tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80900532011-07-14T20:40:25.641-04:00Ohioblog provides an Ohiocentric view of the presidential campaign yet is not parochial. It does concentrate on swing state issues in general and Ohio's – it's the economy, stupid – in particular. It's eclectic within these parameters and tries to have sense of humor.Jim Van Nostrandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12244561350886559296noreply@blogger.comBlogger3701100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099587137991008522004-11-04T11:48:00.000-05:002004-11-07T08:11:11.036-05:00

Despite the fact the future of political Web blogs is assured, Ohioblog has none. Blog is kaput. Thanks for sharing. - Steve Love

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099586324644601012004-11-04T11:31:00.000-05:002004-11-07T08:12:04.726-05:00

The old formula for victory in an Ohio election no longer works. An army of Democratic voters, many of the first-timers, stormed the polls and voted for Sen. John Kerry, particularly in and around Ohio's largest cities, including Akron, Cleveland and Canton. It didn't matter. What did matter, what any Democrat who ever wants to win in Ohio must address, is what exit polls reveal drove Ohioans'

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099580298473093352004-11-04T09:55:00.000-05:002004-11-04T09:58:18.473-05:00

If voters were customers, Ohio election officials would be looking for new jobs, their business shut down by consumer revolt. Customers don't stand in line for four or five hours. They demand service. Often loudly. CAN YOU HEAR THIS? OHIOBLOG IS SHOUTING. (BLOG FEELS LIKE DAVE BARRY WITH ALL THESE STUPID CAPITAL LETTERS.) Beyond the usual individual problems, Election Day, with a record Ohio

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099504111228122012004-11-03T13:34:00.000-05:002004-11-03T12:48:31.226-05:00

Sen. John Kerry saved Ohioans from at least 10 more days of Ohioblog. He saved the nation from 10 more days of Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. All he had to do was give up on hiw two-campaign to become president. Good decision. President Bush owes Ohio some jobs since its voters saved his. He will soon begin filling positions for his second term. There should be many for those who

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099496368621080192004-11-03T10:37:00.000-05:002004-11-03T10:39:28.620-05:00

Ohioans' opinions shot up in value The Morning After, and National Public Radio's Morning Edition was buying. The program passed a cellphone around Cafe Momus on Brown Street in Akron to get the takes of people on the presidential election that will not end. The voters were split, with two backers of President Bush and three for Sen. John Kerry, appropriate since Kerry won Summit County, as Al

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099495138895204912004-11-03T10:15:00.000-05:002004-11-03T12:54:12.733-05:00

Diebold Inc. stock began the morning up almost 2 percent at $49.59. No wonder. The Green company's voting machines functioned well while some of their competitors - including Danaher Controls' touch-screens - experienced problems. Makes an Ohioblog wonder about the judgment of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who blocked the machines from being installed by counties that wanted to use

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099493469200319282004-11-03T09:47:00.000-05:002004-11-03T13:03:31.656-05:00

Ohioans joined voters in 10 other states in telling gays where they should go - which is not here, at least not if they want their relationships to be be recognized in a legal - or generous - way. By 3-to-2, Ohioans followed the lead of Cincinnatian Phil Burress and the Citizens for Community Values and voted to amend Ohio's constitution with the most far-reaching anti-gay marriage language in

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099488909319143542004-11-03T08:33:00.000-05:002004-11-03T08:35:09.320-05:00

J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state, has the floor. He isn't likely to yield it anytime soon. Democratic Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards want every vote counted. That could take awhile. Counting of provisional ballots may not begin until after 10 days of scrutiny to determine whether the some 175,000 ballots were cast by properly registered voters. Because there was question about

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099487253315765432004-11-03T08:06:00.000-05:002004-11-03T08:07:33.316-05:00

Mike Hanke knows Stark County. But after picking every president since 1960, Stark County reflects neither Ohio nor the nation. Hanke, the general manager of the The Repository in Canton, predicted Kerry would win this Ohio county considered a bellwether for the nation. Kerry did, 51 percent to 49 percent in what proved a record turnout of at least 186,252 voters. Hanke had predicted a Kerry

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099480913984301062004-11-03T06:20:00.000-05:002004-11-03T06:21:53.986-05:00

Go to bed for four hours and this is what happens: Ohio is still standing - the new Florida, as Ohioblog had anticipated. With a 140,000-vote lead, President Bush appears to have won but with some 200,000 provisional ballots remaining to counted was unwilling to say he had won. Sen. John Kerry has refused to concede, and until Ohio is officially decided, the president has only 254 of the 270

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099463897076853832004-11-03T01:35:00.000-05:002004-11-03T01:40:02.210-05:00

President Bush paints a clear line of demarcation. He says the world changed on 9/11. Thousands of Americans died that day at the hand of terrorists. More than a thousand others have died in a faraway land fighting a war the president has tied to 9/11 like a can to the tail of a dog. But the president is wrong about one thing: Not everything in the world changed on 9/11. If you look at the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099459794827574552004-11-03T01:28:00.000-05:002004-11-03T00:29:54.826-05:00

