Going Viral

OK, I’m going to try to get back to this. I’m still ill, but getting slo-o-o-o-w-ly better. I’ve been ditching blog work because this thing saps my energy and makes my brain feel like it’s wrapped in fiberglass insulation. This last, in particular, has thwarted my several efforts to blog. I set myself a generally unrealistically high standard here. If a sentence sounds turgid or hackneyed, I generally can’t move on until it’s fixed. If I’ve read sources two levels down, I have to actively resist the temptation to go down the third level. I don’t say it to brag, it’s just the way I am. I'd be better off aiming for "Good enough for blogging."

Anyway, I’ve decided to say “screw it.” Until further notice, I am muddling through. If the blogging suffers for a few days as I finally (hopefully) kick this thing, so be it.

Happy Thanksgiving

The fam and I are on the road for our usual pilgrimage east to visit family and eat too much. As referenced obliquely over the weekend, I've been struggling against the flu the past week, hence the lack of posts.

Wifi hotspots are sadly in short supply where we are going, so I'll probably not get another post up until we are back in Ohio.

We at the House of Pho wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving.

O-H! I-O!

HELL yea!




Breaking my virus-inspired silence to say ALL FUCKIN' RIGHT!

And some random thoughts:

How cool is The Script? It's been a while since I've seen The Script actually crawl out onto the field. Usually they just show the fully formed "Ohio" with the Sousaphone player taking his bow. You forget how amazing it is to see it actually form.

A regrettably sloppy game. Sloppy play calling by Lloyd Carr, sloppy tackling by OSU, sloppy . . . snapping?

And sloppy officiating. It would have been a shame if the game had turned on an inexplicable interference call in the first half and an equally inexplicable interference non-call resulting in an interception. Thankfully, the Buckeyes overcame the setbacks.

Although it's been said many times, many ways, Brent Musberger is an idiot. After the Blue Meanies score on the first drive: "So Troy Smith again will have to come back in the fourth quarter as he has done before in this game." Unfuckinbelievable.

Michigan acquitted themselves well -- well enough that a rematch at least belongs in the conversation about the BCS. If USC or Arkansas run their respective tables, they close out the real argument. If each of those teams ends up with a loss, with Notre Dame beating USC, people will argue for the Irish, but given that Michigan was their daddy at home this season, it's a tough argument.

Antonio Pittman graduated from Buchtel. Chris Wells graduated from Garfield. If the levy hadn't passed, APS would have been forced to cancel varsity sports programs. I'm just sayin'.

This is the dead opposite of 2002. That year, OSU earned the right to serve as sacrificial lamb as Miami rolled to another national championship. Then: Surprise! This time the Buckeyes go in as the consensus number one. They get the pressure to prove it one more time against someone just happy to be in the show.

Browns, Steelers, Who Cares?

So here’s my post since I won Pho’s election turnout office pool. I guess I’m glad there weren’t any stipulations about “closest guess without going over” or nobody would have won.

So, Pho said I would probably say something nice about the Steelers to irritate him. Trouble is, here is NOTHING nice to say about the Steelers this season. Why they don’t just bench Rothlesberger is beyond me. A true Steelers fan doesn’t second-guess the mighty Bill Cower often, but this one has me and some of my Steelers-fan friends all scratching our heads.

Being a Steelers fan married to a Browns fan (my husband is Pho’s brother), you can imagine how Steelers-Browns Sundays can get a little ugly in my house. However, this year, I don’t think either of us really cares. We’re too focused on the big OSU game this weekend, and we’re on the same side for this contest. Besides, who really cares when the only thing on the line is last place in the AFC North?

So, go Buckeyes! I’d much rather the Buckeyes win this weekend than the Steelers. They have a lot more at stake.

It Was All Because of . . . Redistricting?

Sunday's PD ran the story of a curious phenomenon – GOP leaders arguing about who is to blame . . . for NEO redistricting. The argument apparently goes like this: The 2000 redistricting allowed Sherrod Brown to keep his seat, leaving him around as an effective candidate who was able to take out Mike DeWine.

Got that?

Right Angle Blog ran hosted a thread on the issue that devolved into a finger-pointing kvetch-a-thon.

This argument quickly starts to sound like an episode of Quantum Leap where changing history has unexpected consequences. First off, I question whether any map could have narrowed the Democratic delegation any more than it did. After all, the total vote in Congressional elections has remained steady at around 50-50, but the delegation going into last Tuesday was 2/3 to 1/3. And that's with Steve LaTourette in a district that Kerry won.

Second, if Sherrod hadn’t run for Senate, DeWine would have been stuck with running against Paul Hackett. If anyone on the Right wants to argue that Hackett was a weaker opponent, he has the floor. I’m not going there. Again. Ever.

