This is a summary of previous posts.
Hatred and Victory in the Buckeye State
The Democrats have labeled him a Stalinist, murderer, and Ba$t@r& in addition to advocating that he must be electrocuted. Surprisingly, the ‘he’ is not President Bushitler, but rather Ohio’s Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell.
The political sins of Blackwell that have incited such violent language are three: he upheld Ohio’s election law in 2004; and, he is a Conservative Republican who is black. For these peccadilloes the only conservative in the ’06 governor’s race, though officially undeclared, is despised by Democrats, who wish he would quit agitating the local yokels.
The Democrats took their potshots against this formerly registered Democrat during the 2004 election season by carping against Blackwell’s dual role as honorary co-chair for President Bush’s Ohio campaign and being the state’s chief election’s official. In reaction to Blackwell’s well-known rulings on provisional ballots (valid only in the precinct wherein you now live) and challengers (none whatsoever), all legal chaos broke loose. There were lawsuits galore.
Blackwell was correct to attempt to fix the laws, but he forgot the maxim of politics: never attempt major legislation in an election year, the year before an election year, or especially 4-5 days prior to the end of a very tense election. Overall Blackwell correctly interpreted the law, since the difference between Florida and Ohio was this: Florida – 36 days; and, Ohio – 14 hours. The whole Democratic apparatus focused on Ohio, yet they could not delay Bush’s election victory for more than half a day.
Democratic reaction at the grassroots level has received intellectual underpinning from Robert K. Pastoor, writing in the American Prospect Magazine’s January 2005 print edition. Pastoor compares Blackwell’s 2004 Election handling to Stalin’s vote-counting tactics. He writes
Stalin is reported to have said that the secret to a successful election is not the voter but the vote counter… The third, most primitive [election] model is when the incumbent government puts itself in charge. Only 18 percent of the democracies do it this way, including the United States, which usually grants responsibility to a highly partisan secretary of state, like Katherine Harris (formerly) in Florida or Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio.
The two more modern types of election models were having some sort of a “nonpartisan elections commission” be in charge, and having the “political parties ‘share’ responsibility”.
To begin, regardless of what Blackwell did or did not do, nothing he could have possibly mandated even comes close to matching the murderous rage of Joseph Stalin. Blackwell did not cause the death of one person, let alone some 60 million. This type of violent and bloody rhetoric produces extreme hyperbole (a redundancy, I know, I know), reveals an intellectual laziness, and allows the speaker to dehumanize his political opponent. Soon, any and all means are justified to verbally mar the opponent, since the rival person or party would be but a few steps removed from Beelzebub incarnate. At least the Vietnam War protesters could rhyme, “Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today,” and tell a bit of the truth, “LBJ lied, people died.”
To return to the American Prospect, the paragraph of Pastoor needs some editing. To say that the USA usually grants election oversight unto a highly partisan Secretary-of-State misrepresents the federalism of vote counting, since each state determines who is in charge. There could only be a comparison between Blackwell and Stalin, if President Bush had appointed Blackwell and Harris unto their positions as Secretaries of State. To be precise the incumbent government is the Bush administration, but those in charge of elections are the states, not the national government. Bush did not grant power to Blackwell. The Ohio voters twice placed him into his office.
Moreover, Ohio’s election law, Revised Code section 3501 incidentally, contradicts Pastoor’s description about vote counting in Ohio. Ohio law makes not parties but the Secretary of State, chosen by the voters, the official in charge and both parties have had the power at some time or other to make and remake election law. The SoS can then often be of a different party.
To begin, anecdotal evidence pretty clearly demonstrates that the most of the vote counters at each individual polling place are overwhelmingly members of the geriatric age group. Old fogies might cheat at Bingo, but election-tampering is too complex for people whose biggest daily gamble is learning how to use a computer. Of course, the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death scares me too.
