Someone is getting under the skin of Bob McEwen’s supporters, and possibly the candidate himself. Whooooooo could that be? (HT: 2nd OH Blog)

Rory Ryan, Publisher & Editor of The Hillsboro Times-Gazette went off on “certain political operatives” and “a few of the Internet blogs” (terms that appear to be interchangeable to Mr. Ryan) in a column on Saturday.

My response to him follows. This letter is link free because the e-mail was link-free.
___________

Mr. Ryan,

Your “McEwen’s the Clear Choice in 2nd District” column takes unwarranted shots at many of those who are criticizing the former congressman (presumably including myself, though you appear to lack the decency to name names).

First, I for one am not a “political operative.” I am a blogging citizen and resident of this district who hasn’t made up his mind who to vote for. At BizzyBlog.com, I am spending mountains of energy and time covering the race, seemingly more than the local and urban newspapers.

Nobody’s paying me anything, and I haven’t contributed to anyone.

I do have to address a few things you wrote, and will do so now.

For example, it’s been wrongly reported that the only endorsements McEwen can garner are from inside the beltway around our nation’s capital.

Please. I have never blogged a ridiculous statement like that, nor has any other blogger I’ve come across. The statement is a “straw man.” And from where I sit, McEwen is wrapping himself around the endorsements of Dobson (you DO know he’s from Colorado, right?), Kemp, Meese, and the other outsiders like they’re his security blanket.

It is not at all unlikely had he defeated Congressman Ted Strickland in 1992, that the largest federal tax increase in history would have been avoided.

The reason we had Ted Strickland in Washington to cast his deciding vote is not, as you seem to imply, because the voters made an ill-advised choice to elect Mr. Strickland. We have Strickland mainly because McEwen made himself so unattractive to so many voters. It takes a lot of hard work for a Republican to lose in such a heavily Republican area, but Bob was up to the task. McEwen forgot where he came from in the early 1990s, at an absolute minimum made several horrid errors in judgment, did not resign and allow a less-tainted fellow Republican to run uncontested, and set himself up for a fall in the 1992 general election. That chain of events is entirely Bob McEwen’s fault.

In fact, McEwen received a letter of exoneration from the Justice Department (as did former Congressman Mike DeWine).

When he called me about ten days ago, I asked him to post information to that effect on his web site, and he refused. Where is his, or your, proof, and what’s your definition of “exoneration”? If you can deliver the exculpatory evidence for Bob, by all means, do so. McEwen himself doesn’t seem to think it’s important. I believe he’s wrong.

All I have said at my blog is that he claims to have been exonerated, that I can’t find evidence that he has been exonerated, and that he has refused to provide any evidence himself, all of which are true. If you or McEwen have the goods and make it public, I’ll revise and update my posts; that’s what bloggers do. It won’t change the fact that he at first said in the heat of the House Bank Scandal that he never wrote any checks without the funds available to cover them, then said he did it a few times, and finally had to ‘fess up to writing 166 such checks. But it will be an improvement.

And finally, where has Bob been these past 12 years? While you and I weren’t watching, McEwen has been raking in money and basking in influence as a lobbyist, consultant, speechmaker, and “investment” person of some type. It is not unreasonable to question whether his loyalties will be to his Washington cronies who have made him an at-least fairly rich man or the people of the 2nd district he is supposed to represent, but whom he hasn’t seen fit to live with. The fact is, we can’t know where McEwen’s loyalties lie, and I for one would rather not take a chance.

In the meantime, spare me the baloney about “unnecessary, and inaccurate, potshots.” Thanks to the sloth in the print media, blogging on this race is very necessary. You have failed to show any inaccuracies. And the “potshots” you decry must be hitting the mark. That’s what’s really “annoying,” isn’t it? And it must be doubly annoying that this letter is posted at BizzyBlog whether or not you decide to publish it in your paper.

Sincerely,

Tom Blumer

PS. Bob McEwen did surprisingly poorly at the Candidates Forum on June 3. I and a couple of other bloggers covered it in detail. How about your paper?

