Hi Everyone,
There are a couple of political stories of note that are getting overwhelmed by the Blagojevich stuff. First, Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy has won the Ohio 15th District after a prolonged counting process in which the Republicans were pushing for the suppression of as many votes as possible. This is a watershed event. This district includes the Northwestern Suburbs of Columbus. The biggest of these, Upper Arlington used to be known as a place where politics ranged "from far right to utter darkness." The rest of the district is rural and exurban Ohio with all the predictable lower income, white, Christian right voters. For this district to go Democratic is a very bad sign for the Ohio GOP. This means that Columbus is going blue and that big blue spot in the middle of the state is spreading. It also means that Republicans are being pushed into their strongholds in the rural counties on the Indiana border (aka "the I-75 corridor") and the Appalachian counties along the Ohio river. Given the demographic trends in Ohio, that's not enough of the state to ensure victory in state wide elections.
Second, Ken Coleman may defeat Al Franken when all the recounts are over but it seems that he could win only to do the perp walk. It seems that the FBI is investigating whether Coleman was funneling bribes through his wife's salary at an insurance company where she worked. The thing is, this is one of the main attacks that Franken made against Coleman in a particularly nasty campaign. Republicans of course accused Franken of make it all up. Coleman even sued Franken for defamation of character in response to another attack ad that Franken ran. Apparently, the FBI thinks at least one of Franken's charges against Coleman is worth taking seriously.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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Posted by Raised By Republicans at 12:15 PM
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3 comments:
That's Norm Coleman, not Ken Coleman. This must be some sort of Freudian slip, but it's got me stumped. =)
As for the Ohio 15th, it was a very close race and probably helped a lot by Obama voter turnout efforts. Still, it is a big deal for Dems to get to defend this seat. If the GOP trends even further rightwards, as now seems likely, it will take an increasingly large amount of disappointment with President Obama to unseat Democrats in swing districts.
Ken Coleman is a political scientist who wrote an article I was reading last week. :-)
I was thinking Nat King Cole for some reason.
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