Democrats Throw Mud

The Ohio Democratic Party is thinking of filing a complaint that SoS Blackwell broke election law 3599.10 with his May 20, 2004 letter as Honorary Chairman of the Political Action Group "Citizens for Tax-Repeal". The missive asked legislative candidates to pledge their repeal of the sales-tax increase (.pdf file).

The Democrats have not specified whether they think his crime was a felony, misdemeanor, or civil offense. They have not even specified with whom they will file the complaint. In truth, the Democrats do not care what the crime is, just as long as they can incriminate Blackwell in some way. Further, the crime would only be a misdemeanor.

Ohio Revised Code 3599.10 states:

No person, firm, or corporation shall demand of any candidate for the general assembly any pledge concerning his vote on any legislation, question, or proposition that may come before the general assembly; provided that this shall not be understood to prohibit a reasonable inquiry as to such candidate's views on such question or legislation.

Whoever violates this section is guilty of a corrupt practice and shall be fined not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand dollars.

The biased article on the Democratic website, from Joe Hallett of the Cleveland Dispatch, leaves out the law number and the italicized section.

Analysis: According to the wording of the law the tax-repeal law never "came before" the legislature and thus could not be "voted" on by any legislator. Hence, Blackwell is innocent.

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The Pinocchio Awards - 4

U.S. Representative Ted Strickland (D - 6th) is the recipient for the fourth Pinocchio award. The other three were Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (3), Tom Roberts (2), and Jim Trakkas (1).

Strickland wins his award for sponsoring legislation (H.R. 834) with NJ Senator Democrat Frank Lautenberg (S. 391)to make illegal the involvement of each state's chief election official in a federal campaign. Both men are calling it the Federal Election Integrity Act of 2005. Haven't they ever heard of a consonant? FYI Senators' Boxer, Clinton, and Kerry are co-sponsors.

Meanwhile a Lexis-Nexis search from the last two years for the words 'Gephardt' and 'Strickland' turned up 9 articles showing that Strickland publicly endorsed U.S. Representative Richard Gephardt for President. They are the :

1) 9/21/03 Columbus Dispatch, C5;
2) 10/26/03 Cleveland Plain Dealer, H3;
3) 12/7/03 Cleveland Plain Dealer, A25;
4) 12/11/03 Columbus Dispatch, A4; 5) 1/7/04 Associated Press;
6) 1/11/04 Columbus Dispatch A8; 7) 1/18/04 Dayton Daily News A1;
8) 2/26/04 Associated Press; and,
9) 2/29/04 Cleveland Plain Dealer, A12.

The second most memorable image of Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign, the first being his salute at the DNC convention, was the Thursday, October 21, 2004 two-hour goose hunting trip with one other politician: Rep Ted Strickland D - Ohio's 6th.

Strickland forgets to smile.

Once again an elected, partisan official wants to keep another elected partisan official from being the honorary co-chair of a federal campaign. Go read Ohio's Revised Code please. Election Law 3501.6, 9, & 11 for starters

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The Pinocchio Awards - 3

U.S. Rep Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D - Cleveland) will get the third award of our 'Pinocchio Award' Series. The other two recipients were Senator Tom Roberts D - Trotwood (2) and Jim Trakkas, R - SoS (1). Owing to the fact that this blog started up after Tubbs-Jones' faux protest on January 6, 2005, the day of Bush's election certification by Congress, we missed her swan song.

We apologize for our breathtakingly poor memory lapse as regards awarding her a "Pinocchio," and do hereby rectify that error. Please accept our sincerest apology.

It gets better however. In a January 9, 2005 article/column/ opinion/editorial for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, page H1 (paid sub. req.) Elizabeth Auster opined (via Lexis-Nexis)

Sure, voting will always be imperfect. But few citizens expect voting to be an all-day experience, and plan accordingly... And people forced into that situation have reason to be furious...

A wise politician heeds such fury. And Tubbs Jones is no fool... She calculated rationally that Republicans, who are understandably pleased with Bush’s victory, are unlikely to devote a major effort in Congress in the next few years to addressing imperfections in the voting system...

