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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2008 > October > 17
Friday, October 17, 2008
Eye on Ohio: “90 Percent” ad for Obama
By Scott Elliott | Dayton Daily News
THE AD: “90 Percent”
SCRIPT: John McCain speaking: “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush.” Narrator: True, but he did vote with Bush 90 percent of the time. Tax breaks for big corporations and the wealthy, but almost nothing for the middle class? Same as Bush. Keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq while our economy struggles? Same as Bush. You may not be George Bush, but …” McCain speaking: “I voted with the president over 90 percent of the time, higher than a lot of my even Republican colleagues.”
VIDEO: The video intersperse video of McCain speaking and looking on during the last presidential debate as words appear next to his head, such as “Tax breaks for big corporations and the wealth” and “Nothing for the middle class.” Three images of McCain together with George Bush are interspersed with other images in the ad. The ad also uses debate video of McCain in which he makes awkward facial expressions and blinks heavily. It ends with archive video of McCain talking about his voting record of supporting President Bush.
ANALYSIS: According to CNN.com, an analysis of McCain’s voting record by the nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly magazine showed McCain did, indeed, vote in favor of bills that Bush had taken a clear position on 90 percent of the time over Bush’s first seven years in office. Only 14 other Republicans voted with the president more often than McCain. By comparison, Joe Biden voted with Bush 52 percent of the time and Barack Obama 40 percent of the time.
However, the year-by-year analysis showed wide variability. In 2007 McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time but in 2005 he voted with Bush only 77 percent of the time. The video of McCain talking about his voting record of supporting Bush is from a 2003 interview on Fox News, so it is pretty out of date. While the core charge by Obama is true that McCain voted very often to support President Bush’s agenda, the impression given that McCain is bragging about that today is misleading.
The ad also works hard to link McCain and Bush through its rhetoric and images of the two together and it portrays McCain looking, for lack of a better word, “weird” by picking short clips of debate video in which he made expressions in reaction to Obama’s comments.
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Sen. George Voinovich, what do you think of Barack Obama?
According to the Pomeroy Daily Sentinel, Ohio’s senior senator thinks Obama is a socialist.
Voinovich made his comments during a stop at the Meigs County Republican headquarters. The story reports that Voinovich, R-Ohio, applauded Republican nominee John McCain for reaching across the aisle, and urged an end to “partisan bickering.”
But he put aside the diplomacy when talking about McCain’s Democratic competitor.
“He is left of Teddy Kennedy,” Voinovich told the crowd. “With all due respect, the man is a socialist.” .
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Brunner wins in U.S. Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court today, Oct. 17, handed Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, a victory in a heated legal battle with the Ohio Republican Party.
The high court threw out an order from a lower court that would have required Brunner to provide county boards of elections with details of how personal information about newly registered voters doesn’t match information on driver’s licenses or Social Security records.
The court issued the decision “per curiam” - acting as a whole, without dissent.
The court ruled that the Ohio Republican Party was not likely to prevail on the question of whether Congress authorized the lower court to take the action the Republicans requested in a lawsuit brought by a private party - the state GOP.
The court expressed no opinion on whether Brunner was correctly implementing the federal Help America Vote law, the law the Republicans said Brunner wasn’t complying with.
The request from the GOP would have impacted an estimated 200,000 of nearly 666,000 voters who have registered since Jan. 1 and whose personal information had mismatches.
Brunner and her allies argued that many of the mismatches were simple ones such as spelling differences. She said implementing the request could have required many voters to cast provisional ballots. Such ballots aren’t counted until 10 days after the election and are “subject to partisan wrangling and legal fights,” she said.
“Our nation’s highest court has protected the voting rights of all Ohioans, allowing our bipartisan elections officials to continue preparing for a successful November election,” Brunner said in a prepared statement.
“We filed this appeal to protect all Ohio voters from illegal challenges and barriers that unfairly silence the votes of some to the advantage of others,” Brunner said in a prepared statement.
Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett said the decision was made on a technicality and called on Brunner to “comply with federal law by providing clear instructions to elections administrators on how to handle questionable voter registration forms.”
“As far as I’m concerned, Secretary Brunner is actively working to conceal fraudulent activity in this election,” Bennett said in prepared statement.
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McCain, Obama tied in new Ohio poll
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are tied with 49 percent each in a new Ohio presidential poll.
The Rasmussen Reports poll released on Thursday, Oct. 16, was taken on Tuesday, Oct. 14, before the final presidential debate on Wednesday, Oct. 15. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
A poll taken a few days earlier showed Obama leading 49-47 percent.
The new poll also found that just 53 percent of Ohio voters are “very confident” that their votes will be properly counted and that the right candidate will be declared the winner. The Republican Party has challenged Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s handling of the election in several lawsuits.
Republicans say they are guarding against fraud and abuse but Democrats say Republicans are trying to suppress the voter.
For details on the new poll, click here.
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McCain back in Ohio on Sunday
Republican John McCain is returning to Ohio on Sunday, Oct. 19, for two rallies.
McCain will appear at a “Road to Victory” rally at Otterbein College’s Rike Center, 160 Center St., in Westerville just outside of Columbus. Doors open at 11 a.m.
Then he’ll hold a rally in Toledo at the Seagate Convention Center, 401 Jefferson Ave. Doors open at 1:15 p.m.
