Monday, July 27, 2009

Clear Choices in Ohio

* Do you really think Ohio needs to go back to Republican Mike DeWine for leadership? I don't think so. Mike DeWine apparently is dissatisfied with private life and longs for those fun-filled, guaranteed paycheck days in public office as he seeks to run for Ohio Attorney General. DeWine will have to face David Yost in a primary.

Here are some tidbits about Mike DeWine from Reference.com:

...On July 14, 2006, DeWine's campaign began airing TV commercials depicting a smoking World Trade Center. "The senator was notified... by a reporter at U.S. News & World Report that the image of the burning Twin Towers could not have depicted the actual event because the smoke was blowing the wrong way." DeWine's campaign admitted that the video was actually a still photo of the World Trade Center with smoke digitally added. He also was criticized for using an emotionally charged image to attack his challenger.

Another of DeWine's ads suggested that opponent Sherrod Brown didn't pay his taxes for thirteen years. This claim led to the Associated Press reporting on October 19 that, "Several Ohio television stations have stopped airing a Republican ad because state documents contradict the ad's accusation that Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown didn't pay an unemployment tax bill for 13 years." Brown produced a commercial citing these facts. DeWine's ads were changed to state only that he had failed to pay his unemployment taxes until legal action was taken against him.

DeWine has also been criticized on the issue of national security. Pundit Bob Geiger has noted that DeWine, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has missed nearly 50% of that committee's public hearings. Rand Beers, an intelligence critic and expert who has served during the Bush and Clinton administrations, asserted that DeWine's attendance at the Committee's closed meetings has not been better, charging that "he is not a particularly active member.....


I don't think we need someone who could be described as "...not an active member..."

The other Republican who has announced his intention to run for Ohio Attorney General is David Yost. You might not know him, but here are some tidbits:
Automedia:

....David A. Yost, a lawyer for Delaware County, just outside Columbus, won a temporary restraining order last week blocking any recount there. He told the Columbus Dispatch that a second count would be a poor use of county resources. President Bush won the mostly Republican area handily, unofficial results show.Lawyers for the Kerry campaign asked to join Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb, Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik and the National Voting Rights Institute in the fight to force the county to participate in the recount....

David Yost clearly was a Bushie who was NOT interested in fair elections, don't you think?

We clearly do not need these Republicans to control the office of the Ohio Attorney General.