From The Salem News:

Small business development and fair elections are two of the top issues Greg Hartmann, Republican candidate for Ohio Secretary of State, promoted Wednesday while visiting Columbiana County.

The trip, Hartmann's ninth to Northeast Ohio in the past four weeks, involved speaking at a reception in Hanoverton and was part of his campaign strategy to make his name known in all of Ohio's 88 counties.

The fairness of the Ohio election system became a hot-topic issue nationwide in 2004 when Democratic Party leaders publicly issued challenges against a number of polling procedures in the last presidential election.

But Hartmann said the system used in Ohio, utilizing a review board from each major political party, guarantees fairness in every election.

"I don't see how you could oppose the bipartisan system we have," he said. Under the system, he explained, the only possible way to steal an election is if review boards of both Republicans and Democrats worked together to unlawfully manipulate votes for one candidate.

Read the whole thing.

From ONN:

Ohioans will get a deeper discount on their income taxes beginning in October under orders of Gov. Bob Taft.

Taft announced Wednesday that good economic times will allow him to accelerate a 5-year phase-in of income tax reductions eventually planned to reach 21 percent. He has directed state tax collectors to withhold 8.4 percent less from paychecks across the state beginning Oct. 1, on top of the 4.2 percent reduction in withholding begun in January.

The move will increase Ohioans' take-home pay by an estimated $390 million in fiscal year 2007, which began July 1.

"Ohio's state government is living within its means. Our budget is the leanest this state has seen in 40 years," Taft said in a statement. "With stronger state revenues and lower state agency spending than expected, we can afford to accelerate the withholding cut and make a substantial transfer to the state's Rainy Day Fund."

Taft's adjustment of the tax tables does not represent a change in the rate reductions themselves, which are 4.2 percent a year from tax year 2005 to tax year 2009. The adjustment has the effect, however, of getting the benefits of those cuts to taxpayers earlier - by leaving more money in their paychecks rather than keeping them waiting until refund time.

Of course, included is the obligatory leftist non sequitur response:

Senate Democratic Leader C.J. Prentiss criticized Taft's move as "a political gimmick to give back to the wealthiest in an election year."

Only to a leftists is letting taxpayers (a.k.a. "the wealthy"-- if only saying it made it true) keep a smidge of their own money considered a bad thing. Just look at NJ if you want a glimpse of what Ohio has to look forward to under the Democrats with a Gov. Strickland.

Over at Lincoln Logs, I have some unkind comments for Marc Dann who seems with each passing day to delve farther and farther into a land of make-believe. His latest escapade in the opposite direction of mainstream Ohio was last week's demand for answers about how Terrence Gasper got appointed to the Ohio Venture Capital Authority Board.

Dann's righteous indignation about this latest assualt on "his" Ohio was in overdrive. So much so, in fact, that Dann once again ignored such a minor detail as his own involvement in the appointment as little more than an inconvenient roadblock to getting his name in the paper.

According to the ORP, which provides a PDF documenting the claim, Dann not only sat on the committee that reviewed the appointment, but signed off in favor of sending it to the Senate.

It is inconceivable to me that the people of Ohio even have to consider a trial attorney who has been chastized by the Ohio Supreme Court and whose own ethics are constantly in question for Ohio's Attorney General. It reflects not only on Dann, but on the ODP created by Strickland and Redfern for stepping in to support Dann in the primary process.

Even the more strident Democrats have to look at this race, between award-winning former Attorney General Betty Montgomery and Marc Dann with a sinking heart.