Today’s tidbits:

• Enquirer covers Forum with no substance: As of early this afternoon, the Enquirer’s coverage of the Forum last night, eleven days before the election, was this local brief about who wasn’t there (DeWine). No mention of a single thing any candidate said, though an Enquirer reporter was there last night. Thanks for nothing, guys.This is why candidates know they can do an all-style, no-substance shtick campaign and pull if off, because the local press is mostly so lax they don’t matter. It’s also why the blogs, to the extent possible, have to take up the (considerable) slack.
• Enquirer disses BizzyBlog: The Enquirer has a story by Nick Juliano of AP on bloggers covering the race. Its focus is almost entirely on “progressives” covering (mostly) the Democrat side. Since Juliano interviewed me earlier this week for his story, I e-mailed him and asked if the Enquirer printed his whole piece. Turns out, no. He sent me to a Canton paper(!) (link requires free registration) that carried the additional paragraphs the Enquirer snipped (thanks AGAIN for nothing, Enquirer guys). Here are some of them (June 6 update — a Lexington (KY) TV Station manages to carry the whole thing; I guess there must be a bandwidth shortage at the Enquirer):
  

  Tom Blumer runs www.bizzyblog.com, which started with business commentary. Lately he has used it to voice his conservative commentary on the race.

  “That’s the benefit of following the race now versus 10 years ago,” he said. “If you are a person pressed for time or with a lot of other things going on you can put out your opinions and hopefully have a little bit of influence.”

  Some of the candidates, including Republican Bob McEwen and Democrat Victoria Wulsin, also have started their own blogs.

  Whether blogs will continue to be a presence in local elections remains to be seen. In the wake of the 2004 general election, national blogs still continue to be an influential means of communication.

• And where do I go to get local coverage of campaign spending? If you guessed NOT The Enquirer, go to the head of the class. The Dayton Daily News (links require free registration) had it last night (the money will be blogged when the detail of individual contributions is known).
• Dayton Daily News endorsements: While we’re on The DDN, which mostly endorses Democrat candidates in two-party races, it has endorsed Democrat Hackett and Republican DeWine. The other GOP candidates will be sending The DDN their thank-you notes for the DeWine endorsement shortly.

  On the GOP side, The DDN only evaluated DeWine, McEwen, and Schmidt, and figured the rest are too underfunded. They should have looked at their own column on the FEC filings, because there is a surprise or two in there.

  On the Dem side, The DDN spent almost all of its verbiage on Hackett and a sentence or two each on the others. Their endorsement makes it clear, as noted earlier by BizzyBlog, why the GOP would be foolish to take Hackett lightly:

  Mr. Hackett went to Iraq not because he was already in the Marines. He had been out for years. He signed up again to serve there. He’ll go again if he isn’t elected.

  His experience and perspective on the war could be useful to Congress. He feels strongly that training a 140,000-member Iraqi military is a prerequisite to this country leaving. And he believes that the president has not assigned enough people to that task and is not saying how difficult it is.

  He believes the war was not smart, because it requires the U.S. military to build a nation, which is not its specialty.

  Mr. Hackett is an articulate, down-to-earth exponent of moderate Democratic views.

The Values Voters Candidates Forum took place at the Montgomery Assembly of God Church in that Northeast Cincinnat suburb from 7-9 PM last night. There was a meet and greet with the candidates afterwards, which BizzyBlog did not attend.

The Forum came together as the result of invitations to every candidate from Citizens for Community Values Action. The small PDF flyer for the event is here.

Overview

Outside campaign signage was heavily McEwen, with relatively modest signage from most of the others who attended.

Prerecorded, mellow, crisp, and almost surreal religious piano music filled the room in the 20 or so minutes before the forum began. The crowd, which was in the neighborhood of 200-250 when the forum started, eventually grew to 300-350.

Bob Burney of WTSJ was the moderator, and the forum was simulcast without commercials by that station. I’m not aware of any plans to rebroadcast the forum.

Burney made clear that this was a non-partisan event that would deal with issues and not parties, and made a brief opening statement that he believed values will determine our future, and ticked off life, marriage, family, judicial activism, and freedom of religion as those issues.

Burney then explained the format: not a Q&A, each candidate gets 8 minutes, then each candidate gets two minutes, preselected in random order. Since he had one arm in a sling, Burney made a couple of very cute remarks about how he wouldn’t let his other arm get twisted by the candidates, and that he wouldn’t be afraid to use his good arm if the candidates went over their time. Overall, he did a very good job of setting a calm, civil, and constructive atmosphere.

The following eleven candidates were present, in alpha order: Bemmes, Brinkman, Fossett, McEwen, Minamyer, Morgan, Parker, Sanders, Schmidt, Sinnard, Smith.

The following five were not there: Austin, DeWine, Hackett, Mink, and Wulsin.

