Down in polls, Ohio's DeWine goes VERY negative

[BobcatJH]

Knowing that his Democratic opponent, Rep. Sherrod Brown, is ahead in the most recent polling, Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine, as vulnerable a Republican incumbent as there is, has gone negative. Very negative.

I'm sorry Senator, but saying that your opponent is "embracing the agenda espoused by left-wing activists like Howard Dean, Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan" is no sign of the strength that comes with incumbency. And saying that Brown "wants to decimate our military power and leave America vulnerable to the terrorists" is no sign of the possession of ideas - or character.

You're in trouble, Senator, and it's showing. Just like your buddy, Ken Blackwell.

[Oversea Visitor]

1. I read in my news that 435 congress seat contested

Hmmm 435 Dems congressman ....... sounds good
PAINT IT ALL BLUE.

[MercutioATC]

2. Maybe, but these are two men NOT to get complacent about.

Ohio (especially southern Ohio) is still pretty red and Blackwell, at least, is mobilizing tens of thousands of fundies to support his candidacy.

These won't be easy races.

[jdeetz1019]

4. I dont; know

I'm from Springfield, between Dayton and Columbus, and the few Republicans I've talked to are pretty disgusted with all these scandals here in Ohio. My boss is a repub and he says he's so sick of all the politicians he isn't voting for anyone that is an incumbent. Not very sound reasoning in picking your representatives, but lets hope more repubs are feeling this way.

[MercutioATC]

7. I went to Wittenberg for a couple of years...

:hi:

I hope you're right. All we need to do is tip part of southern Ohio to the left and I think we'll see a near-clean-sweep.

[liberalhistorian]

16. That's what happened in 1994, when

the Dems suffered nearly a complete sweep from almost all offices in Ohio, statewide and legislative. People were so disgusted with all incumbents that they just voted them all out, even Dems. A lot of really good, effective Dems suffered losses because of that. Ohio has been paying the price heavily ever since, as that allowed the corrupt OH GOP to take nearly complete control of the state and they've maintained an iron grip on the state ever since.

I see the same thing happening this year as happened in 1994, only this time it'll be the repukes who'll finally suffer the drubbing they so richly deserve after they've ruined a once-great state.

[bobbieinok]

19. with republican control of the media and the election??????

especially in OH, when 'vote stealer' Blakewell is the republican candidate for governor

[sendero]

6. Folks..

... write off the effectiveness of negative campaigning at your peril. Pols do it because it works. The right has spent 20 years making "liberal" a dirty word and they are still collecting dividends.

[msongs]

8. liberals have spent 20 years ALLOWING the right to get away with it....

you read the definition of "liberal" to people without telling them what the word is, and most people will agree that it is a good
thing...

many dems have kowtowed and run from the word Liberal and now are paying the price for their own cowardice in this matter.


Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art
mugs and shirts

[TheFarseer]

12. you're right

There's a reason they turn to negative campaigning, and that's because it works! This isn't even a last ditch effort. The last ditch is gay bashing and pictures of aborted fetuses (which is not to say THAT won't work) DeWine has still got alot of fight left in him. I would still have to favor him at this point.

[PaDem]

20. agree.........

these are gonna be tough races to win.

[bdamomma]

3. slowly these guys

right wing of course are putting the rope around their own necks.

[enid602]

5. no-bid

" And saying that Brown "wants to decimate our military power and leave America vulnerable . . ." I'd say the ones who spend a trillion plus (much of it no-bid contracts) a year on defense are the ones who are really making us vulnerable.

[TheFarseer]

13. They're the ones that want to outsource our military

industrial complex. Having our military hardware manufactured in China will be an 'awesome' idea until we are at war with China and they have all our planes, tanks, ships, guns and bullets!

[enid602]

15. outsource military

And recruit impoverished third world citizens as soldiers; doesn't cost anything if you dangle citizenship in front of them.

[TheFarseer]

18. outsourced soldiers are a BAD sign

If that doesn't scream last days of the Roman Empire, I don't know what does. I would be for dangling freedom in front of prison inmates (like drug related offenders or petty thieves) before trying to recruit illegal aliens.