Just as was the case in 2000, whoever wins the presidency will receive nothing close to a mandate. The country remains as deeply divided as it was four years ago and afflicted with even more bitterness. A president can govern without acknowledging this fact. One has for the past four years. He just cannot govern well without a sense of and striving for some small patch of common ground held by

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099452602512748342004-11-02T22:27:00.000-05:002004-11-02T22:30:02.513-05:00

Issue 1, the ban on gay marriage, has passed. Ohio is now the proud owner of the most socially conservative, anti-gay, anti-any-union-but-heterosexual-marriage constitutional amendment of any state in the country. Makes Blog want to pack up and move to Vermont tomorrow.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099452166252180582004-11-02T22:19:00.000-05:002004-11-02T22:22:46.253-05:00

Joe Lockhart, President Clinton's former press secretary for and now an aide to Sen. John Kerry, needs to work on his Ohio geography. While running down the areas in which Al Gore fared well in 2000 and thus Kerry may do the same, Lockhart mentioned Summit County and then preceded to connect it with Warren, where Kerry held a recent rally. Close Joe, but no cigar (forgive the reference; it

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099449825208711662004-11-02T21:42:00.000-05:002004-11-02T21:45:28.706-05:00

As anticipated, Ohio is a voting mess. Reports of long lines at polling places in Cuyahoga (189,440 new registrants) and Franklin (124,324) counties, lawsuits for redress and judicial response ordering the issuance of paper ballots, which, of course, will prompt more lawsuits. While all sides were fighting over whether the new registratants in Ohio were real, they turned up at the polls and

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099435466109851692004-11-02T17:42:00.000-05:002004-11-02T17:49:55.340-05:00

The polls will close in Ohio in two hours. It took Ohioblog 25 minutes to get through the longest line Blog has seen in almost 25 years at Green's Precinct 2-D. Most of the mid-morning voters were older, but some of Blog's student journalists at the Buchtelite, the University of Akron's independent student newspaper, waited more than an hour to vote. Don't tell Blog that these students don't care

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099393815732759032004-11-02T06:09:00.000-05:002004-11-02T06:12:06.173-05:00

The polls open in Ohio in a few minutes. Ohioblog will be closed during Election Day so that Blog can do some investigative voting (someone has to see what's going on at the polls since U.S. District Judge Paul Matia of Cleveland denied the media access). Ohioblog will reopen tonight or early tomorrow as results warrant. - Steve Love

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099364930840197812004-11-01T22:08:00.000-05:002004-11-01T22:10:36.823-05:00

No one knows Stark County better than Michael E. Hanke, general manager of The Repository in Canton. That's why this is important: Hanke says in his Monday column that ``John Kerry wins Stark County with 52 percent to 53 percent of the vote because Stark Countians, like much of the country, aren’t happy with the economy. And, if Kerry wins Stark County, Kerry wins the country because Stark County

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099325236371998072004-11-01T11:00:00.000-05:002004-11-01T11:19:03.876-05:00

Ohio has lived up to its early campaign promise. The election will likely turn on what Ohioans do tomorrow. The candidates, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry, came early and often and stayed late. Kerry, in fact, won't bail out the state until tonight after he is joined by rocker Bruce Springsteen in Cleveland for an election-eve rally. The world is watching. And what it may see is a state

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099324822024568092004-11-01T10:56:00.000-05:002004-11-01T11:22:12.326-05:00

Since this is final Ohioblog before Election Day, the Blog wants to commend a piece to you written for The Christian Science Monitor by Lee Hamilton, director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University, former Democratic congressman from Indiana, and, most recently, vice chair of the 9/11 Commission. Hamilton suggests that we must select leaders who ``aren't just in it for themselves.'' But

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099324579871983202004-11-01T10:54:00.000-05:002004-11-01T10:56:19.870-05:00

John Tierney of The New York Times has put together a final exam for those following the presidential election, which, of course, we Ohioans have been. Any test that continues these multiple choices to one question meets Ohioblog's criterion for a great test: Al Quaeda, Al Dente, Al Qaqaa, Al Qaselzur and Al Roker (a former Ohioan, we might add).

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099318789748433842004-11-01T09:17:00.000-05:002004-11-01T09:29:09.610-05:00

Ohioblog's poll boycott remains in effect, with a deviation. It should be noted that USA Today/CNN/Gallup and the Des Moines Register find early voters in Florida and Iowa supporting Sen. John Kerry. This isn't a poll in the strictest sense. These are voter-reported early results - not whom they will vote for but whom they have voted for. In Florida: Kerry 51 percent, President Bush 43 percent.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099318616525679162004-11-01T09:15:00.000-05:002004-11-01T09:16:56.526-05:00

Tom Shales, Washington Post television columnist, was not impressed by the way either President Bush or Sen. John Kerry used the medium that became the message in the hands of such TV titans as John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Shales finds, ``George W. Bush, the recumbent incumbent, about as exciting on TV as a sock puppet...'' and ``John Kerry, a man with less channelable

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099318496542580412004-11-01T09:12:00.000-05:002004-11-01T09:21:27.786-05:00

Here's an update, courtesy of Editor&Publisher and its exclusive tally of newspaper endorsements (not including the Youngstown Vindicator). E&P's more or less final count has Sen. John Kerry receiving 208 endorsements to President Bush's 169. Kerry won the final Sunday of endorsements, 22 to 18, but the president picked up the New York Daily News, which endorsed Al Gore in 2000. Greg Mitchell

