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Sep

13

PD provides unbalanced endorsement, again, for Mandel in Ohio House 17 district race

Filed Under Media, OH17, Ohio, Pepper Pike, Politics, Statehouse | 2 Comments

Here’s what I wrote in 2006 when the Plain Dealer endorsed then-Lyndhurst city council member Josh Mandel (R) for the open seat in my Ohio House District, 17.

Here’s what the Plain Dealer says this year about Democratic challenger Bob Belovich and the incumbent:

Josh Mandel

30, a Republican, is a former member of Lyndhurst City Council now seeking his second term in the House. He has a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University and a law degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Mandel has served two stints in Iraq as a Marine Corps intelligence specialist.

Bob Belovich,

57, is an attorney with 30 years in private practice and is also vice president of the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Democratic Club. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Case Western Reserve University and a law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

OUR VIEW:

This is a contest between two good candidates. But Belovich was an unapologetic supporter of the jobs-killer initiative mandating paid sick time, since pulled from the ballot. But he is sincere, well-informed and would probably become an effective legislator. Mandel’s first term was significantly interrupted by his admirable service in Iraq. A second term should tell us whether he will live up to his advance billing as a future political star. He has earned the chance to prove himself.

As some of you may recall, audiences in California who heard Mandel speak last spring came to believe that the Democrats of Ohio were going to put up a “tidal wave of cash” to unseat him.  What I found when I tried to figure out just how much he needed last time to win was that Mandel gave a tidal wave of cash to the Ohio House ($200,000) in the 2006 election cycle.

To the best of my knowledge, there’s been no such tidal wave of assistance for Belovich to fight Mandel and in fact, Jeff Coryell of Ohio Daily Blog writes about disturbing behaviors on the part of the Mandel campaign, including a refusal to debate the opponent until after the election (yes, you read that right), as they strategize for the incumbent to retain the seat.

But I digress.

This year, although the Plain Dealer editors resisted making their decision based on age (they liked Mandel’s youthfulness in 2006), they do appear to base their decision not on the ability either candidate posseses to serve my district, but rather on their assessment of how Belovich supported paid sick leave, while the PD opposed it.

Hmm – problem is, Plain Dealer editors, if you are going to judge on issue stances, first, you should apply that standard to both candidates.  Why did you only apply that measure to one of the two candidates?

Second, if they had applied this measure evenly, they could easily have pointed to the fact that Mandel voted in favor of the English-only law for the state of Ohio, which the PD resoundingly panned.  And I mean, really panned, as almost the height of political manuevering for the sake of the GOP party:

Given the many choices the General As sembly has offered Ohioans this session, it’s hard to decide which of the legislature’s antics has been most embarrassing. But a House-passed bill to require state agencies to use only English – as, in practice, they already do – may lead the pack.

The measure, House Bill 477, passed the House 54-42, with the help of a half-dozen Democrats. It is now pending in the Senate’s State and Local Government and Veterans Affairs Committee. If that panel is short-sighted enough to recommend it for Senate passage, Senate Republicans should have the common sense to shelve the proposal rather than bring it to the floor for a vote.

That’s because House Bill 477 sends an awful message about Ohio to anyone considering a business investment here.

Likewise, the PD editors wrote:

Gov. Ted Strickland has vowed to veto the bill if its reaches him, and rightly so. The Mecklenborg bill would cancel out much of the good that the state Development Department, Greater Cleveland’s biomedical complex and Ohio research universities do to draw new people, new ideas and new money here.

The bill is a solution in search of a problem. On this topic, Ohio Republicans differ even from their political patrons. It’s no coincidence, for example, that ATMs of Ohio’s big banks offer customers a range of languages. That’s also true of labels on consumer products made or distributed by giant Ohio companies, such as Procter & Gamble. The world is not going to change because Ohio Republicans want to win or hold marginal General Assembly districts. But the world’s opinion of Ohio would change, and not for the better, if Mecklenborg’s bill gets through the Senate.