And it worked. For a few hours Thursday, she drew national attention to Ohio’s voting problems. Nothing tangible was achieved. But nothing tangible was harmed — unless you count as tangible the spirit of respect for tradition that ideally would govern conduct in Congress.

I am not sure whether to sputter in nonsensible outrage or laugh at the incomprehensibility of the phrase "Republicans... are unlikely to devote a major effort in Congress in the next few years to addressing imperfections in the voting system."

Since January 9, 2001 and Ohio's H.B. 5 (2001) Blackwell has tried to fix Ohio's punch-card system. Since the passage of HAVA 2002, Blackwell has tried to fix Ohio's punch-card system. Since the passage of Ohio's H.B. 262 (2004) by Taft and Co. mandating voter-verified paper trails, Blackwell has tried to fix Ohio's punch-card system. Thwarted by Jeff Jacobson in '01 , Blackwell has tried to fix Ohio's punch-card system. Thwarted by conspiracy theorists in relation to paper trails Blackwell has tried to fix Ohio's punch-card system. Thwarted by Ohio's House, Senate, Attorney General and Governor, Blackwell has tried to fix Ohio's punch-card system. Thwarted by activist judges Blackwell has tried to fix Ohio's punch-card system.

Nobody else has so much as lifted a finger to help. Tubbs-Jones' grandstanding is too little, too late and still does nothing to help Blackwell fix the problem.

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Fixing the HAVA Debacle

The editorial from the March 12, 2005 Columbus Dispatch, page A12 (via Lexis-Nexis) warns

The task of modernizing Ohio's voting systems has faced many obstacles, none bigger than the needless requirement that all methods produce a voter-verifiable paper record... The legislature voted last year to require that all machines generate a paper record visible to voters. That requirement was an overreaction to fears raised by conspiracy theorists... The legislature created this mess and now should deal with it

Do not forget that current Ohio House Majority Whip, Jeff Jacobson played a huge role in killing the 2001 H.B. 5 mandate given unto Blackwell by Governor Taft and the Legislature to fix the punch-card ballot. Next Blackwell labored with Bob Ney (US Rep. R-St. Clarksville) for two years to get HAVA 2002 passed. Thwarted by Ohio's vindictive House, Senate, and Governor for another 2 years through 2004, Blackwell labors on Hercules-like to implement a better system. Begin here to read a more in-depth narrative of the story.

Proving SoS Blackwell right once again, i.e., that voter-verified paper trails are too expensive, Lucas County Commissioners (Toledo area) estimate that $2.4 million extra county- or state-taxpayer dollars will have to be paid out on top of the $3 million federal-taxpayer dollars.

Using the table from Ohio's Department of Development: Office of Strategic Research's (2005 estimates), and assuming Lucas County's estimates is an accurate indicator of cost per resident, I found the cost per resident in the following manner:
1) $2.4 million / 450,000 residents = $5.34/resident.
2) $5.34 * 11.5 million (2005 estimates)= $61,436,559.91.
3) Round up for bureaucratic ineptitude and normal cost overruns and approximately $61.5 - $62 million will be the final cost for machines capable of having voter-verified paper trails.
4) That is $62 million extra tax-payer dollars.

Stick with Blackwell's 1-12-05 directive to buy optical-scan machines. It is cheaper (.pdf file)

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Uniting the Party of Lincoln II

These are exciting times for Conservative Voters. In addition to the Ohio and Blackwell developments formerly mentioned on this blog (here, here, and here), the GOP is slowly moving to reunite the party of Lincoln.

Lynn Swann has filed papers to run for governor of Pennsylvania.

Condeleeza Rice made no categorical denial unto the editors of the Washington Times that she would refuse the nomination for President. Alas, she is somewhat pro-choice.

Marylands Lut. Gov Michael S. Steele is mentioned as a possible replacement for Paul Sarbannes (free reg. req), Maryland's retiring US Senator of 36 years.

