Weekend Question 2: When (and How) Did Hamilton County Endorse Mike DeWine?
Note: This post first appeared at about 11 AM this morning, and has been moved near the top for the rest of the day.
The related FreeRepublic post is here.
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Answer: Glad you asked.
In its Friday profiles of the US Senate candidates, The Cincinnati Enquirer noted that Mike DeWine has been endorsed by Hamilton County’s Republican Party.
Those who have only recently begun following the upcoming primary races, especially the GOP US Senate race, need to know what happened in Hamilton County. It is an object lesson in corrupt party kangaroo cronyism and Old Media ignorance.
Once you know what happened in Hamilton County, you will know that the county party’s so-called endorsement of Mike DeWine isn’t worth diddly squat. Similar sham endorsement processes played out in many of the other larger counties in the state. That is why you see Bill Pierce’s supporters noting that only five county endorsement processes had any validity, because it’s the truth (Knox, won by Pierce as Endorsed; Clermont, won by Pierce as Well-Qualified; Miami, won by DeWine; Preble, where Pierce and DeWine tied; and Fulton; where Pierce and David Smith were both evaluated as Qualified, while DeWine finished third).
Here are brief looks at the posts about Hamilton County’s sham endorsement meeting (of course, there’s no substitute for going to the original posts):
February 15 — Script of February 9 Hamilton Co. Endorsement Meeting
This post, originally done on February 13 and carried forward for a couple of days in an attempt to get attention, documented conclusively and confirmed the original report from S.O.B. Alliance member Weapons of Mass Discussion (WoMD) that the February 9 Hamilton County GOP endorsement meeting was scripted to force a predetermined conclusion — literally. The post contains the actual script used by those who conducted the meeting, and its use was confirmed by four different people who were there, all of whom are remaining unidentified for obvious reasons.
The most outrageous part of the script is where incumbents running for eight different offices from County Commissioner to US Senator were endorsed en masse, with no separate motions allowing for consideration of challengers:
By any measurement of newsworthiness, the revelation of this script should have caused the Enquirer to revisit its virtual parroting of the county party’s version of what happened. But despite the obvious evidence and additional outrage from WoMD, it was ignored.
February 16 — AgendaGate: Day 4
The Enquirer’s refusal to even look at how ridiculous its original February 10 report on the GOP’s meeting was led to this rant:
The story, by not saying otherwise, leaves readers with the impression that the process at the ….. meeting was fair, open, honest, and done by secret ballot. It wasn’t any of those things.
The story, by mentioning a few individual candidates, gives the impression that each race was voted on separately. That did not happen.
The story’s unquestioned inclusion of George Vincent’s quote that “People expressed their opinions on both sides in a most eloquent fashion†about the choice between Ken Blackwell and Jim Petro not only misrespresents how that particular contest was handled (those “people†certainly aren’t in the script), but also leaves the reader with the impression that the other races were handled in similar “eloquent fashion.†They weren’t.
It’s one thing to miss stories. It’s another thing to decide not to report stories you’re aware of. It’s beyond comprehension to actually run a story that later is shown to be largely inaccurate, not lift a finger (or click a mouse) to correct it ….. and essentially allow yourself to get played by a local party organization.
February 18 — The Enquirer Invisibler: An Equal Opportunity Ignorer
By the end of the week, I had totally lost patience with the Enquirer, renamed it the Invisibler, and noted:
The sad thing is that in the Information Age, the casual news consumer in Greater Cincinnati is, in my opinion, less well served by its local mainstream media in print, radio, and television than during any time I can recall.
That’s an unacceptable situation, and perhaps (crossing fingers) The Enquirer has figured that out. The paper has done quite a bit to shed its Invisibler moniker in the past week with its reporting on the Second District congressional race and its coverage (finally) of DeWine’s US Senate challengers. But consistent effort and resistance to accepting things at face value will be the keys to the paper’s future credibility.
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The bottom line on Mike DeWine’s endorsement by Hamilton County is that he got away with one, and will continue to as long as people don’t know what really happened. So spread the word: The endorsement means nothing, and is symptomatic of a county party, along with a state party that heavily influenced the proceedings in the background, that has lost its way. As WoMD said at the time: “If you want to truly be a winning party of ideas, allow real fair and open primaries, not the joke that was Hamilton County.”
More importantly at the moment, vote on May 2 for the candidate who, when the playing field wasn’t tilted by the misguided powers that be, defeated RINO Mike DeWine three times and tied him once in five attempts. That would be true conservative Bill Pierce. Go to his web site. Visit his blog, which has Bill’s latest thoughts on the critical issues the country faces. And contribute here.
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Note: I have endorsed Bill Pierce for Senate, and have provided nominal financial support for his campaign. BizzyBlog is a member of Blogs for Pierce.
