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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2008 > September > 02
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Portman, no longer veep possibility, becomes surrogate instead
Former U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, R-Terrace Park, flew in late Monday to the Republican National Convention, and it’s been nonstop ever since.
He had four speaking engagements on Tuesday, Sept. 2, including a speech before the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a group that’s focused on financial literacy. He also made it to a reception honoring Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio.
On Wednesday, he’s scheduled to speak before the Michigan and Minnesota delegations. He’ll also speak to Ohio’s delegation on Thursday.
That doesn’t count the myriad of media appearances he’s made.
“The campaign is using me as a surrogate,” he said.
Portman may have left his last government job - as head of the White House Office of Management and Budget - last year, but he’s still visible.
That’s because he still wants to serve.
He says he’ll work this year on the McCain campaign. Then, at the end of the year, he’ll make a decision on whether to run for governor.
“I’m interested in serving again. I’d loved to serve at the statewide level if there’s an opportunity,” he said.
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Jo Ann Davidson’s Whoops
Politico reports that RNC co-chair Jo Ann Davidson, given her moment in the spotlight, made a boo-boo with the would-be Republican vice-presidential nominee’s name.
“The next vice president of the United States, Sarah Pawlenty!” Davidson said, meshing the name of Sarah Palin with veepstakes runner up and host governor, Tim Pawlenty.
Davidson herself shattered a few glass ceilings - she was the first female Ohio House Speaker.
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Two Buckeyes on tap as convention speakers
ST. PAUL - Two Ohioans will be among the featured speakers as the Republican National Convention resumes Monday evening after taking a day off while Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf Coast.
Joining First Lady Laura Bush, President Bush (via satellite), Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson will be House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Jo Ann Davidson, former speaker of the Ohio House and co-chair of the Republican National Committee and chair of the 2008 Republican National Convention Committee on Arrangements.
Missing from tonight’s lineup of originally scheduled speakers will be former New York City Mayor Rudi Giulani, who was bumped from the program when convention organizers reshuffled the deck following Monday’s truncated session.
The balance of the convention’s programming is still being worked out, organizers said, although they expect a revised lineup soon.
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Gopher State grub on tap
MINNEAPOLIS - Ohio delegates will travel to the posh Minikahda Club on scenic Lake Calhoun Monday afternoon for a reception honoring the state’s Republican members of Congress.
There, according to literature distributed to delegates, they will “enjoy an ice sculpture that incorporates both the state of Minnesota and the state of Ohio together” if you can imagine that.
They will dine on “a wonderful selection of passed hors d’oeuvres, wine, ‘bootlegs’ and Arnie Palmers.” Not to overlook the Wild Rice Salad with Pheasant Nuggets, Corn Pancakes with Crab Salad and Shrimp Corn Dogs.
If that doesn’t sate the delegates’ appetites, there also will be mini turkey burgers, walleye fingers, sweet potato fries, cheese curds, pickled vegetable slaw and other epicurean delights from the Gopher State (no, gopher is not on the menu).
Ironically, earlier Monday, the soon-to-be-stuffed delegation heard from a physician representing the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease. His message: 30 percent of increased health care costs can be traced directly back to the obesity epidemic.
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Karl Rove is everywhere
Former Bush White House advisor Karl Rove started his day talking to Fox News. Then he was off to the Ohio delegation breakfast, then off to the Wisconsin breakfast.
Ohio Republican Party Chair Bob Bennett made note of Rove’s omnipresence while introducing him Tuesday, Sept. 2.
“I looked at him as I was getting dressed this morning on Fox,” Bennett told the crowd.
Rove shot back to Bennett: “You may not know it, but as you were getting dressed this morning, unfortunately, I was watching you.”
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Karl Rove, supporter of Springfield, Ohio tourism
Former White House advisor Karl Rove spent enough time in Ohio during 2000 and 2004 that Ohio Republican Party Chair Bob Bennett jokes that he should qualify as a voter.
But Rove, speaking Monday before the Ohio Republican delegation, revealed another connection he has to the Buckeye State: When he was 9, he spent half of his summer in Springfield, visiting his Uncle Olaf.
There, he spent part of his childhood with three girl cousins “who beat me up.” Still, he said, “I had a wonderful, idyllic summer in Springfield, Ohio when I was nine years old.”
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Palin pick defended
MINNEAPOLIS - A top Republican official lauded the choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running-mate at a gathering of the Ohio delegation Tuesday.
The endorsement by Frank Donatelli, deputy chair of the Republican National Committee and a veteran of three Reagan campaigns, came on the heels of the announcement Monday that Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.
That revelation, in turn, has prompted increased media attention on an investigation into charges that Palin abused her power in the firing of the state’s public safety commissioner and has provided grist for commentary about how thoroughly she was vetted by the McCain campaign.
Donatelli praised Palin as a “reformer” and said that “reform is a lot meatier than change,” a shot at the theme of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s campaign.
