Carnival #81

Fine work by Ben. After a couple weeks running of we administrators getting far afield with the whole number/graphic/theme linkage, he pulls back and makes it all about Ohio.

Kucinich's Dilemma

Dennis Kucinich loves debates. Debate debate debate. It's the essence of democracy and all that. Recall that he slammed the Dem field for turning down Republican house organ Fox Noise as a primary debate monitor and he got his underoos in a bunch when Hillary and Edwards were caught on mic discussing how to slim down the debate fields.

Of course, he's really all about Presidential primary debates. Congressional debates, maybe not. He famously refused to debate his '06 primary opponent Barbara Anne Ferris and general opponent Republican Mike Dovilla.

So now he has a dilemma. Today his primary opponent this year, Rosemary Palmer, has challenged him to debates:

Rosemary Palmer, candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 10th Congressional District of Ohio, today issued a challenge to her opponent, six-term incumbent Dennis Kucinich. At a press conference held this morning in downtown Cleveland, Ms. Palmer challenged Mr. Kucinich to a series of five debates. Palmer proposed to focus each debate on a particular issue area including economic development and foreign policy. “I have formally submitted this challenge to Mr. Kucinich’s office. I eagerly await his response, and frankly expect him, as a democratically elected official, to accept the challenge and appreciate the opportunity to address the people he claims to represent,” Palmer said.

* * *

Kucinich, no stranger to debate challenges, has issued a number of statements lamenting his exclusion from the limelight of the presidential campaign. Following reports that his presidential primary opponents were conspiring to limit his exposure at debate appearances, Mr. Kucinich was quoted as saying “Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our democracy as an imperial president.” In light of her newly issued challenge, Palmer countered, “Now that this challenge has been issued, we shall soon know if we have an imperial and repugnant Congressman".

So what is a gadfly to do? Not only does he risk raising her profile by agreeing to debate, he has to take time away from his quest for the Presidential nomination which he really is just that close to clinching. At the same time, he has raised such a fuss about debates in the primary, any refusal to debate Palmer would certainly loose the media hounds on him.

We'll see if he responds.

Meet Dave Woolever, Candidate in Ohio Seventh

Dave Woolever is a small businessman running against Rep. Dave Hobson (R-Springfield) in Ohio's Seventh Congressional District. If all that sounds familiar, it's because Hobson has made noises about retiring.

Now he has an intriguing candidate ready to either run against him or his would-be successor. And it appears Woolever will be running hard. From the presser:

"For far too long, Representative Hobson has avoided a serious challenge for his seat. It is time that he be called to task for the bad votes and misspent money in Washington." Woolever says that the biggest issues facing seventh district voters are the war in Iraq, the economy, trade and homeland security.

"Hobson has been in the pocket of high priced lobbyists since he arrived in Washington,” Woolever said. “While he has been showered in their money, the special interests have been rewarded with a prescription drug bill that mainly benefited the big drug companies, handouts to big oil companies making billions of dollars of profits on the backs of his constituents, and policies that reward companies who move jobs out of our country."

According to his website bio, Woolever is a lifelong resident of Pickaway County -- one of the rural counties that round out the Seventh. He got some college credits and went to work in manufacturing, only to have his job NAFTA'd out in 1992. He got a second job at an RCA plant, then saw signs that it too would soon be gone (and by the way, he was right.)

He looks to be the kind of regular guy/economic populist candidate that has been doing well for Democrats in rural areas. Think Ted Strickland, John Tester, Heath Shuler. Too soon to say whether Woolever is cut from the same cloth, but the pattern is familiar. For instance, here is the conclusion to his website bio:

Dave is a member of the National Rifle Association, the American Motercyclist Assocation and the National Hot Rod Association. An active musician, he plays the guitar, piano and drums, he is also an avid motorcycle rider and a former muscle/antique car collector.

Dave has been a supporter of several charities including the American Cancer Society and Citizens for Clean Air and Water. As a former union member Dave is a proud supporter of organized labor.

And OK I have to say it. Regular guy or not I can't love the look. Dude. I just revisited the Eighties and they are seriously pissed that you won't give their look back.

Meaningless snark aside, it's good to see Dems taking on the race. If Hobson does indeed decide to retire, it should be interesting. Woolever's anti-Hobson talking points will translate well if Hobson's protege is tapped to take his place. Perhaps even better as he could then style it as a run against the machine. If Hobson is in, it's a tough fight for Woolever, but the RCCC will have a battle in a district that has been a gimmie for years.

