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Feb

22

The role of Ohio’s political blogs

Filed Under Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Ohio, Politics, social media, Voting | 4 Comments

Is evolving, just as it has been since about 2005.  But two posts this week offer good advice to candidates or potential candidates for political office as they consider what kind of engagement they expect to have with the blogs, the bloggers and the commenters at the blogs:

1. I wrote this in regard to a blogger conference call Ohio Democratic Party Chair Chris Redfern had with bloggers this week.

2. Nicole Rapier of the Butler County Young Republicans wrote this piece today, posted on Kyle Sisk’s self-named blog.

Speaking only for myself, I will say that bloggers are not a predictable lot, necessarily, but we are smart, we are engaged, and we are not stenographers.  We don’t necessarily need blood, at all, but we do need heart.

If you can’t offer bloggers thoughts, ideas and passion that equals what you would give a voter when you are at their doorstep, face to face, then seriously, come back to us later, when you can. Because everything else we can get from campaign websites and the newspapers just like anyone else.  Blogs do best – for everyone – when their ability to be a voice – and not just a message – is embraced, valued and treated with honesty.

Because if there’s one thing politial blogs in Ohio have very little tolerance for, it’s insincerity.  Don’t even try.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:01 pm February 22nd, 2009 in Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Ohio, Politics, social media, Voting | 4 Comments 

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Feb

22

God bless Ahnahld

Filed Under Barack Obama, conservatives, Economy, Government, Law, leadership, Politics, Republicans, Taxes | 5 Comments

That’s all I have to say after listening to him praise his state’s new budget with $13 billion in tax increases as a “great” budget, praise President Obama’s stimulus package and tell South Carolina Republican Governor Mark Sanford that if he doesn’t want the stimulus money for his state’s residents, give him the money:

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Love it, just love it.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 5:47 pm February 22nd, 2009 in Barack Obama, conservatives, Economy, Government, Law, leadership, Politics, Republicans, Taxes | 5 Comments 

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Feb

22

The end of the culture wars: abortion and same-sex marriage

Filed Under Abortion, Civil Rights, Culture, Education, Politics, Social Issues, Women, Youth | Comments Off

I liked this op-ed in today’s New York Times. It addresses abortion and same-sex marriage. For readers who consider themselves to be on either side of the debate or just stirred by the column, what do you think? Is the approach outlined reasonable? I think it is, but I’m just one person and I’m pro-choice.

Here’s an excerpt:

Eight years ago, the Alan Guttmacher Institute surveyed over 10,000 American women who had abortions. Nearly half said they hadn’t used birth control in the month they conceived. When asked why not, 8 percent cited financial problems, and 2 percent said they didn’t know where to get it. By comparison, 28 percent said they had thought they wouldn’t get pregnant, 26 percent said they hadn’t expected to have sex and 23 percent said they had never thought about using birth control, had never gotten around to it or had stopped using it. Ten percent said their partners had objected to it. Three percent said they had thought it would make sex less fun.

This isn’t a shortage of pills or condoms. It’s a shortage of cultural and personal responsibility. It’s a failure to teach, understand, admit or care that unprotected sex can lead to the creation — and the subsequent killing, through abortion — of a developing human being.

Our challenge is to put these two issues together. For liberals, that means taking abortion seriously as an argument for contraception. We should make the abortion rate an index of national health, like poverty or infant mortality. The president should report progress, or lack thereof, in the State of the Union. Reproductive-health counselors must speak bluntly to women who are having unprotected sex. And as Mr. Obama observed last year, men must learn that “responsibility does not end at conception.”

Conservatives, in turn, need to face the corollary truth: A culture of life requires an ethic of contraception. Birth control isn’t a sin or an offense against life, as so many girls and Catholic couples have been taught. It’s a loving, conscientious way to prevent the conception of a child you can’t bear to raise and don’t want to abort. It’s an act of responsibility and respect for life.

You can read more from the Guttmacher Institute here.

At the end of a week that included Bristol Palin saying that while she believes “everyone should be abstinent,” it’s not realistic, this op-ed seems very timely to me.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:22 pm February 22nd, 2009 in Abortion, Civil Rights, Culture, Education, Politics, Social Issues, Women, Youth | Comments Off 

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