Donatelli decried rumors being spread by “liberal bloggers” who had been jamming cyberspace with reports that Palin’s last child, a 4-month-old boy, was really her daughter Bristol’s baby. It was those rumors that prompted the McCain campaign to announce Monday that Bristol, a high school senior, is pregnant, will keep the baby and marry the father.
“That stuff has no place in a political campaign,” he said.
Donatelli also told delegates that Ohio “is the most important state in the country” for Republican prospects in the November election and that “we cannot win the White House without Ohio.”
He said that grassroots efforts in the state are “ahead of four years ago” when President Bush beat Sen. John Kerry by just over 100,000 votes.
Jeff Bruce is the journalist in residence at Wright State University. He can be reached at jeff@jeffbruce.net.
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Payday lending issue appears headed for ballot
Backers of a referendum to repeal a key portion of a new payday lending law appear to have enough signatures to qualify the issue for the Nov. 4 ballot.
“We’re certainly very hopeful,” Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the coalition that opposes the interest rate restriction in the new law, said on Tuesday, Sept. 2.
They turned in petitions with 422,000 signatures on Sunday, Aug. 31, more than the 241,366 required, according to Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s office. The signatures now will be sent to county boards of election to be verified.
By filing the signatures, referendum backers put a hold on the section of the new law that would limit payday lenders to a maximum 28 percent interest rate. They can continue charging 391 percent - $15 for every $100 borrowed for two weeks.
A “yes” vote on the ballot issue would limit lenders to the new 28 percent interest cap while a “no” vote would allow lenders to keep the 391 percent cap.
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GOP convention back on schedule
ST. PAUL — The Republican National Convention is back on track, having truncated its activities for a day in response to Hurricane Gustav.
Members of the Ohio delegation were informed Tuesday morning that President Bush, who cancelled plans to attend the convention and to speak Monday night will, instead, address the convention via satellite at 9:30 p.m. EDT today.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent who ran for vice president with Al Gore in 2000 and who had been on John McCain’s running-mate short list will follow Bush, as will former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who vied for the GOP nomination against McCain. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain’s vice presidential pick, has been tapped to address the convention on Wednesday.
On Monday, the convention convened at 3:30 p.m. EDT and was wrapped up in less than three hours as the gathering was stripped down to housekeeping essentials and remarks by First Lady Laura Bush and Cindy McCain.
The fate of the convention had been in limbo while organizers assessed the damage Hurricane Gustav might wreak on the Gulf Coast. It has been just over three years since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
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Rove to Bennett: Nice ringtone
Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett forgot to turn off his cell phone Tuesday, Sept. 2, while he was on stage at the Ohio delegation breakfast with Republican political strategist Karl Rove.
Of course, someone called the phone and Bennett’s ring tone was revealed.
“This is a jazzy thing. It’s funky,” Rove teased, while doing a little dance. “Bob, you’re more hip than I can stand.”
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After bashing McCain in 2000, Rove now offers high praise
In 2000, former White House advisor Karl Rove was widely reported to be the force behind a devastating push poll in South Carolina that asked voters whether they would vote for Republican Sen. John McCain if they knew he had an illegitimate black child.
McCain’s daughter, Bridget, was adopted from Bangladesh. The push poll virtually killed McCain’s chances in South Carolina and devastated his wife, Cindy.
But there was no sign of those attacks at an Ohio delegation breakfast Tuesday, when Rove offered nothing but high praise to the McCains for adopting Bridget.
He told the delegation about how Cindy McCain, visiting Bangladesh 18 years ago, visited Mother Teresa’s orphanage, where the nuns presented her with a severely ill infant who needed care. Cindy McCain brought her home, and, met at the airport by John McCain, told her husband that the little girl would “stay with us.” Her husband agreed unhesitatingly.
Cindy McCain also brought home a second infant during that trip, a child with a severe heart problem, who an aide later adopted. That aide, Rove said, never had to pay a hospital bill for the girl’s treatment - the McCains took care of it all.
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Obama to return to Ohio on Wednesday
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama returns to Ohio on Wednesday, Sept. 3, this time to campaign in eastern Ohio.
Obama is scheduled to lead a discussion on women and the economy in New Philadelphia in Tuscarawas County in the morning and then attend a family barbecue in Dillonvale, south of Steubenville in Jefferson County, in the afternoon, his campaign announced.
Attendance at the events is by invitation. It will be Obama’s seventh Ohio campaign swing since Hillary Clinton’s concession speech on June 7.
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Strickland campaigns in southern Ohio for Obama
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland headed home on Tuesday, Sept. 2, to campaign for Democrat Barack Obama for president.
“Home” for Strickland, from Duck Run in Scioto County, is southern Ohio. That’s where he was scheduled to hold five forums on the economy - in Belpre in Washington County, Pomeroy in Meigs County, Gallipolis in Gallia County, Jackson in Jackson County and Piketon in Pike County.
In 2004, Democrat John Kerry got clobbered in rural, southern Ohio and this time Democrats hope that Strickland can transfer some of his vote-getting power to Obama.
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