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099263234840526452004-10-31T17:49:00.000-05:002004-10-31T18:01:44.890-05:00

[{[; is a brave teacher. She must have tenure. She is responsible for what may be the first play at the University of Akron featuring an all-black cast. (There seems to be some debate about whether this is the first. Suffice it to say, it is a rare event.) She deserves our admiration for putting on August Wilson's Fences, winner of the 1987 Pulitizer Prize, and standing firm in the wake

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099250000374279442004-10-31T14:08:00.000-05:002004-10-31T14:46:12.953-05:00

Flordians have a love/hate relationship with snowbirds. Ohioblog knows because Blog once was one - a Floridian, not a snowbird. Floridians love the fact that snowbirds feather their state's economic nest, but they dislike the ancilliary problems such as traffic that snowbirds bring during the winter months when it is cold in places such as Ohio. Now, Ohioans also have a reason to add snowbirds to

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099249631434029882004-10-31T14:06:00.000-05:002004-10-31T14:17:51.063-05:00

Every statewide Democratic officeholder should put Associate Editor Michael Douglas's column from the Akron Beacon Journal about example-setter Eric Fingerhut on the wall. Oops, Democrats hold no statewide offices so they have no offices and no walls. OK, next best thing: You Dems put this baby under the pillow at night. At least you can dream.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099231497342518842004-10-31T09:02:00.000-05:002004-10-31T09:07:46.193-05:00

The Youngstown Vindicator was to be the last of Ohio's larger newspapers to endorse. It is not, however, available on Vindy.com, the newpaper's two-tier Web site, one part available to freeloaders such as Ohioblog, the other locked and open only to those who are (paid - $5.05 per month) members. So let Blog get this straight: newspapers want to share their opinion on the most important issue of

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099229757547256882004-10-31T08:33:00.000-05:002004-10-31T08:37:06.263-05:00

Want a break from politics? Try David Giffels' column in the Akron Beacon Journal. David exposes the demise of Archie the talking Snowman, a 35-year tradition at Akron's Chapel Hill Mall. Come to think of it, this isn't much of a break. This is the politics of seasonal marketing and, with Richard Buchholozer no longer in charge, the ordinariness of Santa Claus has won. Ohioblog hopes Chapel Hill

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099229060535313282004-10-31T08:21:00.000-05:002004-10-31T08:24:20.536-05:00

Ohioblog's poll boycott continues, despite the fact that Blog's sponsor, the Akron Beacon Journal, is out with the final Knight-Ridder/MSNBC series of its battleground state polls. While I would agree that polls have their use (you'll notice that they've appeared in Ohioblog through the summer and into the fall), they've reached their point of uselessness. Snapshots in time are irrelevant now.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099151222797998522004-10-30T11:38:00.000-04:002004-10-30T11:47:02.796-04:00

Pity the federal judiciary in Ohio. They're working this weekend (hmmm, seems as if Ohioblog has been doing the very same thing) to decide whether we can get in one another's faces at the polls come Tuesday. Between the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals, U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott in Cincinnati and boards of election such as Summit's which threw out unsupportable Republican challenges to voter

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099150676123740382004-10-30T11:36:00.000-04:002004-10-30T11:37:56.123-04:00

Tired of the political ads yet? They are wall to wall, and for every three from President Bush there are four from the camp of Sen. John Kerry. The Democratic challenger husbanded his advertising money, going dark on TV screens in August, just for this moment. Kerry is about to find out if there can be too much of a good (bad?) thing in this crucial swing state.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099148935389499482004-10-30T11:05:00.000-04:002004-10-30T11:10:37.583-04:00

President Bush happened to be in Ohio - what are the chances? - when he responded to Osama bin Laden's election good wishes and assorted vague terrorism threats. Both he and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, made it clear that Americans stand together on this issue, if not at the polls. There was little difference in their responses, though David Brooks, The New York Times columnist,

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099145637267455032004-10-30T10:11:00.000-04:002004-10-30T10:13:57.266-04:00

Eventually this election will be over. Then what? Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, is not optimistic about what the next president will face: ``Whoever wins the presidency is going to face the toughest, most rancorous and most divisive governing climate in modern times.'' Unlike 2000, the contentiousness will not go turn into

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099145442574458072004-10-30T10:08:00.000-04:002004-10-30T10:15:35.586-04:00

Hurry and you still might get to see and hear Michael Moore at noon today in the Knight Auditorium in Leigh Hall at the University of Akron. Theater professor Susan Speers is playing host to Moore, whose Fahrenheit 9/11 has been among the many controversies of the presidential campaign. On Sunday, TV conservative talker Sean Hannity will appear at the John S. Knight Center but all the tickets are

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099144481735382942004-10-30T09:53:00.000-04:002004-10-30T09:54:41.736-04:00

The Ohioblog poll boycott remains in place. Four days to go. If you must have a numbers fix, RealClearPolitics has so many that they could cause math anxiety. Deciphered, they all say this: After lo these many campaign days, no one knows with any degree of certainty whether President Bush will win re-election or be unseated by Sen. John Kerry. That's why they hold an actual election. More of the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099060513644137752004-10-29T10:30:00.000-04:002004-10-29T18:42:23.533-04:00

