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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2008 > September
September 2008
Is John Boehner in trouble?
Over at Politico.com, they have a long story looking at how much damage was done to House minority leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, after two-thirds of Republicans rejected his call for support for the Wall Street bailout bill. Boehner passionately urged his caucus to vote for the bill, calling on them to think of the country and saying these were the tough votes they were sent to Washington to make.
Following the stunning defeat of the bill, some are asking whether Boehner can retain his leadership position and restore credibility with his troops.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetHere’s how our lawmakers voted on the bailout bill
West Chester’s John Boehner, the House minority leader, and Springfield’s Dave Hobson were among just four Republicans who voted for Monday’s failed Wall Street bailout bill. The other Republican yes votes were Deborah Pryce in the 15th district (west of Columbus) and Ralph Regula in the 16th district (south of Cleveland).
Republicans voting no included Dayton’s Mike Turner, West Liberty’s Jim Jordan, Jean Schmidt (who represents Warren County), Steven LaTourrette, Patrick Tiberi, Robert Latta and Steve Chabot.
Voting yes for the Democrats were eastern Ohio’s Zack Space, Charles Wilson and Tim Ryan. Voting no were Dennis Kucinich, Marcy Kaptur and Betty Sutton, all representing parts of northern Ohio.
See the full roll call at NYTimes.com
UPDATE: Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com analyzes the votes and find, probably not surprisingly, that representatives in swing districts with tough re-election campaigns voted no from both sides of the aisle. I suppose perhaps there are just more incumbent Republicans who feel their seats are on the line, given the polling that shows Democrats potentially making big gains in Congress on election day.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetBailout appears to fail despite passionate plea from Boehner
Several media outlets are reporting that the $700 billion bill to bailout Wall Street banks has failed in the U.S. House of Representatives and the markets have followed with huge drops. Big banks, including Ohio-based Fifth Third and National City, have seen giant losses.
Apparently, too many Republican house members could not bring themselves to vote yes for the bill. There were too many no votes from both sides of the aisle, but the Republican leadership believed it could deliver enough of its caucus to pass the bill. In fact, Republicans continued to defect even after an impassioned plea by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-West Chester). Check out this excerpt from Politico.com:
Minority Leader John Boehner nearly choked up as he begged his Republican colleagues to vote “in the best interest of their country” for the bailout bill.
Admitting that the outcome is in “serious doubt,” an impassioned Boehner implored his colleagues to cast aside politics — and possibly endanger their own political futures — by voting yes.
“Think about what happens to your friends, your neighbors, your constituents … These are the votes that separate the men from the boys and the girls from the women — these are the votes your constituents sent you here to vote for on their behalf — these are the kind of votes where we have to look into our souls.”
Wow.
It is presumed work will continue to either get lawmakers to change their votes or to somehow revise the plan to make it more palatable. Polling over the weekend suggested Americans did not like the bailout, with put pressure on lawmakers seeking re-election to oppose it. What is your reaction? Do you favor the bailout? Are you worried about what may happen in the markets now?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
UPDATE: The Washington Post is reporting a slim majority of Democrats voted for the bill while a majority of Republicans voted no. (Democrats voted for the bill 136-94; Republicans voted no 64-130.)
On the liberal blog Talking Points Memo John Marshall is complaining that Boehner is trying to blame the bill’s failure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.
UPDATE: On the conservative blog Townhall.com More than one post frets that blaming a Pelosi speech for causing angry Republicans to vote no is a bad strategy, with one post comparing it to Newt Gingrich’s government shutdown — a strategy that backfired badly. Other posts are hailing conservatives for sticking to their principles and voting no.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetDebate Debate
OK, let’s try something new:
The recent strings about the national election on this blog have been hyper partisan, to say the least. Let’s try to get away from that. It’s boring by now.
This time, in discussing the debate, the rule is this:
You must offer one criticism of each guy, or one compliment of each, or one comment that isn’t clearly in either category. If you disobey the rule, or the spirit of the rule (such as offering trivial praise or backhanded praise), the comment won’t be posted.
It’s an experiment.
Thanks for participating.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetScott Elliott: If this list sounds familiar, it should
If this list sounds familiar, it should. You’ve heard it before.
Here are the five best school districts in the Miami Valley, as judged by the Ohio Department of Education’s district report cards released last month:
Mason.
Oakwood.
Russia.
Botkins.
Fort Loramie.
Mason and Oakwood get headlines every year for coming out on top. And this list should also ring a bell. State report cards say these are the five worst area districts (lowest scoring at the bottom):
National Trail.
Northridge.
Trotwood-Madison.
Jefferson Twp.
Dayton.
Every August, report cards come out, and these districts appear consistently at the top and bottom of the list. Four of those top districts scored in the top five last year also, and all five have been in the top 10 the last three years running.
The story is the same at the bottom of the list. Except for Preble County’s National Trail schools, the other four have been among the five worst three straight years.
