as the "titular head" of the  Tea Party Victory Fund.  Honest.

Blackwell's target is the so-called "Obama phone" video unearthed by the Drudge report.

According to Slate, Blackwell wrote the ad, which  once again rails at Democrats for literally buying off votes from people in need.

Rather than cherry-pick the message, here it is:

This is it --this is the October surprise.  We just need to get this ad on television today.  Will you help us?

This commercial  is a microcosm of the difference  between Republicans and Democrats.  Republicans want to create an environment where free people make their own choices and pursue their dreams. President Obama and Democrats want to create a dependency on government that ensures that Americans will continue to rely on Washington from cradle to grave.  

What this lady said is so offensive because it's so blatant  -  she finally comes out and says what we all know that the Democrats really think.  That's why this ad is so damaging to the president in Ohio. 

Let me tell you something.   I'm from Ohio.  I was elected statewide as the Secretary of State and Ohio State Treasurer - the ad is effective.  If swing voters in this state see this ad, they simply will not support President Obama, and he will lose Ohio.

There are too many weird  assumptions to address in the ad, which is supposed to run in Summit, Lucas and Mahoning Counties. But if Blackwell has cast his lot as a Tea Party huckster, he obviously is blind to the sort of racist stuff  that turns up on some of the signs at the teabagger rallies.

P.S..   The only October surprise , Ken, is that you probably got paid to write this.  

With Husted-Dewine: Is Blackwell still with us?

Who would have ever guessed that a case could be made for returning Republican Ken Blackwell to the Ohio Secretary of State's office  considering the mess he made of the voting system back in 2004  and later?  From a controversy over provisional ballots, to challenging  the paper used for ballots to adding Diebold voting machines (in which he held some company stock) that were faulty - seldom  a day passed without having to endure more screwups in his office.

On two occasions, the office accidentally exposed Social Security numbers and names of registered voters.  It first released computer discs bearing  such goody information listing  1.2 million individuals.  Second time around, it gave out the names, addresses and social security numbers  of 5.6 million  registered voters.  Blackwell apologetically called the goofs "accidental". Problem solved.

Well, now we have a secretary of state , Jon Husted,  and attorney general, Mike Dewine,  creating greater confusion.  Earlier reports said Husted, acting under a federal court order,  had rescinded his own order shutting down week end voting just prior to Election Day.   That much he did and cheers went up that possibly we could count on a normal election.  You know, like the 2008 election that had caused so few systemic problems.

But we later learned from published reports all the way up to the national media  that Husted, joined by Dewine, had something more in mind, seeking a stay of the court's decision until the state's appeal could complete its course through the courts; i.e., don't do anything until we get back to you, whenever that may be.  Husted's Special Counsel, William S. Consovoy, said the delay was intended to avoid  confusion. 

Plunderbund reported yesterday that this was the same William S. Consovoy who sought an unsuccessful constitutional challenge to the Voting Rights Act in the South.  Husted obviously didn't pull Consovoy's name out of the hat to advance his  opposition to early week-end voting.

In his appeal, Dewine is now talking state's rights instead of voter fraud, a myth that never went anywhere.  I can't imagine the cost of all of these delaying tactics.  Worse yet, it is increasingly clear that Husted and Dewine are still hoping to prepare a table for a Romney victory in Ohio, candor and  the public interest be damned.

Are you listening, Public?

Husted, Blackwell: Doubling down on 'voter fraud'

Secretary of State Jon Husted will find an audience that will believe him when he appears  at the True the Vote and Ohio Voter Protection summit conference on Saturday in Worthington, Oh.  The mission will be to "discuss election integrity  within the  state," the sponsors say.  And to reassure eveyone that the event will stay on message Husted will join former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell as one of the conferees.

Well, now.   We all know that nobody screwed up the election process more than Blackwell in 2004, from lack of voting machines to challenging the weight of the paper ballots.  I doubt that Husted will want to write home about his noble role at the meeting, particularly now that he is being challenged to show that his new restricted hours policy for early voters is bearing heavily on black voters.  .