Third, the whole story ignores the actual effect of redistricting – tossing Tom Sawyer out of Congress. At the point the lines were re-drawn, the writing was already on the wall that Traficant’s days were numbered. Anyone who had the right connections – as it happens, I did – knew that the US Attorneys felt they really had him, and they did. Going into 2000, the Republicans had much more to fear from a genial moderate like Sawyer than a liberal firebrand like Sherrod.

Finally, it’s damned interesting to hear Republicans speak so frankly about the democracy-stultifying activity that is redistricting. By arguing about whether they could have redistricted more effectively, they are saying in essence, “We should have rendered meaningless the votes of even more Ohioans.”

If they really want to know why they lost, perhaps the Republicans should pay more attention to what their constituents want and less to political gamesmanship.

Still More Thoughts on Turnout

Bill Callahan has tracked down information showing conclusively that Cuyahoga County turnout was overstated.
recalculated the turnout percentage in light of the revelation just to make sure they didn’t change so radically as to undermine the basic point. In fact they drop the Dem turnout of the Kerry vote to 80.7 and Republican turnout of the Bush vote to 66%. Pretty much the same.

The primary lesson from Callahan’s discovery is that the Cuyahoga Co. Board of Elections remains a train wreck. After his comment about the difficulty judging turnout in urban counties, I’m not sure what to think about actually turning out that vote.

Similarly, I wonder about judging turnout in counties with large college populations. Athens Co. is a horrible 41.2%, but that’s mostly because the college-based party clubs register lots of students. Once the students move on an register elsewhere, the Athens board hears about the new registration rarely if it is in-state and pretty much never if it’s out of state.

Nonetheless, the Dems need to look at whether they can improve their turnout in urban centers. Bumping up the turnout in Columbus and Cincinnati may have made the difference in some of the legislative races there, and adding a bumped-up turnout in Cuyahoga may have put Barbara Sykes over the top despite her invisible campaign.

For that matter, if the Dems in the future recruit a diversity-for-the-sake-of-diversity candidate again, it would be nice if that candidate would take the lead in the turnout effort. Reading about Sykes’ campaign manager complaining that Dems didn’t turn out the vote for her made my blood boil. I talked to very politically active people in Toledo, Cleveland and Columbus who confirmed my impression that Sykes was pretty much nowhere to be seen.

Return of the SMH

She's baaaack. Jill first told us that Shopping Mall Heiress Capri Cafaro is in the mix for succeeding State Senator Marc Dann who was elected Attorney General. The party chairs for the two districts that comprise the district – Trumbull and Ashtabula – will turn in names to the Senate Dem Caucus which will make the ultimate decision.

Dann has endorsed Cafaro giving her the inside track. Interesting because as recently as two days ago he was quoted in the Ashtabula paper as saying he would stay out of the fray. A rival for the post, Rep. Sandra Stabile Harwood, says that Dann promised his endorsement would go to whoever helped his campaign the most. Um, Ms. Harwood, that would fall under the category of Statements Everyone Knows to Be True but Nobody Wants Said Out Loud.

Apparently I’m supposed to be annoyed by this. I’m not. First off, it would be pretty dickheaded of me to condemn Cafaro getting to the Statehouse since my position in the 13th Primary was that Cafaro should get her feet wet in the Statehouse before making a run at Congress. Avoiding dickheadedness is never a sufficient reason for me to hew to a position, but it’ll do for a makeweight.

Mostly I’m good with it because I think Capri would make a good legislator. She is smart, hard working and has a fair swatch of varied experience. Her flame burns too brightly to imagine her toiling as a researcher at a think tank or serving as a Legislative Assistant somewhere. If, as she says, she really desires a career in public service, it’s time to give her the chance.

The question remains whether this is a good move electorally. Only a fool would predict the climate in 2008, but safe to say it will not be the skating party for Democrats that the past election season was. Rivals are making dark noises about her father’s corruption conviction and association with Traficant. That’s not good, and probably is worse in Trumbull and Ashtabula than it would be in Mahoning where Traficant was more beloved and tolerated, and worse than in Lorain where he was just a guy people read about.

In addition, some of her comments in the paper suggest that Capri is not past the combative prickliness that turned so many around here off. No, she hasn’t threatened to sue anyone yet but her responses to charges that money plays a part in the decision have been shrill and petulant.

The district collectively went 59.4% for Kerry in ’04. It should be a safe seat. Cafaro is absolutely done if she gets appointed and loses it. She’ll have to work hard to keep it. If she’s smart, she’ll start a permanent campaign as soon as she’s appointed.

My guess: This is already wired. The Warren paper has a good rundown of the Family Cafaro’s generosity toward the various individuals and entities that will be making the decision. Capri may object to charges that the seat is being bought for her, but the seat is being bought for her. It just happens that she brings real talent to the job. Appointments going to contributors is a longstanding fact of politics. We’re big boys and girls; we can handle that. We're just happy when a patronage appointment goes to someone with actual ability.

The only remaining question – if the seat goes to Stabile Harwood instead of Cafaro, will Cafaro get the resulting vacant House seat?