Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Elephant Wars: Nasty, Brutish and Fat

How evil is Alex Arshinkoff? So evil hi can screw up a perfectly good case of Dem Schadenfreude. Ben Keeler reports of Alex's new low:

    On Tuesday, Central Committee members all received a direct mailer. The piece in question stated that Arshinkoff ally and Ohio House member John Widowfield had introduced a bill part of which included that a section of Route 8 would be renamed for two soldiers who died in Iraq. The mailer falsely states, among many untruths, that the bill is being held up in the Ohio Senate by Kevin Coughlin. . . . Mr. Larry Lange has a new letter which he wants out for people to view. It can be seen here via PDF. Widowfield and Don Robart were at Lange's house, a man who lost his son overseas, until 11:30 PM Tuesday pleading with him to not write the second letter which corrects the record. Disgusting. The letter from Lange reminds people what this was all supposed to be about - honoring two fallen heroes - not politics. And most certainly not the Summit County GOP race.
Excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth a little.

The prevailing wisdom is that Alex has the votes. This is based both on the counts and on the fact that TeamCoughlin is arguing about the rules. As Ed Esposito says, the side that is arguing about the rules usually is behind. It will be pretty amazing if this latest stunt snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

And if Alex prevails, he's pretty much guaranteed that the rift in the party cannot be bridged.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Coughlin called one of the fathers yesterday afternoon and threatened to sue him.......nice guy!

Anonymous said...

Not true. Not true at all.

Anonymous said...

Larry Large confirmed Coughlin threatened to sue him. Larry Large called Coughlin last night and told Coughlin he did not want the letter sent, he was retracting it. He just wanted to get out of the political mess.

Coughlin lied and told him it was "too late", the letter was already sent out. Coughlin's staffer told Larry Large afterword that he still had the letter, it wasn't too late.

I wonder what the other father who signed the letter has to say about all this??

Anonymous said...

Another father signed the letter against Coughlin, I wonder where HE stands on this issue??? Maybe Mr. Walsh will send out ANOTHER letter supporting the first on???

Anonymous said...

I heard Mr. Walsh supports the original letter 100% and is ready to go to the mats in support of it….

Anonymous said...

Just FYI - Mr Large called me at 11:30pm last night. Widowfield and Robart were in his living room hounding him to reverse his decision to sign his retraction letter. I cannot believe the depths that these people will go to save Alex. These are simply bad people.

Large did NOT ask me to scrap the letter. He said that if we distributed it, he may follow up with a third letter expressing that he wishes he hadn't signed either one and that he wants nothing to do with all this mess. Honestly, I do not blame him.

This is all just disgusting.

Ben said...

The whole thing is a mess. Anonymous is staying anonymous because he knows what he is saying is false. If I was making things up I would as well.

Mencken said...

Robart and Widdowfield are on the bubble tonight as well. If Alex goes down, both their heads eventually will be on sticks as you cross the High Level Bridge into the Falls.

I could be wrong, but I thought Robart was a Marine.

I shouldn't be, but i'm little surprised he would stoop this low.

Anonymous said...

Its over, I just got an email from team Coughlin. Alex was re-elected.