[never_get_over_it]

9. Hmmmmm

all the crap that went on with the vote in 2004 in Ohio - the election reform stuff that was voted down last November conveniently with totals the exact opposite of the pre-election polling - on the same day that Dems had pretty good success in other parts of the country like all of Arnold's propositions going down in flames - and the school board in PA that ousted all the right wing intelligent design freaks Hmmmmm if I was a suspicious sort I'd think that DeWine and Blackwell are pretending to campaign you know for appearances. If I were Sherrod Brown I'd be focusing on the voting machines more than DeWine.

[OzarkDem]

10. They're countering to Brown's attacks

On DeWine's links to big oil donors ($300,000 in donations) and his bashing of DeWine and the GOP for failed trade policies, job losses, weak economy and corruption.

Its also about fundraising. These attacks were in a DeWine fundraising letter. They're trying to rally their base with red-meat issues in order to raise funds. Apparently DeWine's sinking ratings are having a negative impact on his fundraising. If his numbers keep dropping, he's going to lose even more donors.

The GOP in Ohio has been bullying big donors to support GOP candidates only in the last several years or face negative consequences - that's where the "pay to play" scandals came from. Any big donor who gives to a Dem has been severely penalized with loss of state contracts, problems with licenses, etc, etc. They're no longer afraid of the GOP in Ohio, and are starting to donate to Strickland and Brown, hence DeWine's desperate fundraising letter.

[OzarkDem]

11. Article from Akron Beacon Journal about it

DeWine is considered one of the most vulnerable of GOP incumbents this year...

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/14633082.htm

"The reason DeWine finds himself in a struggle is underscored by other results in the same poll, which questioned Ohio voters on issues of trust.

The poll found that, of five key issues sampled, (Ohio) voters said they trust Republicans more than Democrats on only one: national security."

[gratuitous]

14. Whether DeWine's toast or not

Brown needs the cash, the volunteers and the advisers to hit back quickly and hard. Negative campaigning doesn't work when it's exposed fast. But it works when the attackee doesn't do anything. The Swift Boat attacks on Kerry were ludicrous on their face. But without a prompt response, the well-financed and well-organized rantings of one disgruntled former comrade of Kerry totally outweighed the voices of dozens of other people who served with Kerry and who had a better estimation of him.

And don't forget about the media's complicity, either. If DeWine is perceived as a loser on his way down, the media will prop him up if they can. Otherwise, they're looking at several months of dispirited coverage on a slam-dunk race, and it's so much more interesting to cover a real horse race.

So Ohioans, get out there and write your letters to the editor, knock on doors, talk to your friends, neighbors, co-workers, casual acquaintances, and counter this malarkey. Don't give DeWine an ounce of traction for his spurious charges.

[OzarkDem]

17. Sign up for a house party

make a donation, but most of all, hold the media accountable in this race.

[Rosemary2205]

21. I understand DeWHINE has lost Cincy

wasn't that his last hope??

[LUHiWY]

22. The real issue?

"As Alito takes Supreme Court seat, Ohio GOP guts election protection

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

February 1, 2006

Ohio's GOP-controlled legislature has passed a repressive new law that will gut free elections here and is already surfacing elsewhere around the US. The bill will continue the process of installing the GOP as America's permanent ruling party.

Coming with the swearing in of right-wing extremist Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, it marks another dark day for what remains of American democracy.

Called HB3, the law now demands discriminatory voter ID, severely cripples the possibility of statewide recounts and actually ends the process of state-based challenges to federal elections---most importantly for president---held within the state.

In other words, the type of legal challenge mounted to the theft of Ohio's electoral votes in the 2004 election will now be all but impossible in the future.

Section 35-05.18 of HB3 requires restrictive identification requirements for anyone trying to vote in an Ohio election. Photo ID, a utility bill, a bank statement, a government check or other government document showing the name and current address of the voter will be required.

This requirement is perfectly designed to slow down the voting process in inner city precincts. It allows Republican "challengers" to intimidate anyone who turns up to vote in heavily Democratic precincts. It virtually eliminates the homeless, elderly and impoverished from the voting rolls. Election protection advocates estimate this requirement will erase 100,000 to 200,000 voters in a typical statewide election. By way of reference, George W. Bush allegedly carried Ohio---and the presidency---by less than 119,000 votes in 2004.

The ID requirement is the direct result of intervention by two high-powered Republican attorneys with ties to the White House and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Congressman Bob Ney allowed the Bush-Cheney re-election national counsel Mark "Thor" Hearne to testify last March as a so-called "voting rights advocate." Hearne, whose resume shows no connection to voting rights organizations, was responsible for advising the Bush-Cheney campaign on national litigation and election law strategy during the 2004 election. See:

http://www.lathropgage.com/people/bio.aspx?bioid=8185

http://www.lathropgage.com/ files/tbl_s47Details %5CFileUpload265%5C351 %5CTHOR_Insert.pdf.