The implication from the state report card is that the first five districts are doing a great job and the bottom five are doing dreadfully. In fact, that’s exactly how they are treated by Ohio’s accountability system.
But wait just a minute. Take a look at this list. Ladies and gentleman, the top five school districts in the Miami Valley are:
Sidney
Botkins
Versallies
Ansonia
Fort Loramie
And the bottom five are:
Jefferson Twp.
Huber Heights
Tri-County North
Jackson Center
Carlisle
Fort Loramie must be doing something really right, since it is on both top scoring lists. And Jefferson Twp., near the bottom of both lists, really has some explaining to do.
To get this second pair of lists, I used a different measure of test success than the state does. You might say my list shows you the Miami Valley’s five most “overachieving” school districts and the five worst “underachievers.”
Here’s where my list comes from:
It is a well-documented fact that there is a very strong correlation between wealth and standardized test scores in a school district. Two years ago, I talked to Chris Lubienski, a well-regarded University of Illinois researcher who studies the effect of student characteristics on test performance.
He said a host of studies over many years have shown outside factors such as wealth and the education level of parents in the community are the strongest predictors of standardized test results, accounting for 60 to 70 percent a school’s scores.
The schools themselves typically can only affect 30 to 40 percent of student scores on a standardized test.
And of the home factors, it’s wealth that often has the strongest connection to test results.
In 2006, I studied the affect of wealth on Ohio’s test scores and found the same result. The correlation between median income in Ohio school districts and test scores explained about 66 percent of the score.
Youngstown State Professor Randy Hoover, in a just released study of 2007 Ohio report cards, had similar findings — median income explained about 62 percent of a district’s score. He studied 60 possible variables and found strong test-score correlation only with nonschool factors.
So it’s not surprising that wealthy districts like Oakwood score high and poor districts like Dayton score low on the report cards. You’d expect that. Oakwood is the 11th wealthiest district in Ohio, and it’s test scores rank ninth best — almost right on the money. Dayton is the 590th wealthiest district and ranks last — 610th — for test scores. That’s also roughly the same.
But let’s look at Sidney for a moment. Sidney ranks 461st in Ohio for wealth, but for test scores, it ranks 230th. That means it is scoring 231 places above where its income would predict. I call that an overachiever.
At the other end of the spectrum is Carlisle. It ranks 190th for income in Ohio, but it’s test scores rank 416th — 226 spots lower than income would predict. That’s not good.
Incredibly, Sidney got no credit from the state for its overachievement. Ohio has added a “growth measure” that gives extra report-card points to districts that meet test-score improvement targets. Sidney didn’t qualify. So to those who look up Miami Valley test scores, Sidney ranks an unremarkable 31st out of 60 districts when ranked by test scores.
That’s really not fair to the hard-working teachers and students who defied the odds. Ohio should consider at least adding this information to the report cards so that parents can get a fuller picture of school-district performance.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Education, Scott Elliott
TweetRush on Bailout Doesn’t Foster Trust
At the writing, the news has just come across the wires that the leading Democrats and Republicans in Washington think they have agreement on the broad outlines of a bailout package for the nation’s financial system.
On the one hand, it’s good to see some cooperation. Rep. Barney Frank, the brilliant and unapologetically liberal chairman of the House committee on financial institutions, deserves some credit for getting Democrats on board for a proposal that looks a lot like a great big favor to Wall Street. But the Republicans have compromised, allowing, for example, for some sort of limit on payments to the CEOs who head up the failing institutions.
In testimony before the Frank committee on Wednesday, the two authors of the $700 billion plan for the government to buy debt it can later sell, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke escaped largely unscathed. Economists and others have written made arguments against the bailout, but the members of Congress couldn’t muster any, at least any that were very compelling. Every time a committee member pointed to the problems that result from bailing out businesses that have made bad business decisions, the two men said, essentially, “Compared to what?” Their point was that the alternative now is letting the system collapse, which would hurt millions of regular people.
Still, compelling answers to the cases made against this particular approach in oped pieces and elsewhere are hard to come by. So is a really convincing argument that it all has to be done this week. The politicians’ top goals seem to be to make sure they can’t be blamed for any collapse and to get out of town and back to the campaign trail.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetHere’s the list of overachieving and underachieving school districts
In my column today, I suggested school districts should get extra credit, or at least recognition, from the state if their state rank for test scores out pace their rank in the state for median income, given the demonstrated strong connection between wealth and standardized test performance. For more on this, see my 2006 study of the link between test scores and income in Ohio.
By clicking the “continued” link, you can view the full list of the 60 Miami Valley school districts and the difference between their state rank for performance index score — a state measure of test performance across all grades — compared to their rank for median incomes among Ohio’s 610 school districts.
Positive numbers mean those district score better than their wealth would predict. I call these district “overachievers.” Districts that show negative numbers — lower ranks for test performance vs. median income — are “underachievers” in my view.
