So Apparently There Was Another Elephant War and Apparently It Is Over

The ABJ carries the story today of local GOP Chair Alex Arshinkoff being unanimously reelected. The story suggests that there was another New Summit County Republicans attempt to win enough central committee seats to vote him out, but the effort stalled in February.

It is difficult at this remove to see exactly what the point is. In the first Elephant War, Arshinkoff's opponents could point to a few bad cycles, but the Republicans pretty much cleaned up in 2009, winning two Akron Muni judgeships over appointed incumbents and the Barberton Muni clerkship. Summit is a Democratic county, so winning positions like this has always been the measuring stick for the party's success.

The once well-populated New Summit Republicans website has devolved into a political blog that is A) a mess to navigate and B) exceedingly nasty even by the adjusted metric for evaluating right wing political blogs. With regard to Arshinkoff himself, the only substantive attack is the rehashed charge that he keeps losing, notwithstanding his recent successes. Aside from that, it's all fat jokes and gay slurs. Classy.

Bottom line, Arshinkoff knows how to win in unfriendly territory and how to rake in piles of cash. As long as both things are true, he is an effective party chair. As a Democrat, I'd be happy to see him replaced but it's not happening any time soon.

* * *

So it's time for another of my pathetic comeback attempts. Once again something happened that took me out of the game -- computer issues this time -- and once again the loss of momentum made it ridiculously difficult to get back in. The other stuff on my plate has been mostly cleared away, so hopefully more blogging from here out.

Yes, the Apportionment Board Matters. A Lot.

A Jill post from yesterday points to a Mark Naymik column about the looming primary fight to go after Sen. George Voinovich's soon-to-be vacant seat 2010. The column focuses primarily on the possible battle between Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner for the nomination. One objection to Brunner's nomination is the fact that leaving her position makes it harder for the Democrats to hold on to the office, also up in 2010, and that she sits on the apportionment board. This is, for example, why I don't want her to run, even though the prospect of listening to Lee Fisher stump speeches for an election cycle is horrifying.

In response to the apportionment board argument, Naymik notes the following:

[Brunner] and others correctly argue that the power of the Apportionment Board may be overstated - as evidenced by Democrats' success last year in House districts last drawn by Republicans. (Democrats, though, performed badly in Ohio Senate districts.)

Also, if Democrats deliver on their promise to pass election reforms, those reforms are likely to include changing the apportionment process. Computers can redraw the lines without partisan politics, eliminating the need for board seats.

OK, let's take these one at a time. First, while it is correct to say that the Democrats did well in the Ohio House the last cycle, it isn't correct to say that the power of the Board is therefore overstated. Yes, in the year of a Democratic tsunami, in which a popular Democratic Presidential nominee poured a gazillion dollars into state organizing and turnout efforts, Dems did well in Republican districts. That's not the same as saying the districts don't matter, just that they matter less in an outlier year. Unless those factors will be repeated every two years, this one cycle doesn't alter the power of the Board.

Since 2000 Ohio has been close to 50/50 in Presidential elections. In that same time span, until this past election, the Ohio House and Senate have each been split around one-third Dem to two-thirds R. That's in large part thanks to the very effective map drawing the Apportionment Board did when it was composed of one Dem and four Republicans.

Moreover, the just-wait-till-last-year argument ignores how the Republicans draw districts -- they concentrate Dems in a few very strongly Dem districts, then draw Republican districts with relatively small but fairly stable margins. Sitting at home I don't have access to PVIs for the Ohio House districts, but a look at the Congressional districts (just scroll down to Ohio. There you go) illustrates the principle. Of the six districts drawn blue only one -- the Sixth, Strickland's old district -- has a PVI under D+6. One is at six, the rest are eight or above. In contrast, only four Republican districts are above +8, two more are R+6 and the six are +4 or lower. Those relatively low R+ PVI districts are the ones in which Dems did well last year, but before that they provided a strong enough margin to maintain Republican hegemony in the Statehouse.

As for the second argument regarding redistricting reform. First off, no one hold their breath. At this point we haven't heard a serious reform proposal since Dems started looking strong again. Moreover, any proposal has to get past the Republican dominated State Senate. At this point Republicans have an incentive to agree to real reform. If they think they will retake the Apportionment Board by winning a vacant Secretary of State position, there is that much less incentive.

Jennifer Brunner needs to honor the promise she made to serve out her term as Secretary of State, plus a second, assuming she is reelected. She needs to do so, not only because she is an effective Secretary during a time when election adminstration is seeing significant upheaval. She also needs to stay because her party needs her to hold onto the seat for reapportionment.