If the Ohio Republican Party's voter challenges around the state are similar to the 976 thrown out in Summit County, Ohio deserves to be regarded as this election's national joke. All a person needs to know about the farce that occurred at the Summit County Board of Elections is that Alex Arshinkoff, chairman of the country Republican Party, sought to distance himself from this insult to voters

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099059538447623922004-10-29T10:17:00.000-04:002004-10-29T10:18:58.446-04:00

The Boston Red Sox's Curt Schilling, who pitched until the stiched-together tendons in his right foot bled through his sock, has gone to bat for President Bush. Doesn't he know that Sen. John Kerry is the real Red Sox fan, not Bush, former owner of the Texas Rangers?

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099059056469942992004-10-29T10:08:00.000-04:002004-10-29T18:41:24.336-04:00

Akron/Canton has been Focus Group Central for The Boston Globe as it has sought to understand Ohio and its voters. Yvonne Abraham writes about a final pre-election dinner with six voters, who were part of The Globe's larger focus group, recruited with help from the Center for Policy Studies at the University of Akron. Of the six voters, two had chosen President Bush during the summer and of the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099057501846536592004-10-29T09:42:00.000-04:002004-10-29T09:47:02.693-04:00

Here's a stupid rule: The Plain Dealer reports that U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Lorain, who represents a hunk of Summit County cannot serve as an elector for Sen. John Kerry should Kerry win Ohio. Seems the U.S. Constitution bars federal officeholders from serving this function. The ban may have made sense when the Founding Fathers thought of electors as representatives who picked a president from

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099052139206736132004-10-29T08:11:00.000-04:002004-10-29T18:51:05.283-04:00

Beyond the good economic news that Akron will retain jobs in the rubber industry, the diligence of the city's economic team has saved its face. Akron is the heart of polymer knowledge, of which rubber is just one. That heart has become centered at the University of Akron and its colleges of colleges of polymer science and polymer engineering. Beyond that, however, there are scores of operations

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099051895210124062004-10-29T08:01:00.000-04:002004-10-29T18:52:19.943-04:00

HypoSpeak is putting its money where its blog is. Now that the Summit County challenges have been deep-sixed, HypoSpeak is seeking proof of the Kerry campaign's ```massive and systematic voter fraud' that...Bob Bennett and the Ohio Republican Party have so regularly claimed in the past two weeks.'' It will hand over a $100 reward to anyone in the press who can provide the same. Ethics (yep,

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1099050993451220192004-10-29T07:53:00.000-04:002004-10-29T07:59:44.020-04:00

Ohioblog leads a double life. When I'm not blogging to death my few remaining brain cells to bring you the best of Ohiocentric election notes and commentary, I'm at the Buchtelite, the University of Akron's independent student newspapers. One of the more independent and talented voices at the Buchtelite belongs to Kristin Snowberger, senior writer and former news editor. Kristin is especially

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098977722459972602004-10-28T11:34:00.000-04:002004-10-28T11:43:00.863-04:00

Now that U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott in Cincinnati has stopped some voter registration challenge hearings in the state even as others continue, it makes Ohio an more perfect microcosm of America. Voters will be treated differently if they live in Medina and Cuyahoga counties (challenges blocked) than they are if they live in Summit County (challenge hearings were reported to be proceeding

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098975882709246912004-10-28T10:59:00.000-04:002004-10-28T11:04:42.710-04:00

David Broder, the respected columnist for The Washington Post, anticipates Tuesday's vote not only in Ohio but across the land ``for what we may learn about this country of ours.'' Broder is correct when he says that ``Every election is a portrait of the nation and its people, and it will be even more fascinating than usual to see what patterns emerge from the returns this year.'' Those patterns,

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098973996885967512004-10-28T10:31:00.000-04:002004-10-28T10:37:40.193-04:00

The Boss is appearing with Sen. John Kerry today at Ohio State Univerity. The Arnold will stand with President Bush in Columbus on Friday. And, on election eve, Bruce Springsteen will return for a rally in Cleveland. John Campanelli of The Plain Dealer asked University of Cincinnati pollster Eric Rademacher what difference the stars coming out in Ohio will make in the contest for this swing

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098971001377233382004-10-28T09:38:00.000-04:002004-10-28T09:46:34.140-04:00

During his visit to the Mahoning Valley, a Democratic stronghold, President Bush not only appeared with Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey and U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, Democrats who support him, but he also invoked the names of late, great Democrats such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and John F. Kennedy. This is political sacrilege, and Caroline Kennedy

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098967883028230532004-10-28T08:49:00.000-04:002004-10-28T09:37:50.216-04:00

The WMD Light issue (those missing Iraqi explosives) proves this about the presidential candidates: Sen. John Kerry will jump to any conclusion to win, and President Bush will deny any culpability to get re-elected. It should be noted that The New York Times broke this story on Sunday. President Bush's first comments on the missing explosives did not come until Wednesday. Maybe he was saving the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098967761314532912004-10-28T08:47:00.000-04:002004-10-28T08:49:21.316-04:00