Ohio’s election law also directs that each county have a board of elections composed of two Republicans and two Democrats, or the parties with the two highest vote totals in the most recent governor’s election. The Secretary of State does nominate new board members, but the nominee must be of the same party as the departing member. After this whole rigmarole, the county board nominates a director and co-director of elections with Republicans limited to nominating GOPers only, and Dems restricted to Dems, or another party as described above. Post-election the director and county board must canvass the returns, sign off on them, and give the numbers over to the Secretary, who then proceeds to give his signature to the totals.
Nowhere is an everywhere present Secretary skewing the vote totals. From seasoned citizens on up through two levels of bipartisan power sharing, Ohio’s elections are not slanted towards any one party. With law as the governing force in its elections, Ohio at least belongs to Pastoor’s first type, and certainly belongs to the second type.
Of the 39 states having Secretaries of State take charge of elections, Pastoor can only find 2 ‘highly partisan’ ones. This disproves his thesis that the votes are Stalinistically directed towards one party or the other.
Any regular listener to the Sean Hannity Show will not be surprised at this development of ranting. It is a slippery slope mentality. It began with Al Gore’s unhinged speech at a MoveOn.org fundraiser, whereat he practically foamed at the mouth and screamed, “He [Bush] betrayed our country. He played on our fears.” Fast forward to September, 2003 when Ted Kennedy described the Iraq front of the War on Terrorism as “a schemed concocted in Texas… for political gain”. Next, Howard Dead described the Iraqi front as “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time” and then proceeded to express his utter happiness with his third place finish in the Hawkeye Cauci. Then there was Harry Reid on Meet the Press christening the opinions of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas as “stupid.” Now-a-days Senator Reid has learned his lesson. When asked about reforming Social Security Accounts, he sounds positively angelic uttering nothing but that of Edgar Allan Poe’s Raven: “Nevermore.”
Since denouncing Blackwell as another Katherine Harris was not insulting enough, the left ratcheted up the post-election vitriol. Democrats have cried out ‘electrocute him!’ ‘electrocute him!’ Matt Naugle, founder of the OhioforBlackwell Blog (www.ohioforblackwell.com/blog), broke the story on February 26 that Stephen Crockett, the co-host of Democratic Talk Radio, wrote a February 26, 2005 column in the Magic City Morning Star (distributed in Maine) openly supporting the idea of executing Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Katherine Harris. Crockett writes
I think that Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell deserve the death penalty for their actions as state election officials in the 2000 and 2004 elections… If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!
As Matt Naugle at the Ohio for Blackwell Blog notes “the purpose of Democratic Talk Radio is to ‘spread the message of the Democratic Party and to provide an on-line home for grassroots Democrats everywhere.’ Is this type of militant talk what the Democrats support?”
If urging violent murder as the solution the Democrat’s political woes, then the ‘values’ of the Democrats are seriously warped. ‘Lighting people up’ is the process of electrocution gone wrong, and contrary to implication of Crockett’s flippancy and satire, such a mistake does not resemble the movie “Ernest Goes to Jail”. Crockett’s satire will only encourage the angry voter to make every sort of reckless charge in the hope that at least one will stick (see Tom DeLay).
For example, an Ohio voter insinuated at a November 13 election hearing in Columbus, Ohio that Blackwell was a murderer, because her friend’s husband died while the now-widow waited in line on Election Day to vote. Some catcalls were heard to say “indict him, indict him.” The friend continued that if Blackwell had installed more voting machines, which would have allowed the now-widow to stand in line for only a short time, the husband could have possibly been saved by his wife. No news reports mentioned the cause of death, making it possible that nothing would have worked to save him. A spouse’s death is grievous, but Blackwell did not kill the man. At this hearing another participant claimed that the security officers, who had enforced the illegal parking signs, were suppressing the vote.
It gets worse. The blog “Evil GOP Bastards” awarded Blackwell the honor of being ‘Evil GOP Bastard of the Month’ for November, 2004 based on his role in the “stolen” election. Condoleezza Rice was the 2004 recipient in toto for her part in the Iraq War, which further goes to show the almost irrational hatred of the left.