Among other speakers will be Anita MonCrief, identified as"ACORN Whistleblower and publisher of something called ''Emerging Corruption'" and a few other self-important defenders of the ballot - as they know it - even though they will have an enduring reputation as elephants in the chicken coop.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder and president of True the Vote,  reassuringly tells us that that one must "make sure that every vote is counted," She says she's excited that  the panel of speakers  "will provide us with thoughts about the challenges related  to voter fraud in Ohio". Isn't that  how Dubya used to warn us about all those non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

 By the way, reporters  can't crash this love-in unless they  have, it says here, media credentials and  "photo ID".   It's a start.

PS:  My column on the anemia of the Republican Party  with candidates like Josh Mandel and Todd Akin has been posted with a (few words about the Summit County GOP) on Plunderbund.Com.

OOPS!

In my previous post, I incorrectly referred to Ken Blackwell as the ubiquitous ex-treasurer of Ohio. Sorry, he's not quite that ubiquitous. He is, of course, the ex -secretary of state. As you can see, some people's ubiquitous careers are harder to follow than others. Correction made.

The Senate race narrows, but to what?

STOP THE PRESSES! Or turn off the cameras. Ken Blackwell, the erstwhile ubiquitous Ohio secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate, now says he will NOT be a U.S. Senatorial candidate in Ohio this year. Does anybody really care?

The remaining field of potential Republican candidates challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, is now down to two: The newly elected state treasurer, Josh Mandel, who had assured the voters that he would serve a full four-year term in Columbus, and former State Sen. Kevin Coughlin, of Cuyahoga Falls, who reportedly (Plain Dealer) has been seeking Tea Party support.

This is supposed to get interesting. But so far it isn't.

Donald Trump: He stoops to conquer

DONALD TRUMP may have advanced his presidential aspirations on The View this week when he added his name to the list of birthers challenging President Obama to release his birth certificate. And you think that only semi-literates stoop that low? Trump is the biggest egotist in the public arena today, so he may yet dump himself into the GOP race.

That would increase the number or Republican White House wannabes to at least 39 if you count every lightweight with at least a gleam in his or her eye. In fact there are reports that some Republicans are starting to worry about the cumbersome size of the field. My tax exempt solution would be to place each name on a separate sheet of paper and toss them from a skyscraper aerie. The lightest sheet will be the last to hit the ground. The name it bears will be the obvious choice to win the GOP nomination - uncontested.

FOOTNOTES: For a rational view of Gov. Kasich's irrational plan to privatize the state liquor department, check David Hess's comment on my post on the topic. Hess is a former colleague in Columbus and Akron who covered Capitol Hill for Knight-Ridder Newspapers and is the former president of the National Press Club. He usually doesn't take prisoners....Good news this week for U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. Republican Ken Blackwell, who was demolished in his bid against then-candidate Ted Strickland in the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial race, says he is seriously considering challenging Brown. Could Brown be that lucky?

Arch-enemies vie for Kasich's ear(s)

GOV. KASICH'S IMMINENT appointment of Jim Petro as the new chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents will set up an interesting clash between two political enemies - Petro and Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff. How could that be, you may fairly ask, when both guys handsomely raised money for Kasich in the past election? First, a little history:

The chancellor is a cabinet member who is in the best position to influence the governor on higher educational policy - the biggest gorilla in the room on a matter dear to the heart of state universities: funding. The board was created by the legislature in 1963 at the urging of the late Gov. Rhodes, who was never enthralled by the heavy lifting of details.

The governor, a college dropout himself, wanted to unburden himself of the ebb and flow of higher-education problems and the jostling of educators who would take up his time with things that weren't high on his list of priorities if they extended beyond bricks and mortar. Former Gov. Strickland increased the chancellor's policy-making influence by adding him to his cabinet.

With Petro - former state auditor, former attorney general and unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor - in a sensitive campus role, Kasich will reward two veteran politicians whose paths could angrily cross inasmuch as Arshinkoff has just been handed the job of University of Akron lobbyist by a Columbus lobbying firm. Trust me: Coincidence had nothing to do with it.

