Well… Mrs. Editor has given me permission to go to the Ohio Democratic Party Candidate Forum tonight in Columbus. Maybe I’ll see ya there.

UPDATE 7: Chas Rich and Michael Meckler comment.

UPDATE 6: Both Buckeye Senate and Buckeye Politics have sources saying that Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones will endorse Lieberman.

UPDATE 5: Ohio Activist has a diary up on MyDD supporting Chris Redfern.

UPDATE 4: Candidate Questionnaires

UPDATE 3: Chris Redfern’s office has let me know a couple of things. He only showed up a few minutes late. He had previously scheduled events before and after the evening. All fair enough. This thing was very last minute so it’s a bit petty giving him a hard time over that. (BTW, office Christmas parties are very important if you ask me. It can’t be war all the time everywhere.) The process itself is the problem, and that’s McLin’s call. Also, he’s going to step down as Minority Leader if he gets the post.

UPDATE 2: See BuckeyeSenate and Live From Dayton for more.

UPDATE: I’m back and very tired. Bumped into a lot of familiar faces. It was basically a Chris Redfern vs. the World kind of event. First thing that Dennis Eckart did was endorse Dennis Lieberman. The second thing that he should have done was leave the podium. Instead he gave a lot of beautiful speeches with time that could have been better spent letting more people ask questions and real candidates answering them.

I don’t really have a problem with Chris Redfern. The fact that he showed up late and left early may be a sign that he’s going to have a hard time devoting attention to his job. Still with a competent 2nd I could see some pluses to having the minority leader also be the voice of the party. I didn’t really hear him say anything that wowed me though.

Dennis Lieberman came off well. I liked how he talked about making it easier for people to get involved with the party. That’s a big issue for me. His main thing was his skills at candidate recruitment. To be honest I’d rather hear about skills at candidate victory, but maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

Susan Gwinn came off well. She came off as the best in terms of brass tacks organizational skills. She ended on a sour not talking about how she started out not knowing many of the people here and how people isn’t the issue but the party. She should have ended with a high note. Still, she’s got a lot of skills that will be very handy for the party.

Jane Mitakides was very articulate and had a lot of good things to say, but she hit on something that I really hate hearing Democrats say: how we can’t change things unless we are in power. WRONG. Three words: Contract With America. We need to play offense now.

Todd Portune was a no show.

Steve Reece had a lot of good things to say, even though he took a lot of time to say them. As the only African American at the podium he spelled out the tremendous risks that the party has with its base. Ken Blackwell can do some serious damage to the Democrats by taking away a lot of Black votes. The party has totally neglected their base. They aren’t recruiting Black candidates and they need to now.

Questions from the audience brought out a lot of pain and frustration that people are feeling. How the Democrats have not been defending fraud against Black voters. A woman who’s son is serving in Iraq talked about how neither Party is leading on the issue. The dangers of electronic voting machines came up many times. Chris Redfern took credit for finding the Diebold email about helping Bush take Ohio and the head of the company resigning. The problem is that while he is gone the machines are still here.

To be honest with you, the Democratic Party in Ohio is incredibly segregated. Blackwell & Co have done a very good cutting into that base. 2006 will do even more damage if they’re not careful. We need a head of the Party that will build the base, make it easier for people to get involved, and desegregate the Party. The person that I most liked for that job was a Ms. Reece who asked a question in the audience. She seemed to be related to Steven Reece, but I’d have to check on that. In any case they need to be listening to what she had to say. Democrats are doing a piss poor job empowering their base. If they aren’t careful that base could become little more than a cloud of dust.

In the end this event may have been little more than a night of lip service to reduce the clamor for more inclusiveness in the decision making. I think that the grass roots is making a mistake focusing on the top position. You can’t just barge into the adults table your first day and demand to order for everyone. We need to get more involved with the day to day activities of the party. The Christian Evangelicals were able to take over the Republican Party by focusing on the little jobs. We need to do the same.