Party Animals in the Sixth Circuit

Remember the HAVA suit against Jennifer Brunner during the runup to the election? The Republicans filed suit against Ohio's Secretary of State alleging that she was violating the Help America Vote Act¹. A three judge panel of the Sixth Circuit ruled that the suit should be dismissed, then the entire Sixth Circuit sitting en banc overturned the panel's decision. Then the Supreme Court reversed again.

A story in last week's Washington Post put the case in a broader context. The Republican dominated Circuit hs been using its discretionary power to rehear en banc to overturn panel decisions the majority doesn't like:

"Anytime two of us show up on a panel and they don't like it, they yank it," said one Democratic-appointed judge on the circuit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid directly provoking colleagues.

That may be only a slight exaggeration, according to a Washington Post review of all of the circuit's en banc rulings in the past decade. In the past five years, initial verdicts by panels dominated by Democratic appointees were clearly reversed by Bush's appointees and other Republican picks 17 times, out of 28 decisions issued by the full court.

This is arguably an abuse of the en banc power:

Under 6th Circuit rules, full court, or "en banc," hearings are allowed in order to ensure "uniformity of the court's decisions" when separate panels of three randomly appointed judges disagree, or when questions of "exceptional importance" are at stake. But some of the court's Democratic appointees allege that the Republican-appointed majority is grabbing and reversing cases whenever those judges disapprove of the social consequences of the Democratic appointees' rulings.

Much of the article focuses on criminal appeals and the whole thing is worth the click-thru. H/t Stefan Padfield at Akron Law Cafe whose link eventually gets you there.

One last point. The accompanying graphic shows that in 2001 the circuit was essentially split with 27 vacancies. The vacancies at that time pretty much account for the shift during the Bush years. In the second Clinton term Republican Senators were refusing to allow dozens of Clinton's appointees an "up or down vote" leaving several circuits and district courts with similar gaping vacancies. We cannot allow whatever shenanigans the Rs try to pull with Obama's nominees this time around.

¹The suit itself was somewhat Bizarro World. The Act requires state election officials to compare voter rolls against public databases to create a sort of EZ Pass for voters deemed bona fide before showing up at the polls. Republicans being Republicans wanted to covert it into a Help REAL America Supress the Vote Act.

Rod Blagojevic Is Why I'm Not a "Democrat for Blackwell"

Some merry blogosphereic pranksters have started a "Democrats for Blackwell" Facebook group, advocating that the former Secretary of State and current far right commentator be elevated to RNC chair. The gag -- and it's a good one -- is Blackwell's radical conservatism coupled with his political incompetence will keep the Republican Party weak and regional. All respect to the guys behind this, I laughed when I got the invite. But the ill fortunes of the Republican Party are not a good thing.

Case in point, a David Broder column about indicted Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevic. After recounting Blagojevic's improbable rise to power, Broder notes

He had a rocky first term in Springfield, where he quickly became known as an absentee executive and where his inner circle was rumored to be operating with hands out. An unseemly family feud with his father-in-law fed the gossip mills.

But in 2006, the badly weakened Illinois GOP furnished another unelectable opponent, and Blagojevich won without breaking a sweat.

I for one want the Republican Party to come back, at least enough to be a credible threat. (I'd like it if we could consistently beat that threat, but still) First I'm close enough to center to understand that a Democratic agenda with no brakes is not a good thing. But more than that, losing political accountability makes the Blogojevices (and for that matter, Tafts and Noes) that much more likely.

I want a Republican Party that can both deter corruption and root it out when it happens. I'd prefer a party that can occaisionally field a moderate candidate who I could vote for if the Dem is, say, a more recalcitrant version of Marc Dann. Sadly, conservatives have spent so much time filtering out anything that doesn't tell them how right they are, I doubt they can properly diagnose their problems, much less fix them.

RNC Chairman Blackwell would calcify all the worst tendencies of the Party. That's an excellent subject for Facebook humor. But it's not something anyone should actually wish for.

Q: Are We Not Dems? A: Devo to Play Benefit for Obama

Word comes this afternoon confirming a rumor that Akron area natives Devo will play a show to benefit the local Democratic party. Details from the presser:

DEVO TO THEIR NATIVE OHIO
YOUR DUTY NOW FOR THE FUTURE IS TO VOTE FOR OBAMA!

DEVO is making an urgent trip to their native Akron , Ohio to rally for Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama!

DEVO will be holding a concert on Friday, October 17th at 8pm at the Civic in Akron .

