Monday, March 14, 2011

What do you think?

Dispatch:

....Last month, when House GOP freshmen Bob Gibbs of Lakeville and Steve Stivers of Columbus attended a transportation hearing in Columbus, at least one witness had contributed to their congressional campaigns.

Roll Call, the newspaper that circulates on Capitol Hill, said that Brian Burgett, chief executive officer of Kokosing Construction Co., who testified at the hearing, contributed at least $3,000 to Stivers and $2,400 to Gibbs during their 2010 election campaigns....

.....Courtney Whetstone, a Stivers spokeswoman, said that Stivers "is not a member of the transportation committee" and did not "suggest" Burgett as a witness...


 Poligraft, a website sponsored by the Sunlight Foundation has this bit of info:

Aggregated Contributions

Represents total campaign contributions from an organization's employees and/or its PAC.

Someone had to offer a list of witnesses to the committee.  Didn't Stivers or Gibbs see it before the hearing an raise a red flag?


*****  People are speculating as to what or how the redistricting of Ohio will look.  Here is a view from CrassPolitical on Twitter:

           Tiberi's Franklin County CD(Columbus)must lose 35,000.
          It's competive,as is next door's Steve Stivers(R),so shifting 
           people may hurt Stivers


You learn something new every single day.



* Gov. John Kasich is not very popular in Ohio, which could be a problem for his agenda.  As long as the Ohio Republicans continue to follow his lead, they'll all put Ohio down the toilet.

Cincinnati.com:

A  new Ohio Poll out today finds   Gov. John Kasich’s approval rating at 40 percent – and his disapproval rating at 47 percent.

“Kasich’s approval rating is lower than the initial gubernatorial approval rating recorded by the Ohio Poll for former Governors Strickland (68%), Taft (49%) and Voinovich (61%). Kasich’s rating is higher than the initial approval rating of former Governor Richard Celeste (32%),” the University of Cincinnati’s Ohio Poll noted in the release.....

The best analysis of the poll was done by Plunderbund:

...Kasich’s approval rating takes a jump with registered voters coming in at 42% to 46%.  However, that’s about the best news Kasich gets besides his 65% approval rating among Republicans.  Independents, a large part of Kasich’s reason for winning, have abandoned him, giving him an approval rating of only 30% to 55% disapproving.

Kasich’s handing on the economy also gets low marks similar to his approval rating: 38% approving; 49% disapproving.....


After he releases his budget, announces the sell of the prisons, the lease of the turnpike, and cuts to education, his approval rating will go even lower.