From his press release

BLACKWELL TO ADDRESS NOE TRIAL AT PRESS CONFERENCE IN CLEVELAND TOMORROW

Ohio Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell will hold a press conference to address the Tom Noe trial tomorrow at 1 p.m., Cuyahoga County Republican Party, 1500 W. Third St., Cleveland.

Blackwell believes Noe's crimes were enabled by the lack of controls and oversight at the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation. He will be joined by Cuyahoga County Republican Party Chairman Robert Frost, State Representative Matt Dolan and others.

From the PD

Ken Blackwell: "There's no difference between Taft-enomics and Ted-enomics, You embrace status quo. You are a braked on tax reform and cutting."

From hotline

Rothenberg Report's Rothenberg: "The buzz about the story that the RNC is effectively writing off Ohio seems to be wrong. In fact, the Republican National Committee has a $1 million TV buy beginning very shortly in the state. They are pumping more than a million dollars to their effort to save Mike DeWine" ("Situation Room," CNN, 10/16).

From the SFGATE:

Strange bedfellows: It turns out that ultra-hot conservative talk show host Michael Savage is backing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown for state attorney general. "What can I say? I think he'd make a great attorney general compared to the other guy. By the way, who is the other guy?'' Savage said, when asked why he chose Democrat Brown over conservative Republican Chuck Poochigian.

Savage, whose rants can be heard locally on KNEW-AM, is backing up his hot talk with some hot money as well. Savage Productions, which lists Savage as president and his wife, Janet Weiner, as director, has donated $5,600 to Brown's campaign.

"You have to make choices in an imperfect world,'' Savage said. "And this, this Machugian guy. (Like we said, it's Poochigian.) I never heard of him. I don't even know who he is."

Poochigian has spent the past 12 years in
Sacramento, first in the Assembly and now in the Senate. Doesn't impress the president of the Savage Nation.

"Why bet on a horse that isn't going to win? Why throw your money into the garbage?''

So how did the best-selling author of "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder'' wind up backing a liberal once nicknamed "Governor Moonbeam"?

"People change. He changed. He has experience,'' Savage said of Brown. "He started the
Oakland military academy -- that was a good thing."

And Brown's politics?

"He's moved to the center, which is what this socialist state needs," Savage said.

"So that's about it. I'm sure you will spin this and make something out of it."

Brown campaign manager Ace Smith would say only, "Michael Savage is one of 5,000 contributors to the campaign."

As for the Poochigian campaign, chief adviser Ken Khachigian told us, "We have Bo Derek, they have Michael Savage -- so between us, we've got the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.''

Wow! I listen to Savage out of Cincinnati and I am amazed. Not in 100 years would I give one red cent to a leftist like Brown. Before making any contribution I would at least seek to find out about any Conservative or Libertarian candidates in the field. I find it highly suspect that Savage would give $5,600 to such a leftist, even if this guy is moving toward the right. There is a lot of road in between Socialism and a Democrat and one does not get there over night. And this guy has a lot of traveling to go!

Brown is essentially psychologically imbalanced as he quite clearly demonstrated through out his life. I have also noted subtle messages by Savage concerning the positive strength of Hillary Clinton over President Bush and have been annoyed at many of his rants that are contradictory of typical Conservative ideology.

Maybe, Savage is the ultimate sleeper or maybe he has such keen insight well above mere mortal men and women; we will have to see. But for now, he remains suspect in my book.

SCHEDULE E

INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURES

FILING FEC-245083

Committee: REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

National Media Inc.

815 Slaters Lane
Alexandria, Virginia 22314

Purpose of Expenditure: Media Buy
This Committee OPPOSES The Following Candidate: Brown Sherrod
Candidate ID: S6OH00163
Office Sought: Senate
State is Ohio in District
Date Expended = 10/17/2006
Person Completing Form: Jay Banning
Date Signed = 10/17/2006

Amount Expended = $699062.00
Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $2557076.45

McLaughlin & Associates

566 South Route 303
Blauvelt, New York 10913

Purpose of Expenditure: Polling
This Committee OPPOSES The Following Candidate: Brown Sherrod
Candidate ID: S6OH00163
Office Sought: Senate
State is Ohio in District
Date Expended = 10/17/2006
Person Completing Form: Jay Banning
Date Signed = 10/17/2006

Amount Expended = $780.00
Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $2557076.45

National Media Inc.

815 Slaters Lane
Alexandria, Virginia 22314

Purpose of Expenditure: Media Production
This Committee OPPOSES The Following Candidate: Brown Sherrod
Candidate ID: S6OH00163
Office Sought: Senate
State is Ohio in District
Date Expended = 10/17/2006
Person Completing Form: Jay Banning
Date Signed = 10/17/2006

Amount Expended = $27535.00
Calendar YTD Per Election for Office Sought = $2557076.45

Subtotal of Itemized Independent Expenditures = $727377.00
Subtotal of Unitemized Independent Expenditures = $0.00
Total Expenditures This Period = $727377.00

---

Generated Tue Oct 17 16:53:47 2006

Bill Cunningham of 700 WLW interviewed Jerome Corsi

Listen to the interview here in MP3 format.

From openers

Ken Blackwell, the GOP candidate for governor, said during a stop in Cleveland Tuesday that a proposal he made in the mid-1990s would have averted the Tom Noe scandal.

Blackwell, then state treasurer, advocated that the investment side of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation report to the treasurer’s office, while the insurance side of the operation would report to the governor.

If the treasurer had been given oversight, Blackwell said, there would have been no investments in rare coins and Beanie Babies.

Blackwell made his remarks at a press conference he called in Cleveland on the second day of testimony in Noe’s criminal trial in Toledo. Noe, 52, faces 45 charges accusing him of stealing about $2.3 million from the coin investment he was entrusted to manage for the workers’ compensation bureau.

Here is Bob Frantz's podcast from this morning:

10-17-06 Hour 2
Ted Strickland under attack!!!

From Bob's blog

We were all over the map with important discussions on Tuesday, starting with another look at Ted Strickland's stance on pedophilia.

GOP candidate Ken Blackwell raised the issue once again at the final gubernatorial debate on Monday, pointing out that Strickland failed to do a background check on his former campaign manager, who was once convicted of exposing himself to children (prior to having his record expunged in order to hide his crime).

The campaign manager went on to become one of Strickland's congressional staffers, and even went on a 2-man vacation to Italy with the congressman...subsequent to Strickland learning of the staffer's crime.

Said Blackwell: "For years he had on his campaign staff and his congressional staff an individual who had been convicted of exposing himself to children. When he was told, he pushed it aside."

He continued: "I would ask the question, When did you know it? What did you know? And what did you do when you found out about it?...Why did you cover up the record of this employee? Why did you not stand up for our children?"

Blackwell went on to question the 1999 vote in which Strickland was one of just 13 congressmen to refuse to condemn a study that suggested pedophilia might be a positive thing for certain children:

"This was a report that said at times sex between children and adults are positive," Blackwell said. "You were one of 13; 355 of your colleagues voted for the resolution. It was voted unanimously in the Senate.

"You have to stand up and you have to say we have to take a stand for our children and their safety. And when you had an opportunity to stand up, you sat down, and got a standing ovation from the North American Man/Boy Love Association."

None of this is new ground, but it was worthy of an intensive radio discussion this morning, because it raises a very important question: When a strong anti-pedophilia bill, or new strict sentencing guidelines for sex-offenders bill is passed through the Ohio legislature and reaches to desk of Governor Strickland...will it be signed?

Or will Governor Strickland find some innocuous line in the bill that provides him with an excuse to veto it...the same way he did in the 1999 vote?

He refused to fire a staffer who exposed himself to kids, and he refused to condemn pedophilia in a House vote, so the question remains: Why won't you stand up against pedophiles, Mr. Strickland?

Check out:

1) Nixguy- A good check list of the situation thus far.

2) Bizzyblog adds his two cents.

3) NorthwestOhio.net rips liberal hack Mark Naymick.

The video is available here.

From World Net Daily

Calls for Strickland to drop out

---

Posted: October 18, 2006

By Jerome R. Corsi

---

With the Foley scandal still swirling as a backdrop in Washington, leading Ohio moral conservatives are beginning to call for Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, to withdraw from the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial race, in light of disclosures made concerning his 1998 campaign manager who in 1994 pleaded guilt to criminal misdemeanors involving sexual improprieties with minors.

As reported yesterday, Strickland employed as his 1998 campaign manager an individual who in 1994 pleaded guilty to exposing himself and masturbating in front of pre-teen girls at an Athens, Ohio, school. Even after being informed of the sexual misconduct offenses, Strickland allegedly took his campaign manager on a private trip to Italy to celebrate his 1998 re-election, leaving Mrs. Strickland at home in Kentucky.

Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Cincinnati is calling for Strickland to withdraw from the Ohio gubernatorial race.

"Fair is fair," Burress told this writer. "If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can call for Mark Foley and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to resign, then Ted Strickland should step down until all the questions are answered honestly and completely."

Burress went on to detail his questions:

When exactly did Strickland's 1998 campaign manager stop committing these sexual abuses? Why did Strickland not conduct due diligence before hiring this guy? Who expunged the court records and why? Did Strickland play a role in expunging the records and, if so, why?

What bothered Burress was the apparent double standard in the way the Democrats were handling the allegations against Strickland:

We need all the facts because this is hypocrisy in the first degree for the Democrats to call on Republicans to step down when issues of sexual impropriety with minors are raised and not apply the same standard to themselves.

John C. Willke, M.D., president of the Life Issues Institute, Inc. in Cincinnati joined in the call for Strickland to resign from the Ohio gubernatorial contest.

"This sounds more serious than the Foley problem," Willke said, "because it indicates a willingness on Strickland's part to associate with a person of these moral deficiencies, raising a profound question about Strickland's moral character."

Willke believes that Strickland should withdraw from the race immediately to answer questions about the matter "so the Ohio voters can once and for all know the truth." Willke noted that Strickland had misrepresented the circumstances until now.

"Strickland has been lying," Willke told this writer. "This is not some campaign lower-down, as Strickland made out when his challenger, Brian Flannery, brought out these charges during the Democratic primary. We know now that this was Strickland's campaign manager, a person of responsibility and trust in the campaign. How could Strickland allow a criminally convicted sex offender to occupy this role and not do something about it?"

Mount Vernon, Ohio, attorney Scott Pullins, whose Pullins Report blog was one of the first to cover sexual questions raised in the campaign regarding Strickland, was outspoken in calling for Strickland to withdraw.

"The question is what did Strickland know and when did he know it?" Pullins asked, repeating the famous question from the Watergate investigation that ultimately dogged President Nixon out of office. "Strickland is lying to the people of Ohio, and he should withdraw from this race."

Pullins wondered whether Strickland's experience as a former prison psychologist may have colored his vision:

I'm concerned that Strickland is a far-out, liberal former prison doctor who believes these folks can be rehabilitated. Would Strickland surround himself with convicted felons and those that would harm our children? Even worse, he might pardon some of these despicable individuals [as governor].

The attorney suggested that "Strickland might make Ohio a haven for sexual predators and other offenders who would prey on our citizens. Under Strickland, would we end up with a state where people would be afraid to leave their homes?"

Pullins doubted that the full story regarding Strickland's former campaign manager has come out yet.

What if there is more to this story. Has Strickland hired or associated with other people on his campaign or congressional staff who have a past history of sexual misconduct with minors? Has Strickland hidden any personal problems of this nature that he doesn't want the public to know about?

The Strickland campaign did not return a call asking for comment for this column.