My Scorecard

(presented as follows: 8-minute segment score (order of appearance), 2-minute segment score (order of appearance), and total score)

- Brinkman — 8.8 (5), 8.8 (4), 17.6
- Minamyer — 9.0 (4), 8.5 (2), 17.5
- Schmidt — 8.8 (8), 8.5 (8), 17.3
- Morgan — 8.5 (10), 8.8 (7), 17.3
- Parker — 8.5 (11), 8.3 (6), 16.8
- Fossett — 7.5 (9), 7.8 (5), 15.3
- Sinnard — 6.8 (6), 8.0 (1), 14.8
- Smith — 7.0 (3), 7.5 (3), 14.5
- Bemmes — 7.0 (1), 7.5 (11), 14.5
- McEwen — 6.5 (2), 7.0 (10), 13.5
- Sanders — 6.0 (7), 7.5 (9), 13.5

CONCLUSIONS

Although everyone did a creditable job, I believe the first tier ends at Parker.

In a fair fight, on the GOP side, the first tier plus Pat DeWine would be duking it out, and the rest would figuring out how to recover, or if they can recover. Pat DeWine’s absence should hurt him, but in the TV-radio world we live in, probably not much. Again in a fair fight, McEwen would be involved in a major salvage operation, but thanks to the heavy outside help he’s still quite viable.

On the Democrat side, Parker bested Sanders by a mile, but the impact on the Dem primary is likely minimal, as it’s probable that very few Democrat voters were “in the house” (I mean, church) last night.

My core initial conclusion from last night still stands: “I came away heartened by the quality of the local candidates on both sides of the aisle, and madder than a hornet that the national and “moral” GOP leadership have intervened with their own chosen candidate and are attempting to shut these outstanding local people out.”

I’ll comment on the first five in detail, and the others in summary form, except for McEwen, whose approach and performance was, considering his political experience, inexplicably ineffective.

Click on “more” for the detailed looks, in order of total score.
(more…)

Another installment in a nearly-regular series of mysteries and pseudo-mysteries this inquiring mind would like to have answers for (some links included may require free registration):

• When will people finally figure out that in the long run state-sponsored “businesses” don’t do as well as independent companies?

  American Thinker blogs on the woes of Airbus as documented in a Fortune article only available to subscribers. I have to admit to having been taken in by the supposed success of Airbus in the past few years, even though I figured it was horribly unfair because of bottomless subsidies from its sponsoring governments.

  Well, even with the subsidies, the success isn’t there (read the whole blog entry for detail):

  Airbus is emblematic of the entire EU: bloated by bureaucrats and run by incompetents who overpromise and underdeliver. Airbus was designed to puncture Boeing, formerly the dominant producer of civil airliners.

  Airbus was to be one of the business components of the strategy by Europeans to harm America and to help bring about the emergence of the utopian (from their viewpoint) multipolar world. Billions of European taxpayer dollars (make that marks, francs, pounds and now euros) were squandered on this mindless beast. Illegal subsidies were granted to Airbus to get this plane out the hangar.

  Yet, as the facts come out, this is just one more expensive disaster that European “leaders” have inflicted upon their people.

• Am I the only one noticing that when the business press is given a choice between good news on the unemployment rate and relatively bad news on new jobs created, it emphasizes the job numbers? But, when unemployment stays the same or gets worse and job growth is good, the focus is on unemployment?
• When will someone pay me 100 grand to watch TV an hour a night and blog on it?

  I do have one request, though. Pick a different TV program. The one involved here may cost the winner over 100 grand in future earnings due to brain shrinkage.

Took notes at the forum tonight at the Montgomery Assembly of God Church, which took place from 7-9 PM.

Initial thoughts:

• It seemed surreal in a church at first, but the format (8 minutes for each candidate, followed by 2 minutes for each candidate, selected at random in each case) and the instructions to the both the candidates (stay strictly within time) and the audience that numbered roughly 300 (no clapping, in fact almost no audible reactions except to humor) kept things remarkably civil and informative.
• 11 of 16 candidates from both parties were there. The two most notable no-shows were Republican DeWine and Democrat Hackett.
• I went expecting to be impressed with a few candidates and ended up very impressed with most of them. I only wish everyone in the district could have either been there or could have listened to the one low-powered local radio station that carried it live.
• I came away heartened by the quality of the local candidates on both sides of the aisle, and madder than a hornet that the national and “moral” GOP leadership have intervened with their own chosen candidate and are attempting to shut these outstanding local people out.
• The audience gave a rousing standing O to the candidates after all had spoken, reflecting how impressed they were with the caliber of the people, how they presented themselves, and the substance of what they said.

Much more later. (UPDATE: Go here.)