Tickets go on sale TOMORROW at 11:00am (Tuesday, October 7th) at the Akron Civic Theatre Box Office (330.253.2488 or akroncivic.com) and Ticketmaster (330.945.9400, 216.241.5555 or ticketmaster.com). Reserved seats are available for $50, $35, and $25. A limited number of VIP tickets, which include a post show reception with the band, are available for $150.

All proceeds will benefit the Summit County Democratic Party!

So come on, all you spud boys. Grab the girl u want and exercise your freedom of choice. Devo benefiting local Dems? That's good.

Image from the band's MySpace page.

Righty Bloggers Complaining About RNC Treatment

If you followed the convention posts on BSB or especially from Jeff, you know that they had impressive access. Indeed, the rise of the blog was a major story line, with the only point of controversy being who got the state credentials. Whatever bad feelings may linger from that apparently do not compare to blogger complaints from the Republican convention.

From Pajamas Media:

Here on what is passing for “Bloggers Row,” there is plenty of grumbling about the accommodations supplied by our hosts. Some descriptives are not printable. Most reflect a huge disappointment with the way the GOP has shunted most of the bloggers off to the side, far from the action, dispersed throughout a gigantic “Press Filing Center” where the working media comes to hook up to the net and file their stories.

And in PM tradition, the post is hilariously overwrought: "The dungeon that the GOP has put bloggers in this time around would be familiar to Torqumada and his buddies who made the Spanish Inquisition such a great party."

Snark aside, wonder why the RNC has become so much less accomodating. My theory is that bloggers for a party in trouble are less likely to toe the party line (see also, lefty bloggers c. 2004) and therefore of less use to the party.

SummitCo Repubs v. Brunner, Pt. 3: Run Away! Run Away!

Three people deserve credit/blame for my continued determination to plow through SCOhio’s weird post-Elephant Wars case. The first two are Ed Esposito, who challenged me via back channel to do so when the case came out and Cleveland Carole Cohen who has been commenting on the posts.

The third is ABJ editor Steve Hoffman who muffed interpreting the import of the decision last Friday on NewsNight Akron, compelling me to provide some correction for some sort of permanent record. To be fair to Hoffman, he made a typical first year law student mistake – accepting the first concurrence as somehow controlling the case. In fact, thanks to the 2-2-3 split, you have to mix and match the various bits the three groups agree on to glean anything like a rule for future cases.

Hoffman’s misreading was based on the placement of O’Donnell’s concurrence first after the per curium opinion. O’Donnell’s is easily the worst of the bunch, but also the easiest to describe. O’Donnell notes that the statute does not explicitly say that the Secretary of State can reject the second opinion and therefore she can’t.

No really, that’s what it says.

Certain strict constructionists – most notably their Justice Scalia, their Head Abbott, almost revel in giving absurd construction to a badly written statute and leaving it up to the legislature to clean up their own mess. O’Donnell takes that to an extreme: gutting a perfectly adequate piece of legislation supposedly (thought not really) for the sake of strictly construing it.

Under O’Donnell’s interpretation, the party committee can nominate someone wholly unqualified under statute – for instance, a non-resident or a non-voter – and the SoS would have no choice but to appoint that person. Not to say there’s any great chance of that happening, but when a reading of a statute yields a result absurd on it’s face, it should be a sign that you need to check your work.

When the other justices chide him for granting de facto appointment power to the central committee, he engages in genuinely silly wordplay, maintaining – with Margaret Keane eyes, no doubt – that it’s not appointment power at all, it’s only the power to nominate. Well, the power to nominate someone who must then be appointed, no questions asked is exactly the same as appointment power, no matter what you call it, Mr, Justice Waif.

Why does O’Donnell reach this absurd result? One could argue it’s partisan hackery and O”Donnell himself has certainly done much to support such a charge. But to give the Justice a little credit, I think something else is going on.

First off, let’s dispense with his policy basis for the decision. O’Donnell’s opinion states:

I do not share the view that this statute allows for a perpetual process that permits the secretary of state to repeatedly reject committee recommendations. If that were an accurate interpretation of R.C. 3501.07, the secretary of state could conceivably continue to reject recommended appointees and cause a board of elections to have only three members. This situation demands finality, and construing the statute to permit a committee to enforce its rights with respect to its second recommendation of a qualified elector resolves the matter.

But a SoS cannot reject nominees ad infinitum, only those who are unqualified. As soon as the central committee nominates someone qualified, the SoS must appoint, and (by everyone’s analysis except the dissent) the central committee can enforce that by mandamus. That may drag things out longer that O’Donnell wants, but it’s what the statute says.