About the Petro-Arshinkoff chasm: The Summit chairman had asked then- State Auditor Petro to send his people up to Akron to examine the books of then-County Auditor Jim MCarthy, a Democrat who was in a race with Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart, a Republican, for Summit County executive. (Bear with me: I know it can be confusing. But this was in 2000. )

A bad report on McCarthy, of course, would be a windfall for Robart, Arshinkoff's beneficiary in all of this. It didn't happen. Instead, Petro's auditors gave McCarthy a clean report. Arshinkoff was so outraged that there was nothing to be gained from the audit that he promptly excised Petro from the list of candidates to endorse in the 2006 Republican primary, with his usual rip-and-roar attacks on Petro, adding that he would prefer a Democrat over the attorney general. (I told you this could get complicated!) But being a good party soldier, he said he would endorse Republican Betty Montgomery for governor, and if ill-health forced her out of the race, he would step up to the plate with Ken Blackwell. Bad move. Bad, bad move.

Blackwell was demolished by Democrat Strickland. Oh, did I remember to mention that six years earlier, McCarthy also won in a landslide over Robart?

Forgot to report: Petro had raised money for Kasich as a lawyer in Columbus with Roetzel and Andress, the Akron firm that long served as Arshinkoff's pinata around town. For the rest of the story, you might want pick up a copy of War and Peace.

When politics becomes a religious experience

THE OCTOBER ISSUE of Church and State has a detailed account of the 2009 Values

Voter Summit in Washington, a sort of fun-filled, let's-show-those-godless socialists event sponsored by a number of right-wing politico-religious organizations. If that's how they want to spend a couple of days in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial, that's fine with me. Besides, we've all heard it before.

But the annual haloed conference of true believers is also an enormous magnet for the Republican Party's worst and dimmest who would doubtless be expelled from the rolls of Judeo-Christian (mostly Christian) safe passage to the next election if they didn't turn up with bless-you smiles.

I mean, this isn't a case where a GOP pol with a few battle stripes is invited to be the keynoter that would provide the big photo-op for Fox News. Rather, they eagerly arrive en masse to see and be seen. All leaves are cancelled, even if it means giving up a brother-in-law's funeral or a day at the races to be counted at the conference. In return, their pictures are posted in the program and can be quite heartwarming for those who are deeply attached to these sorts of family reunions.

Check them out: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader John Boehner, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, ex-presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, ex-presidential-candidate Mitt Romney, ex-Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell, ex Miss California candidate Carrie Prejean, Bill O'Reilly and, of course, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. There were many more, but you get the point. All of these folks have bags and will travel without much encouragement. There was one glaring exception: Sarah Palin, who tentatively agreed to come, was a no-show.

When you hear the damning comments from these speakers, it only gets worse. I've picked out a few from the magazine's report. (The magazne is published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.)

Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota: "Keep the faith, and have heart, because remember, God is the God of all. He's the God of the White House, of the Congress, of state capitols, of school board meetings, city council meetings, all of it." (Does anybody doubt that Pawlenty is running for president on the God ticket?)

Blackwell: Calling upon his audience to convert Americans to fundamentalism, he declared: "If we don't do it, America in its third century will be redefined." (And I thought we were fighting religious fundamentalists in the Middle East!)

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey: Calling Obama the "abortion president," Smith complained: "I believe Obamacare represents the greatest threat since Roe Vs. Wade itself."

Ok, so we have the issues laid out for the 2012 presidential race - and sooner: Anti health care reform, anti stimulus package, anti abortion, anti moderate-to-left politicians and pro-fear of "socialism" and Big Brother.

As Frank Rich aptly pointed out in his Sunday New York Times essay, the war in Afghanistan is now costing us $2.6 billion a month. Let us pray that the religious conservatives will take note of that when they complain about the financial burdens that we are placing on the next generation.

Of Chicken Dances and bully pulpits

Well, the Republicans have finally found something to cheer about so who can blame them for doing the Chicken Dance through the weekend?  I probably should explain right here that the Chicken Dance is a fun-filled maneuver that I discovered 30 years ago in Rudesheim, Germany, in which the participants flap their elbows, wing-like, against their bodies to the loud cries of an oompah band.  The song-and-dance thing  borders on a joyful patriotic commitment to ethnic expression in some quarters to this day. 

Back to the celebrating  Republicans.  Their national committee chose a new leader, Michael Steele, a very conservative African-American that in an instant expanded its exploratory reach  for party diversity by a grand total of one. For a party that boasts of no blacks in the House or Senate and a single Jew in the House of Representatives, Steele faces a daunting task.  After all, the party has been talking about expanding its base for as long as anyone can remember but  has always  ended up with a bunch of oil men, corporate executives and Wall Streeters to underwrite the political class for tax  favors granted.    

