Is it May 2nd yet?

One startling fact I discovered recently is that in terms of raw vote total, not percentage, Franklin County provided George W. Bush with more votes than any other county in Ohio in the 2004 Presidental Election, with a total of 230,000 and change. And while John Kerry received roughly 50,000 more votes than Bush in Franklin County, those 230,000 votes are the reason that Columbus airwaves have been inundated with TV advertisments from the Republican primary contestants in Ohio's May 2nd primary election.

On one hand, we have the intriguing matchup of Secretary of State "Ayatollah" J. Kenneth Blackwell against Auditor of State Jim Petro, who are whacking away at one another with charges of hypocrisy and not hating gay people enough in their quest to be the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio. Mr. Petro's late-90s position switch from pro-choice to anti-choice, and Mr. Blackwell's ownership of Diebold stock during the time he was forcing Ohio's county boards of election to choose new electronic voting machines, with Diebold one of the two options, has provided the contestants ample ammunition for their attack ads. Estimates are that this primary contest will cost something on the order of $3 million.

On the other hand, which is even higher on the pandering scale, we have State Sen. Jim Jordan going against Frank Gugliemi (sp?) for the Republican nomination in the safely conservative 4th Congressional District, the seat for which is being vacated by retiring Rep. Micheal Oxley. No part of the 4th District is in Franklin County, however, it does include Marion and Mansfield which are considered part of the Columbus media market. The 4th District is one of the 3 most conservative in Ohio, so the winner will have a safe Congressional seat until at least the 2012 redistricting. Therefore, the incentive to pander to the conservative base is quite high, and it has reached disgusting levels, with talk about cutting taxes and who hates choice the most, neither of which have anything to do with Ohio's failure to build a diverse, creative, educated, 21st-century workforce that will keep companies and jobs in Ohio for years to come.

Here's hoping May 2nd comes and goes without my having to choke down any more vomit on seeing this Republican ass-kissing on our airwaves.

Here's a great column in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer