From the PD

In statewide races being watched closely for auditor and secretary of state, the Republican candidates have stashed their cash -- presumably for a late advertising push -- while their Democratic counterparts have spent more of their money already.

In the secretary of state race, Republican Greg Hartmann is sitting on $626,720 while Democrat Jennifer Brunner had only $224,228 left. Meanwhile, Republican state auditor candidate Mary Taylor has $948,701 banked, compared to only $403,142 for her Democratic opponent, Barbara Sykes.

In other statewide races, Republican Betty Montgomery still has more than $1.5 million, while Marc Dann, her Democratic opponent in the attorney general race, has only $303,550 left. Meanwhile, Democratic state treasurer candidate Richard Cordray has blown through most of the nearly $2 million he has raised while his under-funded Republican opponent, Sandra O'Brien, has just a few thousand left after spending $27,752 over the past five months.

As Democrats try to cut into sizable margins in both chambers of the Ohio legislature, Republicans hold huge fund-raising margins. House Republicans reported spending $5 million on legislative races thus far while House Democrats' expenditures were just over $900,000. Nonetheless, House Republicans had $2.23 million still on hand, compared to just over $200,000 for House Democrats.

In the Ohio Senate, Republicans had outspent Democrats, $3.3 million to $286,000. However, Democrats have $800,000 on hand while the GOP holds $1.1 million.

Is it better to hang on to the cash or to have already spent it?

from his column in Forbes magazine:

The High Hope For Ohio

In no other state are the woes of the Republican party exemplified more than in Ohio. As in Washington, D.C., Ohio Republicans command the executive branch and both houses of the legislature. But the GOP is in deep trouble, and the reasons are corruption and an utter lack of governing principles. There have been several sensational scandals, including one for which the outgoing governor, Bob Taft, pleaded no contest to state ethics violations. Ohio Republicans have rammed through tax increases. The state's operating budget has been rising faster than virtually any other state's in the Union and has made Washington's spending binge look tame in comparison. State and local taxes have skyrocketed. Business-burdening regulations have proliferated. Ohio's economy, once one of the nation's most vibrant, is now one of the most sluggish. No wonder incumbent U.S. Senator Mike DeWine is trailing his opponent badly.

And so, sadly, is the GOP candidate for governor, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Blackwell is a reincarnated Ronald Reagan. He vigorously fought his party over taxes and spending. During his campaign he has spoken eloquently about the need to slash and simplify taxes and to reform workers' compensation and job-killing regulations. Yet Blackwell has had to try to escape the stigma of his party, as his opponent unfairly but effectively ties him to the discredited Governor Taft. You'd never know that party leaders had done everything they could to block Blackwell's nomination because they considered him too independent, a man who refused to play ball with the boys.

Too bad for Ohio. Blackwell has the right prescriptions to make the Buckeye State a center of economic vitality and inno-vation. His Democratic opponent will simply perpetuate the antigrowth policies of Taft--presumably without the corruption.

I got to know Ken years ago, when he was leading one of his crusades against higher taxes in Ohio. He later served as my national chairman when I sought the presidency in 2000, even though the rest of his state colleagues were lining up behind front-runner George W. Bush.

Blackwell may yet pull a Trumanesque upset, as the gap between him and his opponent has been closing. But the irony of it all is that if more Republicans were like Blackwell and not like Taft and his Washington counterparts, the GOP would be riding high instead of being in line for an electoral thrashing.

Taft crony and Chief of Staff, Jon Allison, wrote this angry letter to the editor yesterday in The Wall Street Journal after they published a glowing editorial about Ken Blackwell and his conservative tax-cutting principles. With Taft's approval ratings in the single-digits, I think we finally found at least one Ohioan who is in that statistically microscopic segment of the population that still likes Bob.

Allison, of course, doesn't mention that the Secretary of State's office is now 60% less reliant on the general revenue fund (your tax dollars). And he also doesn't mention that under Secretary of State Bob Taft, it used to take weeks and months to incorporate a business. And now, under Ken Blackwell's leadership, you can now incorporate a business in Ohio in about 2 days time.

So now, I bring to you Joe Hallett's article where he vividly details the mess Taft left for Blackwell to clean up. (Joe wrote this article before he went to The Columbus Dispatch to defend pedophiles.)

BLACKWELL HAS TO CLEAN UP BOB'S BARGAIN BASEMENT
Joe Hallett, The Cleveland Plain Dealer
January 22, 1999

Two weeks into a job Ohio Republican honchos begged him to seek, J. Kenneth Blackwell realized that he had inherited a mess - literally and politically.