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Ohio's Peloponnesian War

The current battle in Ohio that pits Conservatives against Republicans and Democrats resembles the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C. - 404 B.C.) between the two poles of Classical Greece, Athens and Sparta. Both cities had entirely opposite styles of economies, freedoms, and governments. Sparta, with its more restrictive lifestyle, won. Today, the Republocrat establishment resembles Sparta, and it must not be allowed to win. Now, like back then, the war has many fronts, and today's front deals with slowing the growth of government spending, which is very different from decreasing spending.

On March 2, Blackwell appeared before the Columbus Bar Association and urged that Ohio's Tax Expenditure Limit (TEL) be passed. He advocated that

What we've learned from Michigan, Alaska, Missouri and Colorado is, you build in that flexibility. The purpose of this is to establish fiscal discipline in state government [and] attract and keep jobs. Ohio has a spending problem, period."

A Columbus Dispatch article on D2 by Joe Hallett and Mark Niquette noted that during the 1990's, even before Taft's tax-hike took place, Ohio lost 85, 833 resdients aged 24 - 44, while Colorado, which has a TEL in place, gained 220,914 residents aged 24 - 44.

Citizens of Colorado have had $3.25 billion dollars returned to themd from 1997 - 2001. In 2010 Colorado will have 1.7 billion less to spend on public services and gov't funding for higher education is running out.

The facts bear out the truth that cutting taxes and returning spending creates growth and retains citizens.

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The Pinocchio Awards - 2

Today's Pinocchio award for saying one thing while his actions reveal the complete opposite is state Senator Tom Roberts (D-Trotwood). Senator Roberts has authored a bill to prohibit the Ohio Secretary of State from overseeing elections by having a bipartisan board of legislators appoint an official to overse Ohio's elections.

Roberts said in a March 6, 2005 Dayton Daily News article (free reg. req)

"We believe that our chief elections officer should not be involved in and working on or heading up statewide campaigns for candidates or issues. We're trying to create a nonpartisan approach to the elections."

First, articles out of the Dayton Daily News on (via Lexis-Nexis)
December 19, 2003 (page B3),
January 21, 2004 (page B2), and
January 22, 2004 (page A14)
show that Roberts publicly endorsed General Wesley Clark for President.

Second, articles out of the Dayton Daily News on
Febrary 28, 2004 (page A1),
August 24, 2004 (page B3), and
Sept. 27, 2004 (page B3)
show that Roberts publicly endorsed Senator John Kerry for President. (links from George Washington University)

This Democratic partisan, then, aches for non-partishanship.

Roberts nose is growing as we speak.

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Pres. Bush's Economic Boom

Larry Kudlow's recent column in National Review Online looks at the statistics from the economic boom created by Pres. Bush's tax cuts on personal income, dividends, and capital gains and comes up with some impressive results:

1) The economy has made 3 million new jobs
2) The average is 200,000 new jobs/month
3) February saw an increase of 262,000 new jobs
4) The unemployment rate has decreased from 6.3 to 5.4%
5) Inflation is 1.6% annually
6) New Unemployment claims have dropped to 300,700/week, a new low

He concludes

"The economy is on a tear... And its a very good start at that.

Compare the growth created by Bush's tax-cutting policies to what Taft, the Ohio Democrats, and so many of the Ohio Republicans seem to enjoy doing. Their policies will not help improve Ohio.

There is more in Kudlow's other columns and this one. Read them all.

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Fiddler on the Roof

William Hershey of the Dayton Daily News (free reg. req.) is reporting that Taft is fiddling around with taxes again.

The not-so-governator Taft wants to raise business taxes again.
1) He wants to shift the current tax-system from the state's corporate franchise tax - paid on a business' Ohio net income or net worth, whichever is greater - unto a commercial activity tax, which taxes gross receipts. But he is more subtle this time around.
2) He is soft-pedaling his plan by claiming that his plan has a low rate (0.26% or .0026) and a broad base, since the first $1 million is sales is exempt.
3) He claims the old proposals will end up about 2 billion short in revenue.

Daniel J. Navin, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce's managing director of legislative affairs claims

that Taft's plan would have a "pyramid effect" on all business to business sales since the tax would be levied at all points along the manufacturing process.
It would automatically raise a companies tax-liability for every dollar increase in sales even if the company was not profitable.