Here's a campaign contradiction: While President Bush was at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport calling up the image of 9/11 and touting the promises he made in the wake of that tragedy, the principal advocacy group for families of 9/11 victimes were in Washington blistering the president and some House Republicans for failure to enact recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission. The

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098967220210791032004-10-28T08:38:00.000-04:002004-10-28T08:46:24.146-04:00

Give Michigan the credit. SBC Communications cannot buy The Game. The Ohio State-Michigan football game will not be called The SBC Michigan-Ohio State Classic after all. It would be nice to report that good sense prevailed in Columbus upon consulting instant replay the call to sell the name of The Game to SBC was reversed. It wasn't. The impetus for canceling the $1 million deal came from Ann

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098910633080358092004-10-27T16:53:00.000-04:002004-10-27T20:39:14.333-04:00

J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State, made a good call when he told the state's 88 county election boards to allow challenged voters to cast provisional ballots on Election Day. The Ohio Republican Party filed more than 35,000 registration challenges last week and even though it has begun to drop some of them, the action created a logjam of voter-eligibility hearings that might not end

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098910336730105342004-10-27T16:35:00.000-04:002004-10-27T20:55:20.710-04:00

Editor&Publisher, the press-industry biggie that has done such a commendable job of providing Ohioblog with endorsement information to steal, reports that The Plain Dealer's director of community affairs, Shirley Steinman, told the mazazine that the newspaper would decide which candidate ``later this week'' and a few hours later the Let-the-Reader-Decide non-endorsement was published. If another

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098909220106109532004-10-27T16:30:00.000-04:002004-10-27T20:53:14.746-04:00

The media are unfair. Or, to put it another way, the media have been more fair to Sen. John Kerry than to President Bush in recent weeks. That's the conclusion of a survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. ``The press always likes the race to tighten, and the debates offered that moment,'' project director Tom Rosenstiel told The Boston Globe. ``In a year that is confusing and when the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098905016427931432004-10-27T15:20:00.000-04:002004-10-27T15:23:36.426-04:00

Ohio sports columnists have begun to weigh in on SBC Communications' purchase of the naming rights to the Ohio State-Michigan football game. Tom Reed of the Akron Beacon Journal shares Ohioblog's consternation at the over- and unnecessary commercialization of Ohio State football, and Bob Hunter of The Columbus Dispatch considers it just the price of doing business, separating the athletic from

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098904733728258982004-10-27T15:17:00.000-04:002004-10-27T17:12:30.933-04:00

Here are a couple of interesting opinions: One from The Nation, a publication to the left of the Left Coast, in which Christopher Hitchens who is slightly for President Bush and conservative Andrew Sullivan who is for Sen. John Kerry. The flip-flop season continues to the end.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098904191841086722004-10-27T14:59:00.000-04:002004-10-27T15:13:14.730-04:00

While we must wait until Sunday for the Youngstown Vindicator Sunday to complete the cycle of the larger Ohio newspaper endorsements (4 are for Bush, 3 are for Kerry and 1 refuses to make a choice), Ohioblog wants to share three endorsements (all for Kerry) from liberal Vermont. While Vermont is not much like Ohio (we both have cows), its newspapers are much better than their circulation and

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098903445796552062004-10-27T14:54:00.000-04:002004-10-27T14:57:25.796-04:00

``These terrorist acts and, you know, the responses have got to end in order for us to get the framework - the groundwork, not the framework - the groundwork to discuss a framework for peace, to lay the - all right.'' - George W. Bush Aug. 13, 2001 on former U.S. Sen. Geroge Mitchell's Middle East peace blueprint Presidential (Mis)Speak: The Very Curious Language of George W. Bush Ohioblog

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098910841211450882004-10-27T14:53:00.000-04:002004-10-27T17:00:41.210-04:00

Ohioblog's boycott of last-week polls continues. To understand why, check out David Knox's story in the Akron Beacon Journal. And for those who must have their numbers, however, wrong, go to RealClearPolitics.com.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098903289061117372004-10-27T14:52:00.000-04:002004-10-27T20:37:55.626-04:00

Due to server problems, Ohioblog is posted later than usual today. Clean-up work was completed and missing links supplied as of 9 p.m. - Ohio time, of course. - Steve Love

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098803259966618042004-10-26T11:03:00.000-04:002004-10-26T11:10:45.680-04:00

The Plain Dealer can begin calling itself The Readers Newspaper, because Tuesday it officially abandoned its professional responsibility to everyone with a couple quarters to rub together. Ohio's largest newspaper has chosen to sit on the sidelines of this important presidential election under the guise of believing its ``readers are perfectly capable of judging...'' They're right about that.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098802983370382002004-10-26T11:00:00.000-04:002004-10-26T11:03:03.370-04:00

It's official. Nothing is sacred. Everything is for sale. The Ohio State University has joined Michigan in selling the name of its renown football game to SBC Communications for slightly more than $1 million. It isn't good enough to just be Ohio State-Michigan or The Game. Now it will be the SBC Michigan-Ohio State Classic. ``That's unbelieveable,'' former OSU fullback Harold ``Champ'' Henson

