OHIO VOTERS HAVE A CHANCE TO TELL BUSH WHAT THEY THINK OF HIM AUGUST 2

Today I got an e-mail from Howard Dean's brother Jim who heads up Democracy For America. He was asking that I take a look at the special election being held in southern Ohio's 2nd Congressional District in a few weeks. It has been a pretty solidly-Republican district, incumbant-inspired, and severely gerrymandered to avoid Cincinnati and awkwardly snake through wealthy suburbs and small farming towns. But the entrenched incumbent, Robert Portman, was rewarded for his knee-jerk allegiance to the Bush machine with an appointment to a potentially lucrative trade position. Given the state of affairs of the Ohio Republican Party, this is probably a very poor choice. A myriad of Federal and State investigations is likely to see most of the state's top officials indicted and probably jailed for looting Ohio's Workmen's Compensation Fund, a scandal encompassing not just the crooked Governor (Bob Taft) and blatantly dishonest Secretary of State (Kenneth Blackwell), but the Attorney General, State Auditor and, through illegal campaign contributions from the looted fund, reaching most of the Ohio congressional delegation including both U.S. Senators, Bob Ney (arguably the second most dishonest man to sit in the House of Representatives other than his close ally Tom DeLay) and... Robert Portman. A good deal of the looted millions was used to help Blackwell corrupt Ohio's 2004 presidential balloting, as well as going directly to the BushCheney campaign and even into the PAC of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California! In any case, southern Ohio voters, dismayed by all the filth and corruption of the Taft/Blackwell/Noe "Coingate" scandal, have an opportunity on August 2nd to send the Republicans in the state and in Washington a very clear message.

The primaries are finished and the two winners couldn't be less alike. The Republicans have chosen Jean Schmidt head of a radical Cincinnati anti-choice group. She's a typical stepford-lock-step Bush backer with no ideas beyond "I support the President." The Democrats have opted for a very different kind of candidate-- an impressive and charismatic attorney who recently returned from a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq as a Marine major. Hackett, father of 3 children, volunteered to first go to Iraq and then to serve on the front lines in Fallujah. What makes this all the more impressive is that Major Hackett, a native of southern Ohio, had been honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 1999 and saw right through all Bush's lies for attacking Iraq and OPPOSED the war. But he still volunteered to re-enlist and then to serve in the most dangerous area of Iraq. (Contrast that with the gung-ho Republican chicken hawks of Major Hackett's generation who are more than willing to send other people's kids off to fight but who never consider sending their own kids-- let alone themselves!)
Or contrast it to the religionist fanatic who is opposing him, a dishonest self-server right in the mold of the Ohio GOP. The local press reported a few days ago that Schmidt had illegally failed to report two dinners and two $300 tickets to a Bengals game provided by a lobbyist; just what Ohio needs in Washington-- another right-winger who thinks serving in public office means gorging at the public trough! Colonel Hackett pointed out that "If she can't resist freebies here, how would she function in Washington, where the slick bigtime lobbyists operate non-stop?"

I looked into the two candidates and wrote a check to Hackett's campaign at once. You can do the same by going to his website-- http://www.hackettforcongress.com/-- or by sticking a check into the mail: Hackett For Congress, 27 North 2nd Street, Batavia, OH 45103. Let's just hope Blackwell isn't counting the votes alone in a dark room this time.