Hearne, with the help of Republican attorney Alex Vogel, concocted a story that the problem with the 2004 elections in Ohio was the NAACP paying people with crack cocaine to register voters. Vogel's front group, the Free Enterprise Coalition, even indemnified a local Republican operative, Mark Rubrick, to file an Ohio corrupt practices act suit against the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, ACT-Ohio and ACORN, The suit was later quietly withdrawn after discovery showed that the operatives behind it were linked to the top levels of the Republican Party.

Ironically, the Republican Party engaged in racist and massive voter repression in Ohio and are now institutionalizing that very Jim Crow-style repression and selling it as an election reform bill.

HB3 also ends the ability of the public to conduct meaningful audits of voting machines. Election protection activists recently forced the adoption of an auditable paper trail into the Ohio election process. In a state where virtually all ballots are cast and/or counted on electronic equipment, this cuts to the core of the ability to monitor an election's outcome. The new provision in HB3 will make the paper trail virtually meaningless.

HB3 further imposes a huge jump in the cost of forcing a recount. In 2004, the charge was $10 per precinct, with some 11,366 precincts in the state. Thus the Green and Libertarian Parties, which paid for it, had to pay somewhat more than $113,660. Now the charge will be $50 per precinct, jumping the charge to some $568,300.

Finally, and perhaps most astonishingly, HB3 eliminates the state statutes that have allowed citizens to challenge the outcome of federal elections within the state. After the 2004 election, election protection advocates filed a challenge to Bush's victory. Their attorneys were attacked with an official attempt to levy sanctions, and then were thwarted from an effective suit when GOP Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell locked up the state's voter records.

But HB3 would now entirely eliminate any possibility of a state-based legal challenge. The only alleged recourse for those wishing to officially question the vote count in a presidential, US Senate or US Congressional race in Ohio would be at the United States Congress. There is now no recourse whatsoever on the state level.

Despite grassroots protests and bitter opposition from Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and other pro-democracy groups, HB3 passed with only one Republican vote against it (all Ohio Democratic Senators and Representatives voted against).

So the Ohio GOP has taken another giant step toward ending the possibility of any other party ever taking power in the Buckeye State. When combined with new campaign finance laws that allow huge chunks of private and corporate money to flow virtually unregulated into GOP coffers, HB3 may have all but ended free elections in Ohio---at least until election protection forces can somehow reverse the trend. .

Since the Civil War, only one presidential candidate---John F. Kennedy in 1960---has won the White House without carrying Ohio. This and the other repressive legislation passed by the Ohio GOP will make it virtually impossible for anyone but a Republican to carry the Buckeye State in future statewide and federal elections.

Bills like HB3 are also being lined up to flow through Republican-controlled legislatures throughout the US, including a very similar one in Georgia. "This comes straight from Karl Rove," says Cliff Arnebeck, one of Ohio's leading election protection attorneys. "This legislation originates with a demand that one-party rule by made permanent throughout the United States."

With today's passage of Ohio HB3, along with the seating of Justice Alito, the GOP grip on the American throat has very significantly tightened."


http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/1754

[HughBeaumont]

23. Ah, LOVE the smell of Repuke desperation in the morning.

When will the GOP PLEASE STOP with their bullshit wedge issue talking points?

A filmmaker who does commie things like bringing to light the trampling of the middle class by corporations, examinations of America's culture of violence, a call for a further investigation of 9/11, the Iraq debacle and the health care industry is NOT EXTREME LEFT WING, GODDAMNIT.

A mother who lost her son in a senseless oil war and wants to know why is NOT EXTREME LEFT WING, GODDAMNIT.

Senators who want to put important issues to the forefront like jobs, government accountability, the economy, reducing the debt and more effective foreign policy instead of bullshit dividers like gay marriage and abortion are NOT EXTREME LEFT WING, GODDAMNIT.

DeWHINE, your Repuke buddies are responsible for "decimating" the military by spreading them so thin in this senseless oil war, and your war has now created a giant terrorist state. So I think that makes you sub-moronic.

Keep wedging and wedging. Your days in the limelight are going to be over and not soon enough.