I don’t give much weight to O’Donnell’s policy rationale. Instead, it appears that he is doing what conservative justices often do – avoiding scrutinizing the factual findings of an executive. Cupp’s concurrence is all about examining Brunner’s decision making and finding it wanting. O’Donnell on the other hand, looks for any way to avoid doing so.

As noted earlier, conservative judges are not fond of second-guessing the fact findings of other branches. One way to affect that judicial preference is to give considerable deference to those findings. Another way is to find something/anything to justify avoiding the inquiry altogether.

In this, O’Donnell and the dissent have much in common. While O’Donnell claims the lack of explicit language about the second recommendation means that the SoS can’t reject it, the dissent says it means that the SoS can reject it, but the central committee can’t challenge the rejection.

Both opinions engage in literalism on an Amelia Bedelia scale. If you thought they really read this way in their every day lives, you would assign minders to the justices. Otherwise they might, for example, get stuck for hours in the shower after reading instructions of a bottle of shampoo: Apply, lather, rinse, repeat.

But of course, they don’t really read this way. They only choose to do in this case because they want to avoid what they consider the distasteful work of adjudicating an executive’s findings of fact. While deference is supposed to make the system flow better, in this case it makes things far worse.

Back to the SCOhio SummitCo Republicans Decision: It Didn't Have to Be So Hard.

The case of SummitCo Republicans v. Brunner is (or should be anyway) a simple matter of statutory interpretation. I always tell my students to start with the text, so here is the text of Ohio Revised Code Section 3501.07, in it's entirety:

At a meeting held not more than sixty nor less than fifteen days before the expiration date of the term of office of a member of the board of elections, or within fifteen days after a vacancy occurs in the board, the county executive committee of the major political party entitled to the appointment may make and file a recommendation with the secretary of state for the appointment of a qualified elector. The secretary of state shall appoint such elector, unless he has reason to believe that the elector would not be a competent member of such board. In such cases the secretary of state shall so state in writing to the chairman of such county executive committee, with the reasons therefor, and such committee may either recommend another elector or may apply for a writ of mandamus to the supreme court to compel the secretary of state to appoint the elector so recommended. In such action the burden of proof to show the qualifications of the person so recommended shall be on the committee making the recommendation. If no such recommendation is made, the secretary of state shall make the appointment.

If a vacancy on the board of elections is to be filled by a minor or an intermediate political party, authorized officials of that party may within fifteen days after the vacancy occurs recommend a qualified person to the secretary of state for appointment to such vacancy.

So when a board member's term is coming to an end or when there's a vacancy, the Secretary of State the central committee of the party with the appointment either accepts the recommendation or rejects it and gives the party a chance to submit another. That part isn't in dispute. If the party doesn't like the SoS's decision, they have two choices as well -- they can name another candidate or they can challenge the decision in a mandamus action¹.

The question gets slightly trickier when we get to the second candidate. For five of the seven justices, this is where the case turns and they supposedly have great difficulty with the lack of specificity about what happens if the SoS doesn't like that second either.

It seems clear to me that the statute is essentially a do loop. That is, when the first candidate is rejected, you go back to step one -- the SoS can appoint or reject, the county can accept the rejection and name another or file mandamus, and so it goes.

That's the clear intent of the legislature. When you read the interpretations advanced by either O'Donnell or the dissent, they seem bizarre. Supposedly, both opinions (written as they are by Republican judges) are strictly construing the statute. Since the statute doesn't explicitly say "Go back to step one," they insist that we don't have authority to go back to step one.

Fine. I think we can make this work even using the ironclad rules of strict constructionism. The statute applies when either a board member's term is up or when there is a vacancy. Let's say the SoS rejects the first candidate and the party has decided not to file mandamus. What situation are we then in? There's a vacancy on the Board of Elections. What do we do when there's a vacancy on the Board? Well, the party picks a candidate and the SoS either accepts or rejects.

In other words, just reading the language of the text in the context of what is actually happening on the ground gives you the loop construction. Simple, no?

According to our Supreme Court, no.

¹To go Junie B. Jones on you for a bit, mandamus is a legal word meaning "You do so have to, so there." Mandamus is what's called an extraordinary writ, one that compels a government official to do something he or she is legally obligated to do. It's companion, the writ of prohibition, compels a government official to stop doing something unlawful.

