False Advertising

Steve Stivers, a former bank lobbyist and current Republican candidate for Congress, has courted right wingers, tea partiers, 912 project followers, and all sorts of right wing extremists. Stivers has not yet gotten that desired tea party endorsement, but you wouldn't know that if you received one of his political mailers.

Politico:

The campaign of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy is having some fun with this mailer from her rival, Steve Stivers. Her campaign manager emails supporters:

Here's the thing: the picture is fake. The sign was added in later.

Yes, you read that right. Slick Steve Stivers is so desperate for the support of the radical right that he's started doctoring photos, intentionally misleading people.

With just one week to go before the primary, let's show Steve Stivers that central Ohioans care about the truth.

Later in the article, John McClelland of the Ohio Republican Party claims the photoshopping of the Stivers sign at the tea party rally was done by the GOP. McClelland went on and claimed that this photo shows Stivers shares the same values as tea partiers. That is not the way I see it. It is clear that the Republicans hoped to let people believe the photo. Why would the Ohio GOP falsely claim an endorsement that doesn't exist? Were they purposely trying to mislead voters? If the Republicans had not gotten caught disseminating this lie, would they have owned up to it? I doubt it.

This is another example of the lies and scandals perpetrated by the Ohio Republicans against the people of Ohio. We've seen it all and it has made many voters reluctant to support Republicans.

Here is a brief history of Ohio Republican scandals and missteps over the years:

- We witnessed the failures of Republican Gov. Bob Taft and his ethics violations.

- Republican fundraiser, Tom Noe, gave us the "Coingate Scandal" in which millions of dollars were lost from the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation. He is currently in prison.

- Bernadette Noe, the former wife of Tom Noe, was part of voting irregularities in Lucas County.

- Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives Republican Bob Ney was involved with the Abramoff bribery scandal.

- Brian Hicks, former Taft chief of staff, was convicted of an ethics violation.

- There were voting problems when Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell ran the state's elections. There were jammed voting machines, not enough voting machines in Democratic precincts, challenges to voters, the attempts to block recount of votes, etc., etc., etc. Later Blackwell admitted to being a stockholder in the Diebold voting machine company.

- Once head of the Franklin County Board of Elections, Republican Matt Damschroder, took a "contribution" from the Diebold Company.

- The Ohio Supreme Court (all Republicans) ruled that Republican Jon Husted, who lives in Upper Arlington but was elected to represent Kettering, can use his abandoned home in Kettering as his voting address.

Stivers and the Ohio GOP were deliberately trying to mislead people with their photo. I think we've seen enough of this type of politics.