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098802778704152862004-10-26T10:56:00.000-04:002004-10-26T11:13:16.263-04:00

The Timken Co. has issued a response to what it terms as ``misinformation.'' It's a thorough response and many of its arguments are compelling. It does not, however, address the decisions made by the company and its executives to become visibily involved with President Bush and his policies, many of which have benefitted the company (and by association its workers and shareholders) Timken might

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098802430264897492004-10-26T10:50:00.000-04:002004-10-26T10:53:50.266-04:00

Here's an irony (an often misused word): President Bush will benefit in Ohio because Issue 1 to ban gay marriage (and any other kind of personal arrangement outside of heterosexual marriage) is on the ballot and will attract conservative voters to the polls. Over the weekend, the president told Charles Gibson of ABC's Good Morning America that he doesn't think ``we should deny people rights to a

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098802108722580432004-10-26T10:46:00.000-04:002004-10-26T11:30:59.946-04:00

Need the latest numbers on the presidential campaign? RealClearPolitics is the best source. Ohioblog continues its boycott of the polls because they no longer matter in a tie that will be decided in seven days. - Steve Love

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098756159103838682004-10-25T22:00:00.000-04:002004-10-25T22:05:48.276-04:00

Ohioblog needs to correct a point and thank Peter Wray of the Ohio Civil Servie Employees Association for bringing it to his attention. The Columbus Dispatch was not one of the two newspapers in the United States to switch from George W. Bush in 2000 to the Democratic side this year. Ohioblog should have know better. The Dispatch is as Republican as the Tafts. It has not endorsed a Democrat since

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098716870724938372004-10-25T11:06:00.000-04:002004-10-25T11:07:50.723-04:00

This is a sad day at Ohioblog. Friend and former colleague Roland Queen died of bone cancer last week at 59 . His funeral is today. We shared many press boxes over the years. He was a good and gentle soul, too few of whom we have in this state or any other. Today, we say farewell. Rest in peace, Roland. You will be missed but not forgotten.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098716184887033582004-10-25T10:54:00.000-04:002004-10-25T11:10:18.510-04:00

Michael Moore, controversial filmmaker, voting advocate and Democratic propagandist, packed the house at Kent State University's MAC Center on Sunday and democracy did not crumble. In fact, Northeast Ohio Republicans showed what a classy bunch they can be. They didn't even try to have Moore arrested for ``bribing'' college slackers to vote by giving them noodles and underwear. This was the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098713914901629242004-10-25T10:13:00.000-04:002004-10-25T10:18:34.903-04:00

Could there be peace at the polls? (Naw.) The Democrats have begun to act to help their voters to get to the correct polling place, and Republicans have withdrawn some of their registration challenges in Hamilton County while many of their other challenges have been thrown out due to a glitch in the computer program used to prepare the filings. On a Sunday swing that took him fromm Cincinnati to

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098709881503193282004-10-25T09:08:00.000-04:002004-10-25T09:11:21.503-04:00

Once Ohioblog took a break from compiling endorsements, there was time to read Julie Carr Smyth's telling profile of Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in Sunday's The Plain Dealer. It's worth every Ohioan's time, because this is the Ken Blackwell I know from meetings with the Akron Beacon Journal editorial board and numerous one-on-one conversations (mostly by phone) over the years.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098708460877592512004-10-25T08:42:00.000-04:002004-10-25T08:47:40.876-04:00

Toledo attorney Mark Adams, the Dispassionate Liberal, has launched a letter-writing campaign to The Plain Dealer to express consternation over the possibility that the newspaper will endorse President Bush on orders from Publisher Alex Machaskee, who may override the collective decision of the PD's editorial board. On his Web site and with e-mails, Adams is asking that Northeast Ohioans: ``Let

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098705030523818542004-10-25T07:44:00.000-04:002004-10-25T22:04:49.926-04:00

Editor&Publisher has again updated its list of endorsements and created a list of the endorsing newspapers by candidate and state. The findings would be bad news for President Bush if people used the endorsements as what they are meant to be - one part of the decision-making process. Read Akron Beacon Journal Public Editor Mike Needs' Sunday column and it continues to be obvious that many people

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098643884716486482004-10-24T14:50:00.000-04:002004-10-24T14:51:24.716-04:00

What are you doing looking at these when the Browns are playing?

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098642255989354792004-10-24T13:45:00.000-04:002004-10-24T14:48:57.786-04:00

There's trouble in Comeback City - or is it the Capital of Poverty? Whatever it is, Cleveland woke up this morning to no presidential endorsement from The Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper. Ohioblog and others sent up early warnings of the conflict occuring between the newspaper's editorial board and its publisher, Alex Machaskee. The Plain Dealer did not promise it would publish an

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098642687410242112004-10-24T13:38:00.000-04:002004-10-24T14:45:38.396-04:00

Non-Ohio endorsements for Sen. John Kerry (not all inclusive) Washington Post On many other issues, Mr. Kerry has the better approach. He has a workable plan to provide health insurance to more Americans; the 45 million uninsured represent a shameful abdication that appears not to have concerned Mr. Bush one whit. Where Mr. Bush ignored the dangers of climate change and favored industry at the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098633996369934412004-10-24T13:03:00.000-04:002004-10-24T12:06:36.370-04:00