As he traipsed around the 14th floor of the James A. Rhodes State Office Tower on Tuesday, Ohio's 51st secretary of state was daunted by the task ahead. The office that, among other duties, is the state's keeper of official records, looked like a landfill.

File cabinets stacked high with record-laden cardboard boxes lined virtually every hallway or were used as room dividers. Peeling walls that hadn't been painted for nine years were laid bare like open wounds, the carpeting was tattered and dirty, computer terminals were yellow with grit, and work stations were cluttered with paper and microfilm records that most modern-day businesses keep in computer files.

Customer service employees responsible for answering phone requests for information on business incorporation were packed into a tight cluster where they could overhear - and be distracted by - one another's conversations. Personal checks from citizens were strewn about unattended tables.

Blackwell shook his head. "How do you sustain morale when people have to work in this environment?" he asked.

And later, he observed: "It is obvious at first blush that space is needed. We have people sitting on top of one another, almost literally, with boxes acting as file cabinets. We want to create a more productive work environment."

Blackwell, known for his ambition and frankness, bent over backward to be diplomatic. Unlike other Republican state officeholders, namely Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery and State Auditor Jim Petro, Blackwell couldn't publicly bash a Democratic predecessor for leaving the office in such a mess.

That's because Blackwell was preceded as secretary of state by Bob Taft, now Ohio's Republican governor. A tour of the secretary of state's office revealed the downside of Taft's eight-year effort to reduce his full-time staff by 50 employees, to 124, and to curtail his office's budget growth to below the rate of inflation. Such "accomplishments" made great grist for the campaign trail, but Blackwell now has to live with the results.

That's not to say Taft was a bad secretary of state. He ran clean and efficient elections. He registered record numbers of voters and he tirelessly preached to schoolchildren about the importance of growing up to be voters.

Taft inherited a dinosaur of a computer system in 1991 and then spent millions on a new one that was outdated before it ever worked right. As a result, lawyers and business groups were frustrated by long delays in processing corporate charters and other licenses. Moreover, although Taft kept his promise to computerize campaign-finance reports, they were in a format that most Ohioans couldn't access. Ohio Citizen Action made Taft's office look foolish in 1998 when, using a $200,000 grant, it took the campaign-finance records and made them available to everyone over the Internet.

"The computer system, the crowdedness, the extra workload on everybody all played into poor employee morale," said Cynthia Stewart, an administrative secretary in the elections division and president of the union representing secretary of state employees.

"Citizens need to know that things may get worse before they get better, because we might need a whole new computer system," Stewart added. "I don't think Mr. Blackwell should be blamed for that."

Said Blackwell: "My biggest concern right now is getting our business service operation to a point where it's competitive with neighboring states. Right now, it's taking us much longer to incorporate a business in Ohio than it does in Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan."

So, as he starts a new job in a Republican-controlled state government, Blackwell is compiling a laundry list of expensive needs - foremost, a computer system for the 21st century - to present to the General Assembly, while trying not to violate his party's 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican - especially one who has line-item veto authority over the secretary of state's budget.

Blackwell plans to appoint a study group to assess his office's needs and then take its recommendations to the legislature. Moreover, he is giving reporters free rein to roam the 14th floor, observe the mess, talk to frustrated employees and report their findings. And, sometime soon, Blackwell plans to invite Senate President Richard Finan and House Speaker Jo Ann Davidson over to the office for lunch and, he hopes, a revealing tour.

Ken Blackwell isn't going to publicly criticize Bob Taft. But anyone who walks through the secretary of state's office quickly will understand the wisdom of the old saw that being penny-wise sometimes really is pound-foolish.

watch it here.

DeWine really takes the gloves off, starting with his opening statement! Scroll to about 21 minutes into the video. That is when the fireworks start against pot-head wife beater Sherrod Brown.

Bizzyblog- Open Letter to the Cincinnati Enquirer about the Ted Strickland Dealbreakers

Nixguy- links to Dr. Lara's column from 1999, which discusses the study which Ted Strickland defended, which said sex between children and adults is ok. It was later used by the North American Man Boy Love Association to promote their unholy agenda.

Porkopolis- Index of posts on Ted Strickland, Ohio's Governor-Wannabe

See the endorsements of Jimmy Stewart (R) the currrent seat holder here: www.nokooks.blog.com