But things will be different from now on, says Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland whose first fighting words on his Olympian tablet were a threat to "knock over" anyone who would obstruct his agenda.  Among the huzzahs were the lofty promise of former Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett, who has been talking about expanding the base since Lincoln's famous address.  Bennett  impressed upon me in an interview years ago that the party was turning the corner to be more inclusive.   In response to Steele, Bennett told a Plain Dealer reporter: "You have a great spokesman for the party.  You have an outstanding leader.  I think that it will certainly benefit the party as we move forward."   Kevin DeWine, the new Ohio GOP chairman, suggested Steele's job would certainly complement the party's grassroots  "hunger  for change."  (But after all these years of  dormant diversity, might we not wonder as John McCain loved to ask,  is it really "change we can believe in"?  

From what I have read, Steele is quite capable of adapting to whatever challenges that confront the national chairman when the  Oval Office incumbent, who also happens to be an African- American, is running quite high in popular opinion.  Call it situation ethics, but I've read that Steele has even campaigned  for the U.S Senate with an ad hoc title:  His literature referred to him as a Democrat (in Democratic precincts, of course) , even though he was listed as a Republican on the Maryland ballot.  Nice try, but he lost anyway.

And although he has told black audiences of his pride that Obama was elected, on other less diverse public occasions he referred to Obama as nothing more than a "media creation."  Somehow, he seems right for the job.  

So now , should we not pause to share a moment of silence in respect to Ohio's very own Ken Blackwell who all but claimed victory with the support of so many Conservative Christian groups (as he did when he ran for governor in Ohio).  They obviously were ignored in the balloting for the RNC chair. He finished dead last on the first ballot. 

But a warning to everybody else:  unless you flap your elbows to the beat of the oompah band, look out for the new bully on the block.  He won't  hesitate to knock you over.  

UPDATE: Steele told Fox News today that the Republican future lies in returning to Newt Gingrich's Contract for/on/with America of 1994. Honest.  I'm not clever enough to make something like this up.  But it does mean that Steele has found a tailor-made rostrum at Fox.  

Was Darwin a Republican?

IT'S BEGINNING to look like Ken  Blackwell has taken Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection to his soul.  Blackwell, who could talk his way out of quicksand, has planted himself firmly in the realm of right-wing Christian activists to win the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.  You may have heard of some of their names: James Dobson (Focus on the Family). Tony Perkins (Family Research Council),  Ed Meese (Former Reagan attorney general who is still gadflying around in heavenly politics). There are others, but you get the picture. We are told they all love Blackwell,  in a non-sexual way, of course, which is why he is confident that he will vault to the top of the party by...um...natural selection.   

 Blackwell revealed strong tendencies to mess up and around with the 2004 presidential election and in  his duel role as Ohio's  Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate in 2006.  That  will load him and the GOP with a lot of baggage.  But there seems to be infinite forgiveness among his religious boosters.  As the late Jerry Falwell once so forgivingly viewed homosexuals:  ""We hate the sin but love the sinner."

If he should succeed - and Democrats should not stand in his way - the simple moral of the Blackwell story is that the GOP is prepared cast its future on an ideological agenda that was rejected in 2006 and again  resoundingly in 2008.   Blackwell was thumped in the gubernatorial race by Democrat Ted Strickland even though Blackwell was among friends with big-time televangelists who promised an army of preachers in the hustings to escort him to the governor's office.  

Considering that there are four or five other candidates for the RNC chair, this one will be fun to watch as an exercise in demolition GOP politics.  

 

Blackwell sings in minor key...

ODDLY ASSEMBLING his  campaign to become the Republican National Committee chairman, Ken Blackwell has inexplicably come to the defense of a rival for the job, Chip Saltsman.   In case the holidays have clouded your memory, please note that the very same Blackwell is the former Ohio Secretary of State whose quirky maneuvers in the 2004 Ohio presidential race still resound with questions about the validity of the balloting that put the state in George Bush's column. He then followed up with a failed campaign for governor in 2006. 

