State of the Union

Strickland lottery director accused of 'wrongdoing'

So much for those tough ethics standards in the Strickland administration. The governor's lottery director has been accused by the state inspector general of committing "an act of wrongdoing" by handing out lotto tickets for favors. The Plain Dealer reports: 

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland suspended Ohio Lottery Commission ticket giveaways today after lottery chief Michael Dolan was criticized for sending 100 promotional instant lottery tickets to a state trooper who let Dolan off with a warning in a traffic stop. 

Dolan, headed to Strickland's residence for a meeting, was pulled over Jan. 26 on Interstate 71 by a trooper with the Mansfield post of the State Highway Patrol. Dolan's car didn't have a front license plate and he was not wearing a seat belt. 

And the best part? 

Dolan told the trooper he was heading to a meeting with the governor and the trooper issued a warning. 

The old "Do you know who I work for?" line. Classy.

Chairman DeWine's Weekly Email Update - 03/28/09

Dear Republican Leaders,

 

I got my first deer this week.  Unfortunately, so did the front end of my Trailblazer (as you can see).  That unscheduled meeting on a dark road in Wyandot County certainly kicked off one of the most unique and eventful weeks of the year so far at the Ohio Republican Party. 

Here are some of the highlights:

• Other than the $5,000 worth of damage to my car, I had a great trip to Wyandot County on Monday night and another opportunity to share our agenda for Leading Ohio at the county's annual Lincoln dinner.  As we've seen everywhere this year, the turnout was encouraging and the crowd was energized to bring our party back.   

• I also had the privilege of meeting on Monday with Delaware County Sheriff Walter Davis, who made history two years ago by becoming Ohio's first African American sheriff.  Sheriff Davis is a loyal Republican and a voracious networker, and I appreciate his insights on building the party.  He has an inspiring life story that he's sharing with young people across our state, and you can read more about it in this recent Columbus Dispatch article.

• The staff and I traveled to Findlay on Tuesday for another productive party leadership meeting, this time with county chairs and state committee members from the northwest counties.  We discussed the strengths and weaknesses of our performance in 2008, and we outlined our strategy for making a comeback in 2009 and 2010. 

• On Wednesday, I met with a team of election attorneys who have agreed to advise the party on legal strategies related to voting procedures, ballot integrity, recounts, and other election-related issues.  The last two recount scenarios in Ohio's 15th congressional district and the still-undecided U.S. Senate race in Minnesota have prompted us to be more prepared for the unfortunate but inevitable litigation that often surrounds a close outcome.  We also continue to face the ongoing legal maneuvering of our secretary of state, who shows little regard for the law when it doesn't fit her partisan agenda.

• I also met Wednesday with former Senate President Stan Aronoff as we continue to reach out to the veteran leaders of our party for insight.

• About 25 county chairs and state committee members joined us on Wednesday evening in Lewis Center (Delaware County) for the last of six regional party leadership meetings.  We didn't intend to meet colonial style, but a power outage forced us to converse by candlelight for part of the evening.  Despite the unique setting, we had a great discussion about our 2009 political plan and 2010 statewide ticket.

• I capped off the week with a keynote speech to the Highland County Republican Party's annual Lincoln Day dinner - probably the most humorous event I've been to this season. The locals were funny; the event was lighthearted; and the mood was incredibly optimistic.  I asked everyone to reacquaint themselves with the principles of our party and to recommit their time, energy and talents to the cause.  My thanks to Kay Ayres for her outstanding leadership in Highland County and, more importantly, as vice chair of our state party.  Kay has driven thousands of miles this year to attend Republican events from Hamilton to Cuyahoga counties and everywhere in between.  I appreciate her loyal service and reliable partnership.
  

Finally, I appreciate the encouraging feedback many of you have shared about these weekly emails.  They not only keep me accountable to you, but they also provide a short, informative summary of our progress that I trust you can use in communicating with others.  Please feel free to forward this email to your network.  If you'd like us to add a list of email addresses to this update, send them to Craig Forbes in my office (forbes@ohiogop.org).  You can also click on the "Forward Email" link at the very bottom of this page to send the email directly to your contacts.

The Week Ahead

Next week, I'll be traveling out of state with my family, but the staff has a lot on the agenda back at the office.  Our first New Media Training Workshop is scheduled for Wednesday evening, and it's already filled to capacity.  Our County Chairs College begins on April 27th, and our annual Candidate Training Seminar will likely happen on June 6th, but we're still working on some final logistics for both.  We'll send out confirmation on both of those events next week.

Thanks again for what you're doing to advance the Republican Party!

Kevin DeWine

Chairman

                      

Where is the love?

