From the Free Press

Green Party candidates who submitted more than twice the legally required number of petition signatures to get on this fall's Ohio ballot are being stonewalled by the state's infamous Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who has expressed personal contempt for the Greens' gubernatorial candidate, Bob Fitrakis.

Blackwell served as co-chair of the Ohio 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. As chief administrator of the statewide ballot, he delivered Ohio's 20 electoral votes---and thus the presidency---to George W. Bush in a bitterly contested election riddled with charges of intimidation, fraud and theft, electronic and otherwise. Nearly two years later, the charges that the election was stolen continue to escalate.

Blackwell is now Ohio's Republican nominee for governor. His Democratic opponent in the fall, 2006, vote is U.S. Congressman Ted Strickland. A moderate Methodist minister from southern Ohio, Strickland currently holds a slight lead in the polls over the extreme right-wing fundamentalist Blackwell.

Why would Ken Blackwell try to keep the Greens off the ballot? Go re check your petitions.

from National Review:

When President Ronald Reagan fired those striking air-traffic controllers in 1981, he refused to let union members impose unreasonable demands on the federal government. In that case, 13,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) had illegally walked off the job. Next week, however, in stark contrast to Reagan, Congress is poised to surrender to PATCO’s successor union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), by refusing to let a final employment-terms offer from the Federal Aviation Administration take effect.

and

..However, (Congressman Knollenberg of Michigan) fears that some of his Republican colleagues may see this issue as an easy way to curry favor with the unions.

With the deadline for congressional intervention approaching, the House has put a pro-NATCA bill sponsored by Ohio Republican Steve LaTourette on the suspension calendar (with a requirement that it needs a 2/3 vote to pass) for next week. The vote on this bill will force Congress to choose sides in this collective-bargaining dispute, in which the FAA could be forced back into interminable negotiations with NATCA. Although Republican House leaders are expected to oppose the bill, the current betting has support for the measure close to the required 2/3.

And so, within days, a Republican Congress that claims Ronald Reagan’s legacy will have the chance to prove whether they really are his worthy heirs.

Too bad we won't see any of this sort of leadership.

What should we see in Lee Fisher? The same thing we saw eight years ago. (Cincinnati Enquirer, November 4th, 1998)

"Despite efforts by Mr. Fisher to draw a contrast between himself and Mr. Taft, many considered the two quite the same."

Bob Taft.

Related Post:
Ted Strickland, heir to the Taft-and-Spend legacy