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell scored a victory in the 6th U.S. Circuit court of Appeals in Cincinnati and so Ohioans will have to make sure they make it to the right precinct if they want to vote on Election Day. The appeals court reversed the more generous (and Ohioblog thinks correct) ruling of U.S. District Judge James G. Carr of Toledo that a voter could cast a provisional

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098631626373809142004-10-24T11:24:00.000-04:002004-10-24T11:54:32.090-04:00

Howard Fineman of Newsweek recognizes that Ohio is ``The Next Florida'' in his continuing series from the swing state of swing states...Chris Suellentrop's Slate ``On the Trail'' column would lead a person to wonder if President Bush has given up on Ohio (I don't think so)...Even the Wall Street Jounral knows that Ohio's joblessness could sway the state's 20 electoral votes...When Election Day

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098555848495640882004-10-23T14:19:00.000-04:002004-10-23T14:28:20.426-04:00

Ohioans were beginning to think President Bush was pulling an Al Gore. He hadn't been to Ohio in three weeks. Four years ago, Gore pulled out of Ohio earlier because he thought that Bush owned the state only to discover that a more determined effort here might have allowed him to win the electoral vote as well as the popular one. The president's absense, if anything, had been based upon what his

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098550590569310422004-10-23T13:53:00.000-04:002004-10-23T12:58:08.196-04:00

Maureen Dowd sets off bells. They're either chimes of praise or clangors of alarm. There is no middle range with The New York Times columnist. Love her or loathe her, give Dowd this: she is good at melding ideas and phrases. Today on Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know? radio program, Dowd found a new way to describe the isolation with which candidates (and those who go on to become president) can

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098552937663233672004-10-23T13:32:00.000-04:002004-10-23T13:35:37.663-04:00

Election Day will be a test for Ohioans' generosity of spirit. If The Ohio Poll is right, we're going to fail it. The Ohio Poll, conducted by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati, finds that despite the opposition of the state's political and business leaders and some of its largest groups, such as AARP, that 57 percent intend to vote for Issue 1 and ban gay marriage,

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098543865140147082004-10-23T11:01:00.000-04:002004-10-23T11:10:31.666-04:00

Ohio gained 5,500 jobs in September, which is good news. The question is, of course, what kind of jobs. How much do they pay? Can a person support a family with this new job? The Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services does not provide these answers in its monthly reports, but at least in this final tally before Election Day, the state made gains. It had lost 12,000 jobs in August. Ohioblog

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098539351251089862004-10-23T09:44:00.000-04:002004-10-23T09:50:01.780-04:00

President Bush's strategists brought out the big dog of ads Friday, but Sen. John Kerry's camp did not hide its head in the sand. It countered by giving the administration the bird - no, not that bird; an ostrich. The attacks - and that's all these efforts are; they generate heat but shed little light - fall into the grand tradition of political ads but fails to rise to the outrage level of

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098481990349802422004-10-22T17:51:00.000-04:002004-10-22T17:53:55.713-04:00

As if Ohio Secretary of State (Disaster?) J. Kenneth Blackwell did not have enough problems with his election rulings, he has gone from the frying pan to the fire by deciding to play Farmer Ken. In that role, he has described same-sex marriage as `barnyard logic.'' As a person might expect, there are those who took exception to Blackwell's description, and his explanation of it and his support

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098480695353991192004-10-22T17:27:00.000-04:002004-10-22T17:39:33.013-04:00

Dana Reeve did in Columbus something she was loath to do. It took super willpower. But she knew she had to do it. She appeared with Sen. John Kerry and endorsed his broader vision of stem cell research 11 days after her husband, Christopher Reeve, star of four Superman movies, died. ``Eleven days ago, a light went out of my life,'' she said. ``When chris died, the world lost a truly inspiration

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098457909545484622004-10-22T11:10:00.000-04:002004-10-22T11:11:49.546-04:00

Ohioblog has sworn off polls for the moment. If you haven't, you could look at the continuation of the Knight Ridder-MSNBC material, at a new AP-Ipsos Public Affairs poll that shows the race tied (oh really?) and, of course, the clearing house for all polls, RealClearPolitics.com.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098457116737509952004-10-22T10:55:00.000-04:002004-10-22T11:13:38.246-04:00

The hot-button national issue of terrorism has become a part of the Ohio Senate 20th District in Southeast Ohio. One of the candidates should be familiar not only to Ohioans, but also to most Americans. His face was on our TV screeens for years. Democrat Terry Anderson, a former war correspondent who was held captive by Iranians in Lebanon for almost seven years, is trying to unseat Republican

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098452532464533692004-10-22T09:32:00.000-04:002004-10-23T13:39:53.983-04:00

Before Ralph Hake became chairman and CEO of Maytag, its Hoover Co. floor-care products division was both big and profitable. Now, it is neither, and Hake says, ``I am more interested in having Hoover be profitable than having Hoover be big.'' This is not good news for North Canton and Stark County. Hake has fired more than 500 of the salaried staff (disclosure: that would include Ms. Ohioblog).