And Josh Mandel’s vote in favor of HB 477 helped that legislation, which the PD implies is, to them, “embarrassing” and “awful,” pass the Ohio House.  Even though Mandel’s campaign website says, under the Issues section, Growing Our Economy:

Josh Mandel is working to lead the fight to help retain and create jobs for working families. This means investing in worker training to provide the skills that employers need. It means creating a climate in which state government is working with businesses, not against them. It means cutting government red tape and lowering taxes to protect the jobs of hard-working Ohioans. [my emphasis]

That statement is, according to the PD’s assessment of HB 477, in direct contradiction to what the PD believes HB 477 would do to business in Ohio.

But the PD doesn’t mention those opposite opinions on HB 477 when assessing Mandel.

Someone explain to me how it is that the Cleveland paper of record can only mention that one candidate is on the opposite side of an issue from the editors, and not mention that same exact fact as it relates to the other candidate on a different issue, about which the PD wrote with great passion?

Plain Dealer editors: if you want to support Josh Mandel, just do it  – there are reasons that even I would buy (his reputation as a hard worker, the excellent staff he’s assembled, his efforts at communicating with constituents).  But for goodness sake, either include that he voted for the English-only law which panned, or don’t imply that you didn’t endorse the other candidate because he supported something you opposed – and then be silent about the fact that your endorsed candidate also supported something you opposed.

No.Sense.At.All. And not very fair.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:10 pm September 13th, 2008 in Media, OH17, Ohio, Pepper Pike, Politics, Statehouse | 2 Comments 

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Sep

13

Reason #53 to VOTE FOR Obama/Biden

Filed Under 57ReasonsObamaBiden, Politics | 4 Comments

Because I want the overseas reputation of and communications with our country to improve, a lot, ASAP.

Here are two stories about the overseas preference for Barack Obama and Joe Biden:

A BBC poll released earlier this week found that all 22 of the foreign countries, on six continents, that were asked about their preferences for who would become the next president of the United States preferred Barack Obama:

The 22 countries, drawn from six continents, preferred Obama over his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, by an average four to one margin.

The poll confirms the conventional wisdom that, while the race is tightening in the polls at home, the world wants to see an Obama presidency — a notion that was mocked by the McCain campaign after an Obama speech in Berlin attended by 200,000 people.

‘Large numbers of people around the world clearly like what Barack Obama represents,’ said Doug Miller, the chairman of the international polling firm Globescan, who conducted the poll for the BBC with the help of University of Maryland’s Programme on International Policy Attitudes.

In another question in the BBC poll, more than three-quarters of the countries said that an Obama presidency would see improved U.S. relations with the rest of the world. On average, 46 percent of respondents think that relations would get better with Obama at the helm, 22 percent said they would stay the same, and 7 percent thought they would get worse.

Now, that poll was conducted before Governor Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s running mate on the GOP ticket, mentioned that if Georgia became part of NATO and Russia attacked Georgia, we would start a war, but here’s what the poll said about NATO members’ preferences:

In the recent poll, the U.S.’s allies in NATO — many of whom did not participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as the non-NATO ‘coalition of the willing’ — were the most optimistic that an Obama presidency would bring better relations.

More than 60 percent of respondents in Canada, France, German, and Italy, and over half of those surveyed in Britain said Obama would improve strained relations with the world.

Only China, Nigeria and India thought that a McCain presidency would improve relations with the rest of the world and in all three places that preference was only by a ‘modest margin’ over Obama.

It’s easy to say that we shouldn’t care what others things about us, that we have to do what we think is best.  Well, that’s not been working too well for us, if you ask me and there’s every indication that a McCain administration would do little to nothing to improve our relationships with other countries.