Couglin Working Toward Guv Run: Breaking News and a Bleg

An Anonymous dropped a comment in my George Carlin post, reproducing a fundraising letter he received from State Sen. Kevin Coughlin (R-Vidal Sassoon.) Here's the meat of it:

Often in politics, leaders promise to be visionaries who will "turn around Ohio."
All too often, those slogans and promises turn out to be empty.

Ohio's challenges are too serious to simply be managed. They require
forward thinking leadership that is in touch with our common values. Our citizens
deserve leadership that is bold enough to share a detailed vision and is
energetic enough to turn that vision into a reality.

I want you to be the first to know that I will be spending the coming months
discussing what my contribution can be toward building a Whole New Ohio with
my family, friends, and supporters. By Thanksgiving, I will decide whether
to seek to lead our state in 2010.[Emphasis added]

Everyone has been expecting Coughlin to run at statewide office, though it wasn't clear whether it would be Governor or a downticket race like taking on Jennifer Brunner. This looks like Bexley is in his sights.

At this point, no additional information is available on KC's campaign website and New Summit Republicans remains static since the coup was put down.

Ted Strickland could do worse than an opponent who will be undercut by his home county party chair (and one of the most powerful party chairs in the state) at every turn. Make no mistake, Alex Arshinkoff will say "feh" to party loyalty and make it his personal mission to take out Coughlin if he runs. And it wouldn't even make the Top Ten Most Petty and Fratricidal Things A² Has Ever Done list.

Meanwhile, I'm curious who is getting this letter. All I know about Anon is that he's posting from Akron. Summit County is pretty barren land for Coughlin after his unsuccessful run at Alex. He certainly won't get any of the major funders on board and folks who give to him will likely get on Alex's naughty list.

Hence the bleg¹ part. Did anyone outside of SummitCo. get the letter? Please drop a comment or an email. Thanks.

¹If you are relatively new to blog world, a "bleg" is a blog-based request for information. Blog + beg. And agreed, the lingo is getting increasingly precious.

Trying to Make Sense of the SummitCo. GOP v. Brunner Decision

A friend wrote asking for some feedback on the opinion issued this week by the Ohio Supreme Court over appointments to the Summit County Board of Elections. This is a few days later, but whaddya want, I'm on vacation.

A full explication of the opinion and the various sub-opinions will produce a post of daunting, scroll-past-in-your-reader length. So we'll do this in segments.

Bottom line, the opinion is an embarrassing mess. To begin with, it's not a 4-3 decision, it's a 2-2-3 decision. A bare majority agrees in the result, but using two wildly different standards which would produce two wildly different results in future cases. Five justices -- the dissent, plus O'Donnell and Lundberg-Stratton in the first concurrence -- find ways to punt actually adjudicating anything. While ODP Chair Redfern accused the Court of being partisan, the opinion actually reeks of a Court scrambling to avoid making any hard decision, precisely because it touches on partisan politics.

A little basic information. Most of the time, the most important part of the Supreme Court's function is not deciding the actual merits of the case before it, but the twin functions of clarifying the law for future cases¹ and offering a check on executive and legislative power.². This case was different in that it was an original action. That is, the law allowed the parties to try the case directly before the Court, rather than go through the lower courts. Original jurisdiction cases are rare.

Because the case involves interpreting a fairly basic statute which governs how elections boards are appointed, and because it involves a dispute across party lines and because of the Elephant Wars in the background, this case should have seemed pretty darned important to the Court on the "deciding the issues" axis as well as the "clarifying the law" and "checking the executive" axes. Curiously, then, we begin with a per curium opinion.

A per curium opinion is one unsigned by specific justices. The Latin translates roughly into "from the court." Generally they are short and contain little analysis. In theory such an opinion is handed down when the issues are straightforward and uncontroversial, needing only application of well-established precedents.

Generally that's the case, but in fact courts have also been known to issue opinions per curium because the issues were too controversial. The infamous Bush v. Gore opinion, for example, starts with a per curium opinion, then moves to the various concurrences and dissents. That we have a similar structure here is not entirely a coincidence.

The per curim part of the opinion gives only the disposition: Brian Daley is in, Don Varian is out, but the decisions that Varian participated in stand. Among other things, this resolves a last skirmish of the Elephant Wars. And frankly, it's not a bad result. It's in the getting there that the Court gets lost.

Next up: This really shouldn't be so hard.

¹This is because we are heirs to the English common law tradition. It's become fashionable in certain political circles to get howling fantods about judges making law, but the fact is common law judges have been making law for centuries. Conservatives will tell you that trying to change centuries of tradition and culture with the stroke of a pen is a disastrous undertaking, but when they rail against judge-made law, they are essentially advocating that sort of upheaval.