The sentiment of Taft that remains so disturbing, is that he enjoys taxing people, believing it to be his duty, and feeling as if he has accomplished his sworn duty by having raised the tax-revenue through increase of taxation. A Reaganite answers: raise revenues through decreased taxations.

Plus, if Taft had any sense of history, he would reply that in 1969 Ronald Wilson Reagan raised the taxes of Californians after campaigning on cutting taxes. Of course Reagan cut the taxes later and Taft's refusal to use this historical example proves that he has no plans to lower the overall taxburden of any business or person in Ohio.

You will now be a victim of bad rhyming by Bruce Koole:
Tax Ohioans early, tax Ohio businesses late,
A tax fiddler Taft is, A Reaganite he ain't.

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Pres Bush Talks Energy

At the end of the March 4, 2005 White House Press briefing Scott McClellan mentioned that on Wed, March 9 President Bush is scheduled to talk energy policy at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, OH.

Earlier Sat Morning I contacted the Institute's press-relations people about the schedule, topics, and content of Pres. Bush's energy speech. They directed my queries to Allen Abney at the White House.

Please e-mail the Editor-in-Chief with any questions.

Uniting the Party of Lincoln

Julie Carr Smyth facetiously describes Blackwell as the "King of Modesty" in Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Feb 27, 2005 Inside Politics column, page H3. She describes a fundraising letter from Blackwell in this manner

"Secretary of State Ken Blackwell pulled out all the stops in his latest fund-raising letter. He told would-be supporters that his “huge 15-point lead” in the 2006 race for governor is the reason for all the attacks against him by Democrats.
“As a conservative Republican and African American, I understand very well that unapologetic liberals like Jesse Jackson and Democrat Stephanie Tubbs-Jones consider me a ‘threat’ to the Democrat Party’s presumed monopoly on the black vote,” he wrote in the four-page, single-spaced missive.
"Blackwell goes on to paint the ascendancy of a black conservative governor in Ohio as something that would put the GOP “well on our way to establishing sustainable majority party status” nationally.

The rhetoric of late has escalated about the GOP's increasing black vote as Gore Campaign Manager Donna Brazille, GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman, prominent black clergyman Eddie Long, and Tampa Bay, Florida's St. Petersberg Times all mention the impact that such a voter shift will have on elections.

The question now that needs answering is: Will the rise of voting percentages match the increase voting rhetoric? In the '04 elections President Bush increased his total amongst black voters from 9% to 11%. This increase is not quite the voter shift that makes an almost permanent majority. However, this fact that, at this early stage, party leaders are already talking about the shifting coalitions, signals change-for-the-better is on the way.

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Stalinists, murderer, & Ba$t@r&

Robert Pastoor of the American Prospect magazine links SoS Blackwell and US Rep Katherine Harris with the murderer Joseph Stalin and his "free" elections. Pastoor explains :

Stalin is reported to have said that the secret to a successful election is not the voter but the vote counter. There are three models for administering elections. Canada, Spain, Afghanistan, and most emerging democracies have nonpartisan national election commissions. A second model is to have the political parties “share” responsibility. We use that model to supervise campaign finance (the Federal Election Commission), but that tends to lead either to stalemates or to collusions against the public’s interest. The third, most primitive 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.

Blackwell may at times seem be too forthright for the normative political mode, but he is no committer of genocide on the scale of 60 million. While Pastoor probably means that Blackwell is a commissar of propaganda, or information-suppression, his sentence reaches beyond overstatement.

This extreme hyperbole remains a common theme amongst the loony left. For example, the losers of last year's presidential election have not feared to stoop to the level of insinuating that Blackwell is a murderer, the Evil GOP Ba$t@r& of the Month, or deserves to be executed by an electric chair.

This kind of hate speech only harms the speaker and, similarly, the DNC. Calm down everybody and debate issues and policy. Else the voters will continue to ignore you.
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Bureaucracy Loses Millions

A Feb 25, 2005 article, page B4, by William Hershey of the Dayton Daily News (free reg req) highlights the failure of bureaucracy and the need for Blackwell's spending ammendment. A recent study revealed that that Ohio is wasting "tens-of-millions" of tax-payer dollars by overpaying businesses who contract with the state's Medicaid insurance program.