Nationally, the Democratic Congressmen have followed the lead of Senator Frank Lautenberg (D – NJ) and Representative Ted Strickland (D – OH) by introducing bills forbidding election’s officials from chairing political campaigns and overseeing elections. A Google image search, however, turned up Strickland’s face in the second-most famous image of the 2004 election, the first being Kerry’s salute at the convention. When Kerry went goose hunting in Ohio about 12 days before the election, Ted Strickland (who had endorsed Wesley Clark) was the only politician to travel with Kerry. A hyper-partisan demands that all other elected officials be non-partisan. Strickland tsk tsks others about the beam in their eye, but ignores the mote in his own.
During the 2004 General Election Blackwell was the lone politician of consequence to publicly support Ohio’s Issue 1, vis-Ã -vis heterosexual marriage. No Democrats were seen. In spite of university newspapers (Ohio U.) labeling the issue as bigoted, Ohio voters passed the constitutional amendment by a whopping 61 – 39 margin.
Blackwell’s 2005 proposal, introduced on Wednesday November 10, 2004 and called the Tax and Expenditure Limit (TEL), would inhibit the state’s fiscal policy in the following ways:
1) Spending Growth = inflation rate + adjustments for population growth;
2) Exceeding Growth Cap = 2/3 General Assembly vote + citizens' vote;
3) Taxpayer Refund = Budget surpluses > 15% of the budget.
With this proposal victory became the more clearer. Governor tax-hikin’ Taft is proposing a similar bill. Ohio’s Republican Attorney General Jim Petro, a well-financed candidate representing the GOP’s moderate wing, he having received NARAL’s endorsement in campaigns gone by, professed his support for the plan the week after Blackwell introduced it. Press reports from Ohio whisper rumors that moderate legislatures are tepidly starting to support it. One Dayton Daily News columnist whined in her Feb 28, 2005 column that Blackwell was the politician controlling Ohio’s government. Thus Blackwell’s message works. With polls showing that 7 out of 10 voters support the TEL, politicians are scurrying to be on the voters’ good side.
Finally, Blackwell’s skin color is a major issue with Democrats. They understand that in 2006 if Blackwell runs for governor in Ohio, Lynn Swann for governor in the state of Pennsylvania, Maryland’s Lt. Gov. Michael Steele runs for Paul Sarbannes’ Senate Seat, and Condeleeza Rice for President, they will lose their voting base and go the way of the Whig party.
In his three statewide election bids, Blackwell has received over 50% of Cincinnati’s black vote, though this number would more than likely fall if the Democrats nominate Columbus’s black mayor Michael B. Coleman (now touring the state in Bill Clinton’s 1996 campaign bus). Recent governor’s polls place Blackwell a comfortable 15 – 18% ahead of Petro and State Auditor Betty Montgomery. Nationwide President Bush upped his share of the black vote from 9% in 2000 to 11% of the black vote and best estimates are 16 - 18% in Ohio.
Donna Brazille, former Gore campaign chair, also chimes in to mention the impact that this voter shift will have on elections. GOP chairman Ken Mehlman and prominent black clergyman Eddie Long have also pointed out that tectonic shifts are taking place in the voting blocs. In the St. Petersburg Times (FL) Wes Allison mentions in a Feb 28, 2005 article that statistics from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a group tracking political attitudes of Africans, show a majority of blacks supporting Republicans on Social Security Accounts and other issues. The end of the Democrats peeks over the horizon, unless they manage to derail the black the GOP’s new face. The danger for the DNC is noted and being combated.
In the end the hatred of Blackwell by Democrats failed. They reacted with quite the violent language against Blackwell. The whole spat took place over issues near and dear to conservatives: low taxes, decreased spending, small government, obedience to the law, and the adherence of public mores, in short Reaganism. For this Blackwell is reviled by the Democrats but loved by the base and Ohioans. Soon will tell whether the policies of conservativism win out, or 2006 puts a Jimmy Carteresqye type of figure into office. Polls indicate that conservativism is winning out in Ohio
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After hearing criticism from liberal interest groups, Coleman's office isued a press release stating that "for too long, faith and values have been manipulated to push political agendas by dividing our citizens.”