²And the Secretary of State is an executive officer. Ohio, unlike the national government, has a non-unitary executive. Executive functions are divided among five independent elected officers with overlapping spheres of influence. By the way, a similar multiple executive was contemplated and ultimately rejected by the framers of the Constitution.

ODP Updated to Be Obama Country, But Not Completely

Both ODB noticed the lag in the ODP website updating to reflect Sen. Barack Obama's new status as undisputed Democratic nominee (though Bill Sloat noticed earlier that they had the merch sales going). When Jill posted news of Gov. Strickland's endorsement I checked back and, for five minutes or so, got a Service Unavailable message. Then on the third or fourth try, this:

Nicely done, but I'm still wondering about this:



The ODP Dinner is little over two weeks away and we still haven't heard who is headlining. Last year it was Hillary; the year before Obama, plus Biden. Given that the smart play is a high-profile surrogate of the nominee, it may well be that the party has been waiting for resolution. We'll see if that plays out, or if it will just be a backyard barbecue among us Ohio Dems.

BTW, I'll be on a plane back home that day, so no report this year.

The Kids Are Alright

Last week I upbraided the BSB guys for their take on the DNC Convention credentialing process. Subsequently BSB HQ communicated off-blog about the incident and now they have gone public with their take in a well-written post. The upshot is that they regret attacks on Jeff Coryell but maintain that the credentialing process lacked transparency.

Good on both counts. My major objection was the elbows thrown at Jeff, and I should note that those attacks have been edited out of the BSB posts in question.

At the same time, I agree that the DNC needs to make the bases of such decisions transparent. I don't have a problem with the party using a backstop in case a higher-traffic/technorati-ranked blog may be embarrassing to the Party, or (really the case here) if a good blog in a strong second arguably offers intangibles that will help the party get its word out better. After all, the DNC exists for one purpose -- to get its people elected. Blog credentialing should serve that purpose.

But whatever the process, it should be agreed to ahead of time and disclosed to the
applicants. That didn't happen here and is the reason for the lingering raw feelings.

Be all that as it may, we are left with two happy results. Each of Ohio's most comprehensive and well-read blogs will be going to Denver and they will do so on good terms with each other. More generally, the new leadership at BSB is showing a maturity and thoughtfulness that hasn't always been a hallmark in the past.

Actually, the Story Is Cold Dead, but BSB Keeps Pounding on It's Chest Anyway.

First off, congratulations to the new Buckeye State team of Nick D and David Potts for a seamless transition to a new regime. They have embraced many of the virtues of previous Head BSer Jerid, and minimized his vices. Also, congrats for securing credentials for the Democratic National Convention in the General Blogger Pool.

All that said, quit yer goddam whining about Ohio Daily getting the nod for State Bloggercorps credentials. For those of you who don't know what this is about, Paul reset the "controversy" here when it first sputtered. You might think that when the DNC decided to acknowledge the importance of blogs and offered credentials to one of our own that we would all be happy and that the success of one is a positive reflection on the work we all do.

Dude, that is so 2006.

In Nick's announcement that they received General Pool credentials, he maintains that the story of BSB being passed over "will not die" and links to two stories, one in a WaPo blog and one on Wired. Actually there are three stories at work here. One is the story of the state blogger corps being overwhelmingly white. That's the focus of the WaPo story. A second is the story of some state blogger corps blogs actually being corporate owned as opposed to the DailyKos first raised that complaint which is the focus of the Wired piece.

Then there is the story of two quality blogs in the state of Ohio competing for state credentials and the loser raising a fuss. That angle is mentioned nowhere in any of the stories linked above. BSB is mentioned nowhere in either of the stories linked by Nick. In fact, at last count about five people, all in Ohio, give a crap.

But in their zeal to cry "We wuz robbed," the BS partisans are both linking their cause to real issues and dropping facile slams on Jeff Coryell, including resetting the meme first launched by Russo that all Jeff does is post press releases.

All bull. Jeff may be the hardest working man in blog business. He travels all over the state, has interviewed scores of candidates and other figures and offers plenty of analysis. Posting press releases is also part of the the current SOP for political blogs, though his presser posting is not significantly greater than either BSB and certainly less than ProgressOhio.

Bottom line, there's plenty of niches for different blogs to fill. Jeff represents what could be called the grown-up sector of the blogosphere. BSB is a little more shoot-from-the-hip, a little more reckless. That's fine and all -- part of what makes blogging great is the diversity of voices. But people shouldn't be shocked shocked if they live to give a finger to the establishment and the establishment doesn't love them for it.

