Posted on 06/16/2005 1:20:45 PM PDT by bizzyblog
Links to both Parts (text of both parts is in this thread):
Part 1: http://www.bizzyblog.com/?p=227
Part 2: http://www.bizzyblog.com/?p=228
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Digesting the meaning of the 2nd District Primary Results, who gained, and who lost:
Winners: Every single resident of The 2nd District. No matter who wins on August 2, we will be represented by someone who lives with us, works with us, has integrity, and will effectively represent us (yes, even a Democrat can do that).
Winners (again): Every single resident of The 2nd District. A McEwen victory would have forced BizzyBlog to fully research and verify a great deal of information that was held back because it could not be corroborated in the short amount of time available, and which would have made what has been blogged in the past three weeks look like child's play. We've been spared.
Losers: The A-list country-club Republicans who sent $1 million down the DeWine sinkhole. Though it's tempting, writing DeWine's political obit is premature. Quiet, effective service as a Hamilton County Commissioner for a few years could change a lot of people's minds (Cunningham said almost exactly the same thing in the same broadcast where he conducted his interviews with the winners).
Losers: The political wing of the local right-to-life movement. Though they tried to cover their tracks, it was obvious to anyone close to the situation that they were part of the arrangement to coronate Bob McEwen. In the process, they disrespected the three strongest local prolife candidates: DeWine, who they incredibly (in hindsight) saw as unbeatable without bringing in McEwen, and who they thought had to be kicked off the island because of his divorce, no matter what; and both Brinkman and Schmidt, whose prolife records are virtually unmatched. They also pretended that other fine people who ended up in the bottom tier didn't matter, even though their prolife positions and records were impeccable. I will take future RTL endorsements with huge grains of salt until I see a little more integrity in the process, and a full explanation of why endorsements are made. I'm not holding my breath.
Losers: Any Republican who doesn't immediately get over his or her bitterness and throw their support to Jean Schmidt. I did not vote for her and I'll tell you why: I did not appreciate her apparent belief that we should elect her because she is a prolife woman. I thought it was unfair to the fine men who are every bit as prolife as she is. She could have emphasized her work in the movement as being superior to the others without playing the gender card. But you know what? I'm over it. Like as of 10:01. Bob McEwen immediately threw his support to her, and in light of how bitter the defeat must be, you have to give him props for that.
Winners (at least for the next 7 weeks): District Democrats. Yes, they were outvoted 3-1, and yes they have an uphill fight, but they managed to nominate a candidate who isn't a raving MoveOn "Bush is the source of all evil" moonbat. Given the state of the national Democrat party, that's an accomplishment. District Dems won't have to explain away somebody's nuttiness for the next 7 weeks (Note: See Cunningham interviews with its reference to Cincinnati Post quote of Hackett about Bush for early indications that Hackett may not be moonbat-free after all).
Loser: Anthony Munoz. Anthony, you've been a great athlete, you appear to be an awesome father, and a model citizen, so I had to restrain myself these past three weeks, but now I can say it--Y'know how you feel about Stanley Wilson and the 1989 Super Bowl? Well a lot of us feel the same way about the 1992-1993 Ohio version of Bob McEwen, and then learned (even outside of the residency issue) that we should still feel the same way about the 1993-2005 Beltway Bob. Next time you lend your precious credibility to a politician, do your freaking homework. (ADDENDUM: Anthony, if you think you have a career in politics, you're going to have to show a lot of us that you won't be manipulated the way you clearly were this time.)
Winner: The Enquirer. They endorsed Schmidt, which appears to have simultanously ended any chances DeWine might have had and neutralized McEwen's hopes of taking Hamilton County. Anyone who doubted that their endorsement is still important has been proven sadly mistaken. A lot of people were wondering aloud why The Enquirer was supporting the candidate who was at best in fourth place. Oops.
Loser: The Dayton Daily News. Speaking of fourth place, how often does a newspaper endorse a distant fourth-place finisher (DeWine)? The DDN mailed in their endorsement without any thought, perhaps reflexively defended Pat's dad for his filibuster "moderation" (their view, not mine), and paid for it. They also sat on information (see Update at bottom of link) they learned about Bob McEwen during candidate interviews about his lobbying firm's heavy involvement with foreign entities and governments that District voters really should have known about.
Near-losers: The people at the FEC, whose rules can be abused in a compressed primary process. Bob McEwen may have been unethical (actually, WAS unethical) when he arranged it so that his personal-financial disclosures would not come out until the day after the primary election, but he did not violate the law and the FEC regs. Change the law and regulations, guys. My guess is you only have to tweak the regs. You guys dodged a major bullet, because I believe many voters would have not liked what they would have seen in McEwen's financial disclosures, and would have felt hoodwinked.
More winners and losers (Part 2)
Losers: Local "values" guy Phil Burress and Citizens for Community Values. You do great work in a lot of areas, but this time you exposed yourselves as political opportunists who don't respect hard-working local candidates, and who don't trust local conservative voters. I suspect both sets of locals will remember.