You know it's getting rough for the Obama administration when even their leftist allies in the media are starting to gripe.  Here are the highlights of a brutal editorial in the latest issue of The Economist:

• Hillary Clinton might have been somewhat accurate in her quip that "the Oval Office is no place for on-the-job training."     

• Obama's "performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped." 

• Polls are starting to show "independent voters again prefer Republicans to Democrats, a startling reversal of fortune in just a few weeks." 

• "Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble."  

• His stimulus package was "subcontracted to Congress, which did a mediocre job."  

• His budget "is wildly optimistic," and he has taken "too long" to produce his bank bailout plan. 

• "The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift."    

• Obama made a "series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw." 

• He "mishandled his relations with both sides in Congress" and failed to behave as the centrist he promised. 

• He "seems unable to" control his own party.  "Democrats are messing him around," and he is "letting them get away with it." 

In summary, "Mr Obama has a long way to travel if he is to serve his country—and the world—as he should."

Ouch.

Dispatch: Brunner acting odd & bizarre. What's new?

From today's Columbus Dispatch editorial page:

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat who is running to fill the seat of retiring Ohio Republican Sen. George V. Voinovich, has launched one of the oddest political attacks in recent memory.

Brunner said that Voinovich, who voted with his fellow Republican senators in an unsuccessful attempt to block the $787 billion economic-stimulus bill passed last month, should have voted for the measure. The reason? To spare taxpayers the cost of flying Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown by military aircraft from Mansfield to Washington to cast the deciding vote.

Democrats needed one vote to prevent a GOP filibuster, but Brown was attending his mother's funeral in Ohio, and ailing Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., also was unavailable. So Democrats asked Voinovich to vote for the measure. He declined.

Instead, Senate Democrats delayed the vote for five hours while the White House sent a military aircraft to Ohio to fetch Brown.

To criticize Voinovich for refusing to vote against his beliefs is bizarre. And pointless, because Voinovich won't be her opponent.

50 percent approval & overexposed

Pollster John Zogby now sees President Obama's approval ratings dropping to "around 50-50," and the dean of Boston University's College of Communication weighs in on tonight's prime-time press conference.  From the Boston Herald:

As for the president’s love of the limelight, it could backfire, according to a media watcher.

“I thought he overexposed himself weeks ago,” said Tobe Berkovitz, associate dean of Boston University’s College of Communication.

“I wonder when the public will say ‘Instead of being in front of the camera, be in front of a spreadsheet.’ ”

Obama: The economy sucks. Hahahaha!

Steve Croft at 60 Minutes rightly asks President Obama if he's "punch-drunk" after the president can't control his giddy laughter when talking about the nation's economic problems.

The Obama Economy

The Wall Street Journal looks today at the duration and impact of the last few national recessions (with the help of economist John Cogan).  They conclude with this:

The optimistic message in Mr. Cogan's comparisons is that recessions eventually end. How long they last, and how severe they get, depends in part on the choices our leaders make. The choices that Mr. Obama and Congress are making so far are not contributing to confidence, much less to recovery.

Another liberal pounces on Obama

Just a few days ago, it was uber-liberal NYT columnist Maureen Dowd lashing out at President Obama for his "disturbing spells of passivity."  

Now it's liberal NYT columnist Paul Krugman's turn:

"But among people I talk to there’s a growing sense of frustration, even panic, over Mr. Obama’s failure to match his words with deeds. The reality is that when it comes to dealing with the banks, the Obama administration is dithering. Policy is stuck in a holding pattern."

It ain't workin'

From Donald Luskin at SmartMoney.com:

We can't blame President Obama for the mess he inherited. But we can definitely blame him for making it worse. Stocks are off 28.4% since his election, 15.2% since his inauguration, and 17.2% since his so-called “stimulus” bill was enacted. To say the very least, whatever he's doing, it ain't working. ...  I have to say, I'm beginning to worry that stocks are cheap for a reason. That reason may be President Obama.

From Michael Boskin at The Wall Street Journal:

It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.  

Democrat Reality Check

From Peter Wehner at National Review:

Here’s an interesting data point comparison: Barack Obama’s approval rating in the Gallup Poll today is 61 percent, with 28 percent disapproving (the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls has his overall job approval rating at 59.8 percent). A March 5-7, 2001 Gallup poll found President Bush's job approval at 63 percent as well, with only 22 percent disapproving. So George W. Bush, at a comparable time in his presidency, was in marginally better shape than Barack Obama is right now, at least based on the Gallup Poll survey.

This runs counter to conventional wisdom that Obama is tremendously popular, and that Bush (based on the divisive nature of the 2000 election) was not. In fact, according to the Gallup Poll data, what President Bush did was rise in the esteem of the public during the first five weeks of his presidency, while Obama has lost a bit of altitude.