An Independent Threat?

NixGuy caught a Howard Wilkinson Enquirer item reporting that:

Anderson Township Trustee Russ Jackson is so opposed to having Pat DeWine as the Republican party’s nominee for Congress that he is circulating petitions to run as an independent should DeWine win Tuesday’s GOP primary.

Jackson is especially upset with DeWine because DeWine is running for Congress only months after being elected to the Hamilton County commission.

“He said that county commissioner was the job he always wanted and when he gets there, he turns around and runs for the first office that comes open,” Jackson said. “This is a question of character for me.”

I’ve been meaning to address this for some time, but the criticism seemed so petty that it’s hard to take it seriously. But since others are, I will, and here are my points:

• I happen to believe that Rob Portman knew darn well that if George Bush won in November he would be appointed Trade Rep. Portman ran for reelection anyway; though I’m not thrilled with it, it’s the way things are done in politics.
• If DeWine had known what I believe Portman knew, perhaps he would not have run for his “dream (local) job” and would have sat out the November election.
• So I just don’t see how you blame DeWine for not being telepathic about the Portman Trade Rep deal.

Now I can understand why a person might decide not to vote for DeWine in the primary. He’s less than ideal in many ways. But what I think I’m seeing from Mr. Jackson and some (not all) Republicans in the “social values” camp is the use of the County Commissioner issue as a convenient fig leaf to avoid having to bring out their real objection, which in a nutshell is “he cheated on his wife, ban him for life.” Courage, Mr. Jackson. Tell us what you really think.

Ill-Informed Outside Money is Inherently Funny

I’ve taken plenty of shots at Bob McEwen for his excessive use of endorsements by conservative outsiders who can’t possibly know that they are endorsing the best conservative candidate. Well it seems the Club for Growth (CFG) has fallen into the same trap, and I’m just as unhappy about that. Their takedown of Jean Schmidt on the 1% sales tax vote was at least in the neighborhood of accurate as far as she was concerned, and their conclusion that a few other candidates (DeWine, Brinkman and McEwen) were definitely better seemed at least to have a basis (for DeWine and Brinkman) based on voting records.

Now it’s true that BizzyBlog called David Keating of CFG and complained that they had little basis for calling Bob McEwen a tax hawk, since he hasn’t been in office for 12 years, did vote for at least one tax increase when in Washington, and had a “pork for me and not for thee” reputation when he was in Congress. Perhaps that call had a teeny-tiny role in modifying CFG’s stance away from McEwen.

But that doesn’t make me happy that CFG has all but endorsed Tom Brinkman (and dissed DeWine) solely on the vote against that (apparently temporary) sales tax increase that Schmidt supported. Brinkman’s anti-tax record is indeed stellar, but I don’t think you can prove to me that at least a few of his opponents won’t be just as fiercely anti-tax. I realize that besides DeWine, I have to plumb the second tier of the race to support my point, but that doesn’t change its validity, and doesn’t change the fact that CFG is pretending to know more than it does when it lends its sole support to Brinkman.

To further clarify, even though CFG’s Brinkman quasi-endorsement is from his standpoint a gift from heaven, I would hope that he might point out that while the CFG ad is nice, perhaps they aren’t all-knowing about every 2nd District candidate from their Beltway perch. And yes, BizzyBlog acknowledges that this is a subtle and bit more stringent position on outside influence than the one taken at the third point at this post.

A belated “Thanks for noticing, and asking”

Ohio 2nd Blog made a BizzyBlog reference in regards to this incident at Tuesday’s forum: “Favorite Moment: Bob McEwen pulling out evidence from his breast pocket showing that he was exonerated by the Justice Department in the House check cashing scandal as soon as I asked him about it. He pleaded ignorance to the bruhaha from BizzyBlog but sure had that sucker at the ready” (I must ask, was the word “BizzyBlog” uttered in public at a candidates’ forum? Be still my heart.)

In fairness, I suspect the media carpet-bombing on the House Bank Scandal from the DeWine camp was a bigger factor, but then again, you have to ask where they got the idea (hmmm).

More on that McEwen Lobbying Article in Saturday’s Enquirer

It seems I’m not the only person wondering about divided loyalty (bolds are mine):

While it’s not unusual for a former member of Congress to earn money from speeches or become a lobbyist, it is unusual for that former member to attempt a comeback.

Ross Baker, a Rutgers University specialist on Congress, said that in McEwen’s case, it’s fair game for voters to ponder whether he’ll serve their needs or those of his former clients or businesses who have paid him for lobbying or speeches.

“You’ve got to reassure people that you are not going to go back there and be a messenger boy for special interests,” Baker said.

McEwen said his background as a lobbyist is just like candidates who are lawyers and have clients or who are businessmen and have associates, and said it wouldn’t be a problem.

Yeah, Bob, but lawyers who live here and work here would for the most part have clients who live here or at least have business here, and you can at least argue that helping them out would help the local and regional economy. How many of Advantage’s clients are from around here?

And finally, why did the potential conflict-of-interest issue not make an appearance in the local newspapers (that I know of, correct me if I’m wrong) until three days before the primary?

