Ohio 2nd Blog

I guess I’m feeling nostalgic today:

• On synergy between national and local bloggers
  (commenting on this post by Matt Stoller)
• Evaluating Tactics
  (replying to this comment by blogswarm)

Things must be very pretty desperate if they’re resorting to this already. I guess disenfranchising voters only goes so far.

This is going to be one ugly election cycle. I expect that by October their heads will be spinning like tops as green bile spews out of their mouths. The key thing is to stay focused and not let ourselves be dragged down to their level.

UPDATE: The gang over @ BSB don’t think it’s a push poll. Their rational sounds right, although it spoils my effort at sensationalizing.

Great summary of the do nothing important Congress by Oliver Willis:

• Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage: it failed
• Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning: it failed
• Spent 40 hours debating faulty, non-binding resolution on Iraq
• Repeal the estate tax to help out Paris Hilton and Bill Gates: delayed because they likely don’t have the votes
• Keeping “Under God” in the pledge of allegiance: it failed

Going forward:

• Banning Internet gambling (won’t pass)
• “Fetal pain” bill
• A bill to loosen restrictions so we have more guns on the street

What’s really sad is that they are failures at getting doing nothing important done.

(via MyDD)

and he’s going right for Republican votes:

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I would love to see a progressive breach before the 2006 midterms. We didn’t make it with the OH-02 special… CA-50 came up short… our last chance to build up that progressive wave with an electoral victory is the Lamont-Lieberman Senate primary. Ned Lamont’s numbers are looking very very good, and all of the positive energy is on his side. So far Lieberman’s most enthusiastic supporter has been Ann Coulter.

Check out 2nd district blogger alumnist Tim Tagaris’ diary over @ DKos on the race, and if you agree that this is a good investment in our future show Ned Lamont some love. (BTW, this would also be a good way to stick it to Chuck Schumer over his actions in the Senate primary.)

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This is one press release that I’m glad to see. The ODP needs to get ultra aggressive with voting integrity, starting at what they can control. The key is empowering their representatives on the election boards, through training, coordination and using the power of shame to point out Blackwell’s underhanded moves and leverage the negative publicity to give them a bump in 2006.

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Spot on post by Pho on the Kos story. This part stands out for me:

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This is totally cool!

(via BSB)

One of my favorite experiences in life was spending a year helping my best man’s father, Pastor John Anderson, build a environmentally friendly house in Clements, California. One of it’s design features was a swimming pool that stored heat from solar collectors. Just about everyone thought he was crazy. He wanted it to be able to survive armageddon, as he said, so he used 6×12s for the roof. We moved the massive pieces of timber around with a giant winch that he assembled from spare parts he had collected over time.

He was considered a radical in his denomination. A Missouri Synod Lutheran, he wrote papers arguing in favor of woman pastors and open communion. We would spend hours talking about just about everything. Once he told me that he would refuse a homosexual couple who wanted to take communion in his church. When I asked him if Jesus was the one officiating over the communion, would he refuse the gay couple communion, he thought about it for a while and then said, “No, I don’t believe that he would.” He had that level of intellectual and spiritual integrity. He was a fundamentalist, but in no way the type that seems to dominate today’s religious discussions.

Cancer took him before he could finish the house. When it was finished it sold for a lot of money. The locals nicknamed it the church for it’s massive cathedral ceiling made out of 6×12s. I remember the agony we went through assembling that thing with a back hoe over weeks. He was a great man. I miss him alot.

I coined a new phrase today: the Sirota Special. definition:

A Sirota special is a rhetorical device where you take an innocuous quote and then spin it into an attack which you then pummel the person for saying.

Sirota employed this a lot in attacking Paul Hackett in the Senate primary. You can see an example of it over at Sirota’s blog attack against Senator Obama’s simple statement that Democrats need to do a better job of reaching out to Evangelical Christians. Sirota is part of a blogosphere doubleteam with MyDD (1 2) against Senator Obama. Not sure who declared Barack Obama public enemy number one in Blogostan. Maybe I missed the memo.

Not sure what the goal is with all this friendly fire against someone that isn’t even close to reelection and has been the major voice in championing their pal Sherrod Brown. Somebody needs to point them in the direction of the goal posts.

If you’d like an example of a productive Sirota post, check out his Kos diary on America’s Pension Crisis.