You left out something very large here. McEwen WOULD have won the seat had he not had that little problem with the check-kiting. When his Republican district and Clarence Miller's Republican district were combined, Miller realized that McEwen would LOSE the seat and challenged him. McEwen BARELY emerged out of that primary, and as Miller rightly figured, he ended up being toast. All McEwen has been doing is DESPERATELY trying to make a comeback to Congress any way he can, in any district that he can. That is NOT the mark of a statesman.
"On the other hand, Mean Jean nearly lost an actual Safe R district to a Democrat even more mentally disturbed than Howard Dean."
Congresswoman Schmidt barely won the seat not because of herself, but because she had a vicious and ugly primary contest she had to emerge from, while the media and the Democrats all but cleared the field for Nutjob Hackett, who didn't, BTW, even advertise his party affiliation. If you're going to describe the situation, tell the truth.
"Mean Jean voted for Bob Taft's tax hikes. She lied about her encounters with Tom Noe. She took gifts from lobbyists and failed to report them, just like Governor Tax. Any campaign worth their salt can easily tie her to Taft, just like Hackett did."
What she did in the legislature is irrelevent now. She's already in Congress. Focus on what she is doing there. If she gets tax-happy in DC, then get back to me.
"As a Congressman, Bob McEwen voted for the Reagan agenda. He maintained a solid conservative voting record for his entire 12 years in office. As a State Rep, Mean Jean Schmidt was a rubber stamp for the Taft agenda. It took her less than 3 years to sell out us conservatives."
McEwen's ETHICS did him in. If you consider his check-kiting and desperation to get back into Congress by any means and any district to be the mark of a solid "Reagan Conservative", you are sadly mistaken. I've heard umpteen negative things about Schmidt from her legislative days, but have been nothing but IMPRESSED by her performance in DC. Sheepish is not a word to describe her. Pathetic IS a word to describe her opponent, Boob McEwen.
"Given the choices, I'll take a Reagan conservative over a Taft RINO any day. Bob McEwen has my vote, and it's not even a close call."
Reagan would be backing Jean Schmidt, and you can take that to the bank.
And Jean Schmidt would have had no problems holding a safe seat if she didn't illegally take gifts from lobbyists and vote for Bob Taft's tax hikes. But she did, and she's vulnerable today because of it. Jean Schmidt's ties to Bob Taft and Tom Noe are far more deadly in 2006 than Bob McEwen's bounced checks from the 1980's.
Congresswoman Schmidt barely won the seat not because of herself, but because she had a vicious and ugly primary contest she had to emerge from, while the media and the Democrats all but cleared the field for Nutjob Hackett, who didn't, BTW, even advertise his party affiliation. If you're going to describe the situation, tell the truth.
Wrong again. Mean Jean nearly lost because of her own tax-hiking record and ethics problems, which the Democrats had no problems exploiting.
-In a district mad as hell about Bob Taft's tax increases, we nominated a candidate who voted for all of them.
-In a district mad as hell about Bob Taft's criminal problems, we nominated a candidate who took gifts from lobbyists, then failed to report them. That is the same crime that made Bob Taft a criminal.
-In a district mad as hell about Tom Noe's corruption, we had Mean Jean claim to have never met him, only to be revealed in Minutes from a public government meeting that she was lying.
Yes, Mean Jean nearly lost a safe seat because of her own corruption and Taft-and-spend record.
What she did in the legislature is irrelevent now. She's already in Congress. Focus on what she is doing there. If she gets tax-happy in DC, then get back to me.
I'm going to look at a candidate's entire record. You can choose ignorance, and only look at the parts of her record that please you, but I prefer to have as much information as I can.
Mean Jean claimed she was a conservative when she went to Columbus. Within 3 years she turned into a Taft-and-spend RINO. Now she claims she's a conservative again. There's an old saying - "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." You don't learn from mistakes much, do you?