Losers: James Dobson, Don Wildmon, and the out-of-town "values" gurus: Your prayers today should be that the rest of the country didn't somehow get a whiff of how you guys completely and utterly embarrassed yourselves and, by extension, your nationwide political efforts, by backing Bob McEwen. Did you vet this guy at all? With no evidence that you did even the tiniest bit of research into 9 of the other 10 competing candidates, you decided the McEwen was the best guy in a field of 11 simply because you didn't like the 10th (DeWine), who appeared to be the frontrunner. Advice: Let local conservative voters do the vetting in Republican primaries, OK? Then, in a general election, if the conservative has values you support and is up against someone whose values are clearly different from yours, you might consider stepping in--carefully (that means hold the thunder and lightning).
Loser: Paul Weyrich. Though he could be lumped into the Dobson-Wildmon group, he deserves a special mention because despite his past vocal support for term limits, he was perfectly fine with the idea that a guy rejected by the voters twice 12 years ago could have waltzed into the House on August 3 with 12 years of seniority, and that this was somehow a good thing.
Losers: Council for National Policy (CNP), the apparent origin of the idea that having fellow member Bob McEwen hijack the 2nd District would be a good idea. Folks, you don't get to tamper with local elections around here just to help out a guy who happens to be in your hush-hush insiders' club (at least not if BizzyBlog can help it). To be clear, the link is to a compiled members' list as of 1998 by a left-wing site, as it is reported that CNP does not publish a members' list and attempts [without much success] to keep its meetings and other activities hidden from view. Note that outside endorsers Dobson, Kemp, Meese, Perkins, and Wildmon are members, as is Cincinnati-area endorser John Willke. A look at the list of other CNP members makes for interesting reading. Just a few: Delay, Devos (yes, two of the Amway-Quixtar Devoses), Falwell, Robertson.
Loser: Club for Growth. Did I hear correctly that they blew over 100 grand on the anti-Schmidt ads? Considering the result, it was a less-than-perfect display of fiscal prudence, doncha think? Your first hit on Schmidt displayed your ignorance by lumping McEwen in with Brinkman and DeWine as "proven" fiscal conservatives, even though McEwen has been out of office for 12 years. As noted in a previous post, the anti-Schmidt ad that ran in the last few days before the election struck me as heavy-handed and condescending, and made me instinctively want to defend the local person against the outside invader.
Winner: Clermont County Republicans. The grass-roots work in Clerco totally totally outdid that of the top-down pro-DeWine forces in Hamilton County and held off the McEwen challenge in the remaining counties. I sense a disturbance in the GOP "power force," and I believe it is moving eastward.
Loser: Congressman John Boehner, a guy who prides himself in NOT getting pork for his district, who in the last week of the primary endorsed a guy (McEwen) famed for his "pork for me but not for thee" outlook when he served. Zheesh.
Loser: Bob McEwen (if he really believes what I see on his web site today, and wasn't just humoring his supporters)--
McEwen then told the cheering crowd that this would not be his last campaign, and went on to say that public service was his calling.
Memo to Bob: Follow this suggestion from Tom Petty.
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UPDATE: Michael Meckler gets in a nice rip on the outsiders:
And herein lies a warning message to national groups that claim to speak for conservatives (such as Focus on the Family's James Dobson, who was a major promoter of McEwen's candidacy): "values" voters believe politicians must uphold ethical standards in their personal and professional lives; voting the right way on selected issues is not enough if those votes are merely hypocritical pandering to cover up sleazy personal enrichment through political power.
UPDATE 2: The learning process for the outside "values" people is clearly going to be slow to nil. Here's McEwen endorser and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins today in the Christian Science Monitor (HT Ohio 2nd Blog; bold is mine):
While taking the long view on abortion, Perkins took partial credit for a short-term political victory. In a congressional primary in Ohio Tuesday, Pat DeWine took fourth place after having been the favorite. He is the son of Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, who supported a compromise - opposed by the Council - on judicial nominees."We were in the state of Ohio simply bringing attention to what the elder DeWine did on the compromise," Perkins said. "I don't know that I would call it a victory.... It sends a signal. It is a wake-up call for those who think that they can compromise in this city and go home and campaign and not have repercussions." Local observers say the Christian right was a factor in Pat DeWine's defeat, but so were reports of his marital problems.
Uh, Mr. Perkins: You were here to install "your guy" Bob McEwen first and foremost because you didn't trust us to do the "right thing" by your definition, and you had your hat handed to you. Stop pretending otherwise. And a memo to Christian Science Monitor: Stop merely taking dictation and do some real reporting.
These national "values" people, who I certainly support for their moral beliefs, did not have a political clue in this race.
I trust the Club of Growth. If they backed someone else, he or she is definitely a better candidate.
Fine, they amended their support, which had originally been DeWine, Brinkman, and McEwen, and went with only Brinkman in the last few days.
I voted for Brinkman.
Schmidt is at least acceptable, and on values (life, marriage, family), which is the main reason the outsiders brought in McEwen, she's probably stronger than McEwen. McEwen is and was a disgrace, and the local people who essentially invited McEwen in showed great disrespect for Brinkman and Schmidt that was totally unjustified.
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