Part 1: Advantage Associates
Part 2: Jefferson Consulting and the 12-Year Gap
Part 3: THIS POST
Part 4: Those “Self-Employed” Contributors
Part 5: The Amway-Quixtar (AQ) Business
Part 6: The McEwens and Amway-Quixtar (AQ)
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Y’know, I don’t why I’m surprised or angry. We should all be at the point where we simply understand that playing around with the technicalities of the law for unwarranted political advantage (faux incumbency on paper and over the air, for starters) is just another day’s work for the McEwen campaign.

But Saturday’s Enquirer has a story from its (well, actually Gannett’s) Washington bureau about McEwen’s time inside the Beltway that really does take the cake when it reveals McEwen’s financial non-disclosure strategy for the primary (seventh and eighth paragraphs):

A financial-disclosure report showing how much McEwen makes from being a lobbyist, selling motivational recordings and giving speeches wasn’t immediately available.

The report isn’t due to the U.S. House clerk until 30 days after McEwen declared his candidacy. McEwen filed a statement of candidacy May 16.

Read that again. McEwen does not have to file his financial-disclosure report until June 15, the day after the primary! And, the article notes, four days before the election (when the article was written), he hasn’t done it yet.

And please don’t tell me that Bob wasn’t actively campaigning before May 16:

• BizzyBlog’s very first entry on McEwen carried this quote from a red-state.com column that ties to an Enquirer article from April 15. Here’s about half of the Enquirer piece (bold is mine):
  

  The field of Republicans seeking to replace U.S. Rep. Rob Portman continued to balloon Thursday, with state Rep. Tom Brinkman officially declaring his candidacy and a former congressman who failed to win the seat 12 years ago saying he will try it again.

  The field of declared Republican candidates is now at six for a 2nd Congressional District seat that won’t become officially vacant until Portman is confirmed as President Bush’s new trade representative.

  The White House sent the formal notice of Portman’s nomination to the Senate on Thursday; and a confirmation hearing will be held before the Senate Finance Committee next Thursday.

  Former U.S. Rep. Bob McEwen, 55, a Hillsboro Republican who has spent most of his time in the Washington area since leaving Congress 12 years ago, said he recently bought a condominium in Anderson Township and will file papers with the Federal Election Commission creating a campaign committee.

  “I would much prefer waiting until the seat becomes open, but it has become apparent that that is no longer an option,” McEwen said, referring to the growing list of contenders.

  This won’t be the first time McEwen has moved into the 2nd Congressional District in a bid to win the House seat. In 1993, McEwen ran against Portman.

  McEwen had spent 12 years representing the old 6th District. When congressional districts were redrawn in 1990, McEwen’s district was combined with the southeast Ohio district of then-Rep. Clarence Miller, R-Athens. Miller defeated McEwen in the GOP primary.

  When Willis Gradison’s seat opened up, McEwen bought a house in Bethel in Clermont County and declared his candidacy. He ended up losing the primary to Portman, who went on to win the seat.

  Both McEwen and Brinkman had been expected to announce their candidacies.
  

• The McEwen web site’s LAST blog entry was May 18 (as OH 2nd blog has noted in his “McEwen Blog Death Watch); there were at least a few entires before that going back at least as far as May 11. (How convenient–The McEwen blog is down as of 10AM on June 11–” The blog system is currently down for maintenance to improve the service. Thank you for your patience - please check back again soon.”–any bets on whether it will reappear before the election?) Oops, the blog is back up, and its first entry was on April 11.
• A networksolutions.com WhoIs lookup reveals that the Bobmcewenforcongress.com web site was created on April 4.
• John Willkie’s and Brad Mattes’s joint endorsement letter was faxed in on May 5 (see bottom left of document).
• After a 2-3 day lag, on or about May 19 I returned a phone call from a McEwen supporter, who asked me to support and perhaps work for McEwen (believe me, that didn’t get far). I’m sure my name was nowhere near the top of the list of people the campaign was calling.

McEwen’s delayed “official” candidacy declaration and accompanying postponement of the the financial-disclosure report deadline is at the very minimum an attempt to keep normally required and normally expected information from the voters on Tuesday, and a clever but deceptive way of taking advantage of the compressed primary time frame. There’s not time to investigate whether it’s more than that; if anybody has a tip on the tactic’s legality or lack thereof, e-mail me.

BizzyBlog didn’t really want to have to do this, but someone has to at least partially fill in the financial information void deliberately created by McEwen and his campaign. More on that in later posts, starting here (yeah, I know, I’m running out of time).

Perhaps Bob doesn’t want to bother completing the disclosure forms if he loses. As voters, I would suggest that we help him avoid the hassle.
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UPDATE: To be fair, if anyone is aware of any other candidate not making his/her financial-disclosure report available, e-mail me.

UPDATE 2: Good thing I didn’t bet on the McEwen blog (which is why you’ll almost never see me at a racetrack or casino). It’s up again, but its latest and only additional entry since May 18 is dated June 1st, even though, as noted above, the Ohio 2nd Blog stated on June 9 that the blog had gone 23 days without an entry. I can also personally attest that there was no June 1 entry a few days ago. Zheesh. More importantly, we can now tell you that the McEwen blog’s official first entry was on April 11. And the the entry said he’s “running” (their quote marks).