Ohio 2nd Blog

Truly a new breed of leadership.

Part of the Ad Council’s slate of candididates. (via Atari Democrat)

The latest polls put Dr. Victoria Wulsin being a contender in the ring with Mean Jean Schmidt. This match is going to be different than most other matches simply because its woman against woman. Poll or no poll, common sense says that Ms. Schmidt is going to alter her presentation when combating Dr. Vic. She has painted herself into a corner as coarse and ruthless, marathon running, anti-abortion (kinda), I support the President straight into the bowels of hell the 2^nd district of Ohio be damned kinda gal; with bleak, melancholy handlers and supporters just doing their jobs. Contrast with the charming Dr. Wulsin, who has never lied about her education, a proven problem solver who thinks outside the box, caring, energetic, who is willing to do whatever it takes for the good of the people; with excited, personable supporters and virtually no handlers.

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They’re tied! Good times, sports fans.

More at DKos (one, two) and BSB.

The polling company’s memo to the Wulsin campaign after the fold.

UPDATE: The poll questions

UPDATE 2: Vic’s got two of the DKos top recommended diaries now. Our Jeanie is such a great draw.

UPDATE 3 (Note to the Enquirer): HA HA!

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Democratic fundraisers can be the perfect setup for a Vanity Fair photo shoot. Gorgeous men with tan skin, lanky bodies, blonde highlights, sparkling blue eyes, french blue oxford shirts, and pleated khaki pants striking debonair poses. Last night, the Ted Strickland fundraiser hosted by Paul Hackett and featuring John Edwards was simply HOT.

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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)

• David Sirota > 6/27/06 – A Day That Will Go Down In Infamy
• BSB > DeWine – Jingoistic Panderer
• TPM > President makes midterms referendum on selling off Social Security.
  Democrats should oblige him.
• Kos > Bush pledges to destroy social security again
• Bonddad > Bush Proves Trickle Down Doesn’t Work As Advertised
• gjohnsit > A corporate scandal that dwarfs Enron
• Dave Lindorff > Cut and Run – A Winning Strategy
• Margaret Carlson > Ike’s Warning May Just Tell Us `Why We Fight’
  Andy Rooney talked about this.
  Listen to the speech here.

UPDATE:

• Washington Post > A Single Person Could Swing an Election

• Counterpunch > Al Franken’s War
• Washington Post > GOP Rebellion Stops Voting Rights Act
• Washington Post > Worksite immigration enforcement way down
• AP > States lose Supreme Court appeal over Medicare drug plan
• Enquirer > House cuts GE jet funding
• Rep Louise Slaughter > My Speech on the Paris Hilton Tax Cut

MORE

• DKos > Lakoff on Iraq War Opposition
• DKos > Massive Abramoff document dump = BIG Trouble for the GOP

AND MORE

• BradBlog > Poll Workers Indicted in Tennessee, GOP ‘Sore Losers’ Continue Fight to Overturn Election

Apparently, it’s neither a case of “sour grapes” nor “sore losers” when Republicans challenge elections that they reportedly lost. That’s only the case when Democrats charge irregularities or illegalities in an election. And, of course, when it’s a Republican whose ox has been gored, the GOP uses every available means to fight the results of the election, and the courts and the legislatures usually play along. And nobody bothers to call them “tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists.” Go figure.

Yesterday, in Tennessee, three poll workers were indicted for adding ballots to an election for the state Senate in which a Democrat won by 13 votes.

Of course, the GOP has fought that election tooth and nail, as the GOP, unlike Democrats, always do. And they’ve even managed to convince the state Senate to overturn the election due to their “allegations” of “irregularities.”

The bizarre 180 that Markos Moulitsas did on DLCer Mark Warner after the 2008 Presidential hopeful hired his mentor Jerome Armstrong has been raising quite a few eyebrows. With eyebrows comes scrutiny.

Chris Suellentrop @ the New York Times Opinionator blog has uncovered that Armstrong’s skills at hyping candidates comes from lessons learned hyping other things online. The Plank pulls out the money quote:

some people . . . compare the blog boomlet they helped create for Dean to the work of online bulletin-board posters who touted dodgy Internet stocks during the boom market without disclosing that they were being paid for their words.

Which, interestingly, is precisely what the Securities and Exchange Commission, in court documents filed last August, alleges that Jerome Armstrong did in 2000. (The original S.E.C. complaint is here.) In a subsequent filing, the S.E.C. alleges that “there is sufficient evidence to infer that the defendants secretly agreed to pay Armstrong for his touting efforts” on the financial Web site Raging Bull.

Without admitting or denying anything, Armstrong has agreed to a permanent injunction that forbids him from touting stocks in the future. The S.E.C. remains in litigation with him over the subject of potential monetary penalties.

It’s not possible to direct link to the TimesSelect article, but you can currently read it on its main page.

Suellentrop’s column ends with a warning:

Of course, just because a candidate busted once doesn’t mean the experience will repeat itself with the newest netroots darling, whether or not that darling turns out to be Mark Warner. Maybe Warner should be concerned only if he turns out to be a creation of real-estate speculators.

Candidates interested in trying to force the blogosphere by hiring such professionals as Armstrong need to look no further than to the barren landscape that is the opinion that many Ohio democrats have of Sherrod Brown online. Armstrong’s ham handed efforts at manipulating online opinion for Brown were a disaster, and dozens of Ohio netizens that should be Brown’s most fervent online supporters have written his campaign off entirely. Many blame Congressman Brown. Personally I see him as just another babe-in-the-woods investor lured into the flashing web of internet hucksters, and then systematically sucked dry. As a dot con veteran it’s something that I’ve seen many times before.

I generally avoid expressing my opinions of the concentrated liberal powersource that is the Daily Kos. There is so much good about it that I join in in celebrating Kos’s term at the helm. But it’s always been obvious to me that with such a concentration of power comes a tremendous potential for abuse. (To be honest with you, I see my own little domain as having a potential for abuse, although on a much smaller, if not totally insignificant, scale. I try to counter that by always offering every candidate or their chosen representative access to the site, and by trying to temper my vitriol with understanding for other people’s perspectives.)

Eventually the burden that is the effect of the natural dynamics of power will shatter this energy and scatter it to the four winds of the blogosphere where it belongs. Hopefully the event will happen organically through technological evolution, but my fear is that it will come from internal conflict and abuse resulting in islands of Kossack expatriates surviving on their own in the wild against a revitalized opposition. In the mean time those of us online in this great state will continue building a decentralized alternative to the tower of Kos as it continues its quest for the heavens.

UPDATE: This story has grown a few legs:

• TKS > A hopefully-useful Kos-Armstrong timeline
• OTB > Kos – Armstrong Blogola Scandal
• Tapped > LITTLE FISH EAT BIG FISH

Obviously this has been the kind of red meat that the right has been looking for, and they will do everything they can to turn it into a blanket condemnation of the liberal blogosphere. As always, rovian tactics are the answer: Stay on offense. Their house is falling around them. They don’t have the time or the resources to wage an effective effort on this issue, even if the “liberal” media will eat it up because it attacks one of their enemies.

Enquirer Blog Headline: Cranley kicks off campaign for 1st District

Enquirer Paper Headline: Cranley campaign begins with (surprise) a blast at Chabot

Interesting how much snarkier the headline is in the paper.

BTW, for more on the race, check out Ohio’s First Blog.