In any event, I for one and happy that the DNC found room for both blogs under the big tent and am proud to be part of the blog world with both.

Meet Bill Rausch, OPD Veterans Caucus Director and Obama Activist

The ODP dropped this in the ebag today:

COLUMBUS - The Ohio Democratic Party today announced the hiring of former Army Captain, Iraq War veteran and Marengo, Ohio, native Bill Rausch as the full-time director of the newly formed Veterans and Family Members Caucus. The Ohio Democratic Party is now one of only two state Democratic parties in the country to employ a director of veterans and military family outreach, signaling the party's intention to aggressively fight for the votes of this historically Republican-leaning constituency in the 2008 election and beyond.

After past tragic experiences, we've learned to always Google those whom the ODP hires. That yielded this interesting video posted by the Obama campaign.




First off, Capt. Rausch is an excellent and sincere speaker and I look forward to watching his work as Caucus Director.

Second, the fact that ODP hired someone with his very public record as an Obama supporter suggests one of two things. Either they still aren't Googling their job applicants (certainly a possibility) or the party as a whole is sufficiently confident that Obama will be the guy that they aren't worried about pro-Hillary blowback.

Finally, I bet Rausch could beat the crap out of John Ettorre.

Marc's Dannage Just Beginning

Fraudulent GOPper astroturf blog Stark Politics notes that State Sen and Congressional candidate John Boccieri (D-New Middleton) was asked about whether Marc Dann should resign. StarkPol of course drops a somewhat constricted version of the quote. Here's the discussion of Boccieri's position in full from the Repository:

"It's sad to see," said state Sen. John Boccieri, D-New Middletown. "At the end of the day, all of us as elected officials are held to a higher standard of accountability for our conduct in and out of office. These jobs take a lot out of the families; that's for sure."

Dann said the relationship was between consenting adults. He said it came during "a difficult time" in his marriage to Alyssa Lenhoff, a journalism professor at Youngstown State University. They have three children. He said the extramarital affair was wrong "and I deeply regret it."

Boccieri was satisfied with that.

"It's a personal matter as long as there were no criminal or ethical standards crossed," he said. "Clearly with the others, there were ethical and criminal issues that are pretty serious."

StarkPol has the obvious take: That boinking a staffer in itself crosses ethical lines. I would add that larding supervisory staff with unqualified drinking buddies also constitutes a breach of public trust if not more.

Sympathies to Sen. Boccieri. He's faced with the impossible mission of threading between party loyalty (and loyalty to a former Senate colleague from an adjoining district, no less) and maintaining assured clear distance from the slow-motion car crash ahead.¹ Point is, he didn't pass the test², and every other Democratic elected official and candidate faces the same test as long as Dann remains in office.

Stop the bleeding, Marc. Do the right thing and step down.

¹ By my count that sentence mixes three metaphors. I defy anyone to do better in the same number of words.

²Fourth metaphor in two sentences. Is this some symptom of Dann Derangement Syndrome?

Marc's Mess: Blogpile on Dann

If you haven't heard (either because you just got back from Mars or have spent the last 30 hours avoiding the internet the better to work through a Matterhorn of fin-de-semester grading), today saw a rapid-fire series of developments in the cluster-scandal enveloping the office of Attorney General Marc Dann.

Dann fired Services Director and accused serial harrasser Anthony Gutierrez and allegedly perjury-suborning Communications Director Leo Jennings. He also admitted to having an "inappropriate relationship" with a staffer who, following the clues, turns out to be Jessica Utovich, the shiny-faced scheduler who has been his rumored paramour. Utovich resigned last night reportedly as an alternative to being further involved in the investigation into sexual harassment allegations aimed at Gutierrez. The AG's Chief Deputy of policy and Ed Simpson

All of this coincides with today's scheduled release of the report of Assistant AG Ben Espy's investigation in the the -- er -- affair.

It's apparent that Dann will resist stepping down and that for now the ODP apparatus will stand behind him. It's equally apparent that Dann would be hard pressed to win an election and that he shouldn't after the disgrace he has brought to himself and the office.

I stand with all who are calling for Dann's resignation, and calling for the party leadership to impress upon Dann the importance of doing so. It will be difficult to remove Dann from office short of his resignation, so pressure to resign is the best course.

Happily the blogosphere appears in unanimous agreement on this, and we have a role to play. The 'sphere is assembling, in our Wisdom of Crowds way, the brief against the AG and is stepping up to be the voice those members of the party who are done with him.

More to come.

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.