 Now, what about Saltsman?  Well,  he's the former Tennessee Republican Chairman who managed Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign. Lately, he  caused a stir in the party  hierarchy  by sending members of the Republican National Committee a CD bearing  a song spoofing Barack Obama.  It's titled "Barack the Magic Negro."  Sounds like a role that Blackwell, an African-American, wanted to fill during his stay in Ohio politics.  Blackwell says he doesn't see anything wrong with Saltsman's tactics,  opining that press reports were due to "hypersensitivity in the press regarding matters of race."   Blackwell generously added that all of his competitors for the RNC post are "fine people." Right. 

One the other hand, the current RNC chairman, Mike Duncan, seems to be a tad hypersensitive himself.   He said he was "shocked  and appalled" that a  candidate for the party's top job would participate in such a stunt.    

I had a hard time figuring out some of Blackswell's antics when he was the top gun for the state's balloting in 2004 as secretary of state.   I have even a harder time figuring out his strategy to claim the RNC job by shucking off tongue-in-cheek songs about a "Magic Negro".

The logic is so opaque.  Maybe not.  

Boning the turkeys

NEWS FROM the front: Ken Blackwell, the guy who ran so poorly against Ted  Strickland for governor in 2006, is reported to be interested in chairing the Republican National Committee.  Wow!  A friendly word to moderate Republicans, Democrats and Palin's Pro-American Party:  Get out of his way and let him have it!  With him around, your workload in electing your own candidates in 2010 will be reduced by at least half.....Speaking of turkeys, Glenn Beck, the newly arrived right-wing ding-a-ling at Fox  (from CNN) says states that object to government bailouts have an absolute right to secede  from the Union.   With some Alaskans of a similar mind,  they should all be reminded that the U.S. is a country (not a continent) where secession has been tried without success.  Nice try, Glenn, if not original!...And speaking of bailouts,  Miriam-Webster's online report has declared "bailout" to be the "word of the year." However, over the course of the current economic remedies,  " flailout"  might have been more appropriate some days.  

Kudos and grumps

KUDOS:  Here's a vote for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner as the  star of Election Day in Ohio this year.  Even with Cleveland still in the Ohio mix, the balloting was a relatively smooth exercise despite repeated attacks on Brunner by Republicans who wouldn't take NO for an answer.  She was vindicated by separate refusals by the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Justice Department - hardly the most liberal renegades  these days - to  uphold the legal challenges to her in the moments  leading up to Election Day.    It was  a remarkably cool contrast to the confusion and sloppy decisions by Brunner's predecessor, Ken Blackwell, in 2006 as he futilely sought the governor's office.  Nice going, Ms. Brunner!  Democracy needed that.  After  Mr. Blackwell, did it ever!  

CHANGE THE MEDS:  This provocative  post-election headline appeared in SF Gate, the online San Francisco Chronicle:   The country is still a disaster.  Why is is everyone smiling?  

NAMING NAMES:   I found this gem in my email from a reader:

"How bad must the GOP feel right about now?  It portrayed Obama as a socialist, communist, a Muslim and a friend of terrorists, and a majority of Americans said, 'Y'know, we're OK with that, as long as he's not a Republican.'"

SOUND ADVICE:  I hope that when the Bidens met with the Cheneys today,  Joe resisted the urge to accept an invitation from Dick to go duck hunting.  Dick may be vengeful these days. 

RADIO SLAP-HAPPY TALK:   Surfing my FM in the car, I happened to hear the Akron-Kent  area falsetto-voiced talk-show whiner cheerily dismiss the current  economic trainwreck as "mind over matter"  and insisted that if the media stopped using the word "recession"  consumers would feel much better and start spending money again.  So, what do you suggest that we call it?  A receding boom?   

DIEHARD ECONOMICS:   The trickle-nowhere economics theorists are still insisting that the new administration will guarantee a socialist America.  Limbaugh, for one, in an early senior moment, has already blamed Obama for the economic crises weeks before he is even seated in the Oval Office.  And minor analysts in the print media continue to lament government "intrusion" into our lives on the day that the Wall Street Journal is reporting more than a half-million new jobless claims and General Motors is pleading for government(welfare)  help.  Hey, diehards,  back off. It's  time to find out whether  compassionate conservatism, the untested Bush model, really works. 

AFTERSHOCK:   Sarah Palin continues to invoke the name of William Ayers while at the same time saying she would be "honored"  to assist Barack Obama in his new administration.  That's the consistent thing about Palin.   Neither she nor anybody else else ever knows what she is talking about.