Governor Taft, State Auditor Montgomery, and Attorney General Petro all play a role in the story, but escape responsibility. Lax oversight or governmental ineptitude is the real reason for this problem. It is time for this to stop.

Read the entire article here.

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Excellent Blogs

In Jonah Goldberg's latest column, he gathers evidence that out of the 23,000 newly created blogs/day, a generous estimate is that 10 "excellent must-read blogs" are created everyday, with 22,990 blogs being barely read.

Since you are a reader of this blog, which one are you?

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Ohio "values-voters"

Ryan Sager, NY Post columnist theorizes in his Feb 27, 2005 column that the value vote for the GOP is a trap, which will cause them to lose future elections. He disagrees that "values voters" won the election. He starts by quoting Blackwell's remarks from the Conservative Political Action Conference's Feb 17 - 19 meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.:

"I want to make sure that there are no revisionists here among us. The reality is that the values voters won Ohio and won the presidency for George Bush."

Sager marshalls up for his evidence that Iraq was more important since 34% of the voters considered terrorism/Iraq the most important issue and a paltry 22% "moral values". Furthermore, both presidential campaigns saw the race as who was better suited to lead the The War on Terror. Finally he found two NJ Republicans at CPAC who were pro-God and pro-civil unions.

Sager writes that things look bad for the Republians if the following happen:
1) Dems field a credible war candidate;
2) TWOT fades as an issue and allows 'security moms' to re-become 'soccer moms'; and,
3) GWB's Soche Security initiative fails to convert voters over to the GOP's side since Wall Street & NY have many financiers who vote Democrat.

Sager's op-ed requires some corrections.
1) He does not address how much of Bush's support came from that 34% and 22%, respectively. Iraq was a pretty important issue to Michael Moore and he voted for Kerry. The Pew Research Center contradicts Sager by reporting that out of an open-ended question of what was the main issue why you voted for your candidate, Bush received 28% from Iraq/TWOT, aggregated, and 27% from values voters. Kerry received 2% from values-voters, 39% from terror and 0% from Iraq.

2) The Dem primary voters rather convincingly ousted the DNC war-hawk candidates, Gephardt and Liebermen. Neither candidate ever won more than 10% of the primary vote.

3) The 18-30 group votes a lot less than any other age group, so their views on gay marriage matter less. They also failed to show up for Howard Dean in the primary. Since Parties are groups of competing coalitions and the GOP has the over-30 "values voter" sown up, the Bush and Rove now seek an issue that appeals to the younger crowd. This will increase the GOP's vote since people tend to become more conservative as they age.

4) Sager does not address what was the "values-vote" in 2000 as compared to 2004. If there was an increase in the values vote for '04, then the pro-marriage laws worked.

Visit the Pew Research Center or Maggie Gallagher from National Review Online to get a better look.

In the end Sager's commentary is sweet to the tongue, but bitter to the belly. It looks good at first glance but falls apart upon further reasoning.

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Victory Wednesdays

Minnesota is perhaps the best opportunity for Republicans to pick up a Senate seat in 2006. How sweet would it be if the state that gave us Humphrey and Mondale had two Republican senators and a Republican governor?

You can help make this happen. Mark Kennedy, the strongest Republican candidate, has a web site up and running, where you can contribute online. If he were to put up decent fundraising numbers this early in the process, he could dissuade any strong Democrat challengers from getting in the race. Even a small contribution from you could help make that happen. So please contribute whatever you can to Kennedy’s campaign.

Today is Wictory Wednesday. Every Wednesday, hundreds of bloggers ask their readers to donate to an important Republican campaign.

If you’re a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesdays by e-mailing Polipundit at wictory@blogsforbush.com. He’ll add you to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll. He’ll also send you a reminder e-mail every Wednesday, explaining which candidate to support that day.

Here’s the list of blogs currently participating in Wictory Wednesdays:

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