Alex v. Kevin: Where's Alex? and Other Questions UPDATED

I've been trying to keep up with the latest salvos in the battle between Republican Chair Alex Arshinkoff and insurgent Senator Kevin Coughlin. Team Couglin has a few new bits of info in their website -- a few new minor officials who have signed on and a Labor Day rant about party finances.

Team Alex, on the other hand, has apparently retreated from the internet. Keep Summit Republicans Strong dot blogspot has disappeared from blogger (and interestingly, Google doesn't appear to cache deleted blogs.) It makes sense that the party establishment doesn't want to conduct a public pie fight and, face it, Alex isn't so much a grassroots/netroots kind of guy.

Meanwhile one of my correspondents has raised an intriguing questions. At some point the RCCC will presumably recruit a candidate to run against Rep. Betty Sutton. As much as the district is drawn for a Democrat, it's hard to believe they would just let a freshman Representative go unchallenged. But in fact R-trip will be mounting token opposition. Coughlin, on the other hand, has argued for going hard at every seat. If he succeeds in unseating Alex, if his guy is Chair, how strongly will the party the candidate in Ohio 13?

UPDATES: The pro-A² blog is back up with new content. They've written up a flip-flop accusation and reproduced the Couglin part of Mark Naymik's satirical column. Memo to team Arshinkoff -- quoting without linking is serious bad form. Also, Ben Keeler has an interview with Coughlin up.

Finally, if you aren't following the comments to these posts, you should be. I pretty much just whack the hornets nest than backpedal to a safe distance to watch the chaos. Check below and you will see an Arshinkoff anonymouse accusing Coughlin of setting himself up to take down LaTourette and a response from Team Coughlin under the name Arshinsqellic. Classic.

Weekend Randomness

A bit of what's happening around my house and bouncing around my head.

• The Cat Census in the House of Pho has increased 300%. A stray that for some time has used our back yard as a way station dropped a litter of three about six weeks ago. This week we realized that she, in keeping with the stereotypical mores of alley cats, has ditched her kittens and wandered off for parts unknown. Happily we've already found a home for one -- and at six weeks, kittens are relatively easy to adopt out, being at maximum adorability. Still we are wrestling with what to name the one we are keeping and how to not keep the other one.
  
• It's John Ettore's bailliwick, but I submit the following for Best Lede of the Month. Its from a piece about the growing obsession in lit circles with young, physically appealing authors in the online lit mag The Phoenix:

When I saw Marisha Pessl in the New York Times Style Section, meticulously posed on an antique chair wearing a pair of buttery leather high heels and a coy smile, I cringed.

The whole lede paragraph sings, not least because the author maintains a literary tone while using the phrase "fuck me boots."

• It was so very generous of Tim Russo to share his thoughts about how we all should be blogging, but I do hope he overcomes that self-esteem problem someday.
• Speaking of BSB snipefests, this and this were just unfortunate. I've had my issues with Jerid, but he's pretty amenable to an off-line approach. And BNN bragging is just unseemly.
• Jerid's post mentioned a few factors that go into the BNN influence rankings. I would add to the list traffic (which is total traffic, not just Ohio traffic) and what the blog's rank was the previous week. That's my guess, based on watching the rankings of the Pages.
• By the way, I've found a great way to attract traffic -- don't post. I've been once-a-day slow all week as I try to get this class organized and my traffic has been about fifty to a hundred hits a day higher than usual. Of course today the bottom fell out, so probably it's not so much due to the slow posting as despite.

Now here it is, your Moment of Ten

1. "Concentration Moon," Mothers of Invention
2. "Something So Strong," Crowded House
3. "Fallback," Ollabelle
4. "All Down the Line," Rolling Stones
5. "Reprive," Ani DiFranco
6. "Slow Leake," Lafayette Leake
7. "Nothing's News," Clint Black
8. "Six Silver Strings," B.B. King
9. "Wonderful," Everclear
10. "Lullabye," Concrete Blonde

So Pho, How’s That Teaching Thing Going?

Friends have been writing, asking about my announced adjunct teaching gig at the University, so rather than keep writing the same email repeatedly, here goes. I am teaching The Supreme Court and the Constitution in the Political Science department.

This course doesn’t teach the “fun” parts of the Constitution – the Bill of Rights with all of its hot buttons. Instead, this course focuses on the parts of the Constitution that are fun only for hardcore law geeks – mostly the body of the Constitution proper, with a couple other amendments – the Tenth and the Civil War amendmentst especially – for good measure.