Elephant Wars: Arshinkoff Moves Against Tacky Restaurant

From TeamCoughlin today comes word that Arshinkoff is threatening the owner of Tangier, a.k.a. Vegas Without Slots:

The Chairman of the Summit County Republican Party has threatened to cancel the party's Central Committee organizational meeting at Akron's Tangier restaurant if his rival for the chairmanship is allowed to hold a reception on site.

Alex Arshinkoff called Tangier owner Ed George today, saying he would pull the Central Committee event scheduled for Wednesday March 30 unless George cancelled rival Carol Klinger's reception, scheduled just before the Central Committee meets. George informed Klinger by phone that her event was being cancelled.

The presser goes on to recount Arshinkoff's latest maneuvers. Matt Hurley has reproduced the entire thing, as does New Summit Repubs. (And yes, Ed George is her husband. For whatever reason, the Tangier finds itself as the focal point of many Akron dramas.)

First, the big news -- TeamCoughlin is emailing me again. Not sure to what I owe the honor.

More important -- what it all means. Like their arguments before, this latest example of Arshinkoff's high-handed, manipulative (and we can add "petty" to the list) cuts both ways. On the one hand, plenty of Republicans would like to be done with all this once and for all. It's a reminder to members of the Central Committee of what awaits any who oppose Alex if they are unsuccessful in the effor to unseat him.

Elephant Wars: Countdown to the Last Battle

The Summit County GOP has set the date for their Chairperson election. This Wednesday, April 30, the Central Committee votes by secret ballot.

Much of the politicking in these things is done behind the scenes so a party outsider like myself has little to go on (and the two sides have stopped emailing me, apparently tired of me mocking them both.) Ben Keeler, a local blogger active within the Coughlin camp, says that as best he can tell no one has a firm head count. Ben will try to offer on-scene reports next Wednesday night.

If it looks tied going in, Alex will win. As noted before, TeamCoughlin needs to convince the wobblers that he can win. I don't think anyone has faith that the secret ballot will actually remain secret if Alex wins.

All of which makes TeamCoughlin's latest public statement smell of desperation. Calling on someone to resign days before an election just sounds silly. But it's nice to know that Coughlin stands for cleaning up high school Spanish clubs.

Meanwhile, yesterday's ABJ fronted a major preview story along with a sidebar timeline yesterday about the dispute. Among other things, the story offers one answer to what happened to bring Arshinkoff so close to losing his seat:

But at some point in the last 10 years or so, Arshinkoff's adversaries claim, he changed.

They said he didn't deliver on promises in local campaigns. He cut off ties to his closest allies. He stopped listening to input.

"He's a different person," said Hoover, who was angered over Arshinkoff's handling of his unsuccessful campaign for county executive and his failed bid for county prosecutor.

"I don't really understand him. I have firsthand experience of him not keeping his word."

It's possible, but color me skeptical. Arshinkoff has always been high-handed, manipulative and vulgar. The problem began when he started losing, which had as much to do with the resurgence of the local Dems as anything Alex did or didn't do. In any event, people who put up with Arshinkoff up to a point started turning away. No one likes a high-handed, manipulative and vulgar loser. In event, maintaining that A² has changed is probably the best argument, though we haven't heard it much out here in the cheap seats.

Whatever happens, the final battle will not be the end of the story. Certainly if Alex retains his seat, his first priority will be vengeance upon those who sought to bring him down. Imagine a political equivalent of the last twenty minutes of any of the three Godfather movies. If TeamCoughlin wins, they will no doubt engage in some level of housecleaning, as they did (pending a court challenge) at the Board of Elections.

The result will be a weakened though possibly renewed Republican Party come this fall. And no one knows quite what that will mean.

Marc's Mess: Leo Jennings On Leave.

AG Marc Dann put his Communications Director (and longtime FoM) Leo Jennings on paid administrative leave resulting from the Marc's Mess sexual harassment scandal. Why Jennings? The PD reports this intriguing snippet:

On Monday, Jennings was placed on leave as a result "of new information received over the weekend related to the ongoing investigation," according a statement from Dann's office. Deputy communications director Ted Hart would not comment further.

So this gets us up to two staffers who are being paid to not do anything as a result of these allegations. It does suggest a heightened level of cluefulness on Dann's part. Up until now it looked like the Gang of Three would fight together or die together. Now Dann looks more willing to throw people overboard if they did wrong. On the other hand, it looks like Dann is gearing for the long political fight that Dems have dreaded.

The comments section is now open for rampant speculation about what Jennings may have done wrong to earn this trip (his second, by my count) to the doghouse.