Unless you too don’t care much about how the rest of the world’s 6.4 billion people feel about us…

On November 4, vote for Obama/Biden.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 12:12 pm September 13th, 2008 in 57ReasonsObamaBiden, Politics | 4 Comments 

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Sep

13

It’s tubular, dude – Tubular Rail that is

Filed Under Business, Economy, Ohio, Tech, Transportation | 17 Comments

I don’t know much about the train industry, but John Michael Spinelli is one of the most persuasive people I’ve ever met – well, he’s at least one of the most prepared to be persuasive people I’ve ever met. I haven’t had the time to research much about what he hopes will be the next Kitty Hawk but in Ohio, but you can read more about Tubular Rail, Inc., here and here.

According to Spinelli’s press release:

Amid the gathering dark clouds of bad economic news, Ohio could be home to a new industry every bit as unique, dynamic and game-changing as the aviation industry created in 1902 by Ohio heroes Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1902, said John Michael Spinelli, Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. Since July Spinelli has embarked on an educational and informational campaign to introduce the visionary, affordable, energy efficiency and envirornmentally friendly Pulliam invented and patented to decision-makers in the administration of Gov. Ted Strickland, the Speaker of the Ohio House, Ohio Senate President and other decision makers from academia, research and scientific development institutes and planning groups, among other interested stakeholders.

“We think our ‘Kitty Hawk’ is in Ohio,” Spinelli said, referring to the desolate and isolated beach in North Carolina where the Wright Brothers retreated to to test fly the idea born in their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Spinelli thinks his home state of Ohio, now feverish from the loss of jobs from auto makers like GM, Ford, Chrysler and pending job losses announced by shipping giant DHL, should be eager to lend a hand to land test fly another transportation industry whose “Trackless Train Technology,” adaptable for passengers and freight, could create jobs now and into the future and give Ohio a new lease on its future.

I know that at least a few folks who read this blog are familiar with light rail efforts over the last several years, maybe two decades.  If you know much about this project, I hope you’ll chime in on it’s possibilities.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:49 am September 13th, 2008 in Business, Economy, Ohio, Tech, Transportation | 17 Comments 

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Sep

13

Battlefield Buckeye: Ohio and the 2008 Election, at Akron Press Club, 10/2

Filed Under Media, Ohio, Politics, Voting, WH2008 | Comments Off

Consider attending:

Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008 Battlefield Buckeye:
Ohio and the 2008 Election

Date:Thursday, Oct. 2, 2008

Time: Buffet luncheon at 11:45, program follows

Location: Martin Center, University of Akron
Moderator: Abe Zaidan

This panel discussion will feature:
John C. Green , Director of Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, The University of Akron

Jason Johnson , Assistant Professor of Communication and Political Science, Hiram College

Connie Schultz , Columnist, Cleveland Plain Dealer

$10 Press Club Members – $15 Non-Members

Reservations requested.
Contact Abe or Nancy Zaidan
330-835-4980 or at azaidan@neo.rr.com

Hattip David Brian Cohen.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:36 am September 13th, 2008 in Media, Ohio, Politics, Voting, WH2008 | Comments Off 

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Sep

13

On Being a Voter: my first post as a BlogHer Contributing Editor

Filed Under Blogging, BlogHer, Voting, Writing | Comments Off

You can read my first post and great comments in response to it here.  Here’s an excerpt:

I feel as passionately as anyone, and possibly more so than many, about the upcoming elections. But I promised myself that on the occasion of my very first post as a BlogHer Contributing Editor in the Election 08 category, I would not mention the names of any of the presidential or vice presidential candidates.

Why? Because candidates come and go – but most of us still have our right to vote that we can exercise, every single time an election of any type comes around. (I know that not everyone who contributes to this community may still have that right and I would love to hear from them in particular – but only if they want to express their thoughts about it.)

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved the idea of voting, if not the people for which I could vote. I’ve always bought, lock, stock and barrel, that my vote matters and counts.

Some of the experiences described in the comments gave me chills.  And a lot to think about.

How do you feel about being a voter?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:28 am September 13th, 2008 in Blogging, BlogHer, Voting, Writing | Comments Off 

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