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098448399035058662004-10-22T08:29:00.000-04:002004-10-22T08:33:19.036-04:00

The Plain Dealer's editorial endorsement for president should be interesting, if this third-hand information is correct. It comes to Ohioblog via a friend who discovered it at Atrois with the e-mail address of plainjane2515@earthlink.net attached. Anyway, here's what's out there in the wonderful world of cyperspace: ``According to a source at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, earlier this week the

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098444690738121702004-10-22T07:29:00.000-04:002004-10-22T07:31:30.740-04:00

Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney seized upon Sen. John Kerry's hokey Look-Ma-I'm-a-Hunter Poland goose shoot photo-op to criticize the senator. The president altered his debate you-can-run-but-you-can't-hide-you-crummy-liberal rhetoric to say, ``He can run, he can even run in camo, but he cannot hide.'' Still, the vice president thought hiding was just what Kerry was attempting. ``My

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098443623131460892004-10-22T07:12:00.000-04:002004-10-22T07:13:43.133-04:00

``I think it's very important for world leaders to understand that, when a new administration comes in, the new administration will be running the foreign policy.'' - George W. Bush Jan. 12, 2001 in USA Today Presidential (Mis)Speak: The Very Curious Language of George W. Bush Glad we got that straightened out. - Steve Love

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098391264623253232004-10-21T16:37:00.000-04:002004-10-21T16:41:04.623-04:00

Camouflage-attired Sen. John Kerry bagged a Canada goose Thursday from a blind near Poland (for non-Ohioans, Poland is new Youngstown, not next door to Belarus). This confirms what Ohioblog has suspected all along: Kerry has been on a wild goose chase in our swing state.

Ohioblog: A Swing State Journalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610842136499923671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8090053.post-1098370617788739532004-10-21T10:53:00.000-04:002004-10-22T10:37:32.853-04:00

What do presidential polls and vitamins have in common? They're one-a-days. At least one a day. Ohioblog is tired of them, but the most recent comes from Knight Ridder-MSNBC, so homage should be paid to it. (Note: Ohioblog is an Akron Beacon Journal production and the Beacon Journal is a Knight Ridder newspaper, the first Knight newspaper to be precise.) The good thing about the Knight Ridder

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Author Mark Slouka would likely endorse the idea of quiet time mentioned in the preceding item. He writes in the November issue of Harper's magazine about ``Quitting the Paint Factory: On the virtues of idleness.'' (Harper's Web site is here, but the essay is not available.) It is an old concept but one with which we Americans are increasingingly unfamiliar. Here in Ohio, we are particularly

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When Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, visited Canton on Wednesday, he met with workers from Timken who are in danger of losing their jobs and those from Hoover who have lost theirs. (Laid off is an inaccurate euphemism when applied to the Hoover's to the more than 500 Hoover salaried workers whose jobs parent Maytag integrated into its Iowa operations. The workers

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In a Knight Ridder Newspapers campaign trail story from Iowa, Sen. John Kerry's advisers tell Thomas Fitzgerald and Ron Hutcheson that ``Kerry's biggest hurdle may be the reluctance of many undecided voters to `fire' the president in wartime.'' That's interesting. If it is the war in Iraq to which the aides are referring rather than the more nebulous war on terrorism, President Bush's greatest

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Good thing the American Civil Liberties Union is getting its money's worth in attention from defending Karen and Alex Arshinkoff's right to have their big-as-a-barn Bush-Cheney yard sign. This is against community standards because the sign is not sufficiently Hudsonish. In other words, it is not Western Reserve tasteful. Attorney Jeffrey Gamso, legal director for the ACLU of Ohio, appeared with

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The best quote from Ohio about the presidential campaign comes from Bud Greku, who works at Morris Pawn shop in Canton. He told the Akron Beacon Journal's Jim Carney that he was voting for Sen. John Kerry because: ``I would like to be lied to by somebody different.'' Ohioblog nominates Bud as official Ohio spokesman for the remainder of the campaign.

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Every four years, Ohioans and their fellow Americans rediscover the strange wonders and oddities of the Electoral College, the indirect, Rube Goldbergesque manner in which we elect our president. Because those who would have to amend the Constitution - members of the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and state legislators - create power for themselves by helping to deliver a state in the

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A new Ohio Poll from the University of Cincinnati shows exactly what might be expected. The race is a statistical deadheat, with 48 percent of Ohio's likely voters favoring Sen. John Kerry and 46 percent of them opting for President Bush, with a 3.6 percentage-point margin of error. ``The numbers do look good for John Kerry,'' Eric W. Rademacheer of the university's Institute for Policy Research

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The Akron Beacon Journal has joined The Plain Dealer in endorsing U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette for a sixth term of representing Ohio's 14th District, which includes northeast Summit County. The editorial board's conclusion: LaTourette has done a good job and his Democratic challenger, Capri Cafaro, is an empty dress. If the assessment of Ohioblog's former colleagues in the editorial department is,

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This presidential campaign has been the most informal that Ohioblog can remember. Both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry have adopted a tie-less, open-collar look for many of their campaign appearances. Of the four men on the two tickets, Dick Cheney remains the most formal. He even wore his tie Tuesday to Price Hill Chili, a West Side landmark in Cincinnati. Shows the vice president's

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