The material is dry because it’s difficult. But Articles I, II and III are the real engine of the document. That part of the Constitution gives each branch power, but also highlights that the power is limited, that the government has only the power granted by We the People. And the body of the Constitution establishes the system of checks and balances that has kept us a free and vital people for over two hundred year.

I better stop, I’m getting excited.

If you didn’t read this into the earlier mention, I’m kind of the Lecturer to Be Named Later. I was brought in with a couple weeks to go before class started to fill in after some late summer staff changes. So it has been an adventure putting the class together in a truncated time frame. Fortunately the professor scheduled to teach the class had ordered a book, so I have some foundation to build on. The book works overall but is a little textbooky whereas I favor assigning primary sources to students, so part of the challenge is to find supplemental readings with enough lead time to make it fair to the students.

Ah, the students. No doubt at some time one or more students will Google me and find his/her way to the blog (if it hasn’t happened already), so I’m not going into too much detail about the class itself. Suffice it to say that my students are all brilliant and engaged and will no doubt continue to do the reading and participate in class [waves].

My introduction to teaching was as follows. I toiled on my syllabus during the few free moments during the kids’ last few days of summer vacation. My kids did not actually start school until the day after my first class, so I had to find child care, didn’t get my syllabus copied prior to the first class and didn’t have time to scope out my room. This last turned out to be a real problem as I discovered that my 30-person, hoping-to-be-discussion-oriented class was scheduled in an auditorium that seats 400. I was trying to encourage a discussion from up on a stage as they strained to read my messy handwriting from a half mile away.

So the first class was a little rough. I couldn’t keep track of any of the students. I about wore out a pair of shoes trudging football field between the podium and the blackboard. Every humorous interjection landed with an audible thud. It was like that.

Second class was better. I got a new room, I felt a little more comfortable and I could at least pretend that there were students in the class who had read the material. I’m still shimmying up a steep learning curve, but the lecture was solid and we had a decent discussion. And it was fun.

So, that’s how it’s going. I have probably about two more weeks of heavy time consumption to get on top of things, then hopefully things will settle into a routine and I’ll be able to turn to a couple other projects that were planned for the fall.

Once More for the Permanent Record

Frontpage Magazine, the fringe rightwing David Horowitz house organ, published a story on the Megan Pappada flap so rife with error, so utterly divorced from any semblance of professional reportage that it would have pulverized the credibility of Horowitz’s enterprise if he had any left himself.

One happy truth about the blogosphere: if I feel a burning need to respond to something and don’t have time (because, for example., I’m prepping a lecture, assembling a sprawling blog carnival and winding the kids down from their first day of school. For example.) someone will pick me up. More than once that someone has been Modern Esquire – long the star of BSB for my money. He did it again, shredding FPM’s main argument that this shows that the ODP now embraces segregation.

OK, if you aren’t going to go read this ridiculous screed, I’m certainly not resetting the argument for you. Trust me, they get there somehow.

Still, for all of M. Esquire’s excellent work, I should try to clear up some of the detritus FPM scattered around trying to pin racial invective on the Democrats.

The story begins with my post. I am a “friend” of Megan’s (true, that) who notes that someone discovered the letter. Then we cut to Matt Naugle who actually digs up the letter. O intrepid and brilliant Matt! However did you find it? Well, maybe he clicked through the link to the Google search I posted. I wasn’t going to add another link to the letter itself and boost its ranking further, but jeebeezus it’s more than a stretch to give credit to Scoop Naugle.

Then they go through the segregated dorm floors stuff. Look. If Megan had just said she didn’t think segregated dorm floors were a good idea, that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. That wasn’t it.

After that, things really get surreal. Suddenly, the ODP is behind Megan sending her open letter. They somehow put her up to sending a letter of contrition. Because the ODP is that powerful. No. She sent it to me because she wanted her side aired. The letter hardly puts ODP in a good light. But she doesn’t hold the same views now as she did then, she wanted to say so and she said so.

Then the article claims that Jerid Kurtz did an about-face on the issue. Jerid said that he was wrong to claim ODP was stonewalling me (not my intent to say they had – just acknowledging that I had asked for comment). His take on Megan’s firing remained the same, as he clearly said when he also ran Megan’s letter. But according to FPM, he parroted the party line, “uber-leftist” lackey that he is. Laughable, all of it.

I sat on this story for a few days because I knew that rags like Frontpage were likely to issue just this sort of garbage spin. In the end I think things are better for having aired the controversy, but seeing wingnuts distort the record with their fevered imaginings still stings.