Since I'm trying to clean up and catch up with stuff before I spend my Memorial Day with my parents in Ohio, I'll get a blog entry in before I head northwest back to the Buckeye State.
Seems to me this week that just because Maryland has taken a break from legislative news, it didn't mean that government among the several states did. On Thursday, the news out of Tennessee was that four legislators were arrested in Knoxville for their involvement with an FBI sting operation. They accepted money to sponsor legislation from a phony electronics recycling operation (dubbed by the FBI "Operation Tennessee Waltz",) so Thursday they were led out of their building in handcuffs. The three Democrats and one Republican included the uncle of Congressman Harold Ford, a Tennessee Democrat who just announced a 2006 Senate bid. Nice way to start the campaign. That's going to be developed a lot further by Bill Hobbs in Tennessee, he's got an excellent blog dealing with those local issues. I'd like to pattern my blog after his to an extent.
Then today I was talking to ex-wife #1 (the one I still get along with) and she pointed me to a story in my old backyard of Toledo, Ohio. Seems the Ohio Workers Compensation fund lost millions in a rare coin investment gone sour. At this point, the WC director in Ohio has resigned and the Democrats are blaming a "culture of cronyism" in Columbus. Sad thing is, they're right, but it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Toledo and Lucas County have their share of corruption in the Democratic circles, but it's kept down by the local paper which is an extreme leftist rag. (The Blade is the link for the story above.)
The coin dealer in question is a guy named Tom Noe. I'm trying to think if I ever met him, because we did run in the same circles vis-a-vis the Lucas County GOP. His wife, Bernadette, was the chair of the LCRP for one term a couple years ago (after I had moved to adjacent Wood County.) So I know the names, anyway. Of course, both of them ran to Florida to a new home just recently...the sticky web even includes a former Republican state senator who's buying their old condo. (That deal seems to be on the up-and-up, though.)
The bad news for the GOP is twofold. Tom and Bernadette Noe contributed thousands to local, state, and national candidates and PAC's. I just linked to the federal site, right there is over $50,000 for just the last 3 cycles. Add it the state candidates with over $100,000 (searched from followthemoney.org) and the tenticles reach to almost every northwest Ohio Republican candidate.
Secondly, this comes on the heels of an already fed-up electorate. The Ohio GOP needs this like a hole in the head, and The Blade is only too happy to blast one into them. Ohio has a lame-duck GOP governor (really Bob Taft is a RINO, but the "R" is still by his name) limping along with a 34% approval rating, with 2006 being an election year. The conservatives in the state also have to be fed up with both Senators DeWine and Voinovich; DeWine for being one of the "sell-out seven", and Voinovich for slowing John Bolton's confirmation as UN ambassador. Meanwhile, the Ohio Democratic Party has to be dancing in the streets. They smell a chance to regain power since all of the major state offices from governor on down come up for election again in 2006. I fear that they may take advantage of a dissatisfied electorate.
It's amazing what happens when you leave "home" for seven months. I had no inkling about this until I talked to my ex, who lives in the Cleveland area. But looking at the Sun website doing the search for the Voinovich link, there's an AP story about the ODWC resignation, so I may have seen it before too long anyway. Lord knows I'll hear nothing but stuff about it once I get back to northwest Ohio.
So, for those of you who have started following me, I will be away until Tuesday. Being that it's summer and I'm a person who likes to be outside, blogging will be somewhat sporadic for awhile but as things heat up for 2006, I'll probably be daily. Just a heads-up. Of course, that's all relative because I like writing, so maybe I'll just open the window and sit here anyway.