If you want to see the actual rankings for test performance and median income check out this post at the Get on the Bus education blog.
Sidney 231
Botkins 191
Versailles 184
Ansonia 177
Fort Loramie 156
Piqua 151
Milton-Union 116
Russia 107
Cedar Cliff 102
Anna 73
Brookville 69
Troy 64
Mississinawa Valley 54
Vandalia-Butler 46
Kettering 34
Greenville 25
Wayne 24
Newton 23
Northridge 17
Covington 16
Kings 15
Miami East 13
Mason 9
Tipp City 4
Oakwood 2
Northmont 2
Hardin-Houston -7
Centerville -14
Arcanum -17
Lebanon -18
Franklin Monroe -19
Dayton -20
Franklin -26
Sugarcreek -29
Mad River -29
Miamisburg -35
Yellow Springs -36
West Carrollton -45
Springboro -51
Trotwood-Madison -52
Beavercreek -55
Fairborn -64
New Lebanon -66
Bethel -67
Valley View -68
Xenia -100
Bradford -109
Little Miami -119
Eaton -132
Tri-County North -132
Twin Valley -147
Tri-Village -150
Greeneview -158
National Trail -159
Fairlawn -161
Preble Shawnee -193
Jefferson Twp. -206
Huber Heights -208
Jackson Center -218
Carlisle -226
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Education
TweetGood Old McCain Resurfaces; why?
The word has gone out to reporters that the reason Sen. John McCain wants to suspend the presidential campaign to focus on the nation’s financial emergency is that his handler’s have decided that he does best with the public when he is seen as a nonpartisan problem-solver, a guy who reaches across party lines to get things done. Whatever happens this week — whether the scheduled Friday debate with Barack Obama happens, for example — let’s hope that this theory of the handlers continues to prevail.
Until now, McCain seems to have been functioning under the opposite theory: that he has to cozy up to the very right-wing Republicans who think bipartisanship is a bad thing (who love Sarah Palin), while exceeding normal bounds of dishonesty in his ads.
But the polls are turning bad.
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TweetAre cell phones skewing election polling?
At age 40, I often describe my generation as the dividing line between those younger than me for whom technology — cellular phones, computers, e-mail, texting, the Internet, etc. — is a largely a “first language” and those my age and up for whom technology is more of a second language. That is, some of us are more fluent in having learned those technological communication tools than others. For the younger set, they basically learned technology naturally while growing up with it.
As someone who works at a newspaper, I like to point toward news consumption as a barometer. Those older than me tend to prefer to read their news on paper while those younger than me usually seem to follow the news online.
Cell phones are another way to see this dividing line. I haven’t quite been able to give up my land line at home entirely, but I’ve thought about it. A lot of my younger friends have long ago dropped the home phone and use a cell phone as their only means of voice communication. And it seems to me that the older you are the more likely you are to have a land-line phone.
If that’s true, it raises a question about election polling, which still is largely conducted using databases of exclusively land-line phones. The danger is that if the pool of those polled skews older because there are fewer young people with land-line phones, will the poll results reflected a point of view biased toward older voters? And are those points of view different enough from younger voters to give a false impression of the mood of the state or nation? We already know from other polling sources that older voters favor John McCain more and younger voters tend to lean toward Barack Obama.
One statistician has done the math and he thinks land-line only polls may be inflating McCain’s numbers by a couple of points nationally.
The analyst is Nate Silver at Five Thirty Eight an election projection blog. Silver makes no bones about his left-leaning politics, but he also is a respected statistician, known primarily for his work at Baseball Prospectus using mathematical formulas to project the performance of baseball players based on their prior stats.
Silver compared the results of a small number of polls that include cell phones to the majority of polls that do not and found a small lean toward McCain in the land-line only polls. Overall, he estimates traditional polls may be underestimating Obama’s support by 2 to 3 points. That is enough to make a big difference in the swing states that will decide the election.
After the election, there will be more data to analyze to nail down how predictive polls including cell phones were compared to traditional polls. And if there is a difference, it really could change polling as we know it. If land-line polls are really 2-3 points off the actual result, I expect those pollsters will change their protocols quickly.
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TweetCan Hillary turn the tide for Obama in Ohio?
(Hillary Clinton campaigns in Dayton in February.)
The liberal blog Talking Points Memo reports Hillary Clinton is planning to stump aggressively for Barack Obama in Ohio in the coming weeks and is urging her donors to contribute to the Ohio Democratic party to fund a “ground game” effort to turn out Democratic voters on Election Day.
As we know from the primary, Hillary is popular here. We also know a chunk of independent and Democratic voters here were wary of Obama back in March. Do you think Hillary can bring those folks into the Democratic column?
With John McCain polling 4-6 points ahead of Obama here, could an aggressive push by Hillary flip the state blue? I’m skeptical, but if I were Obama the two people I’d want stumping for me in the Buckeye state would be Hillary Clinton and Gov. Ted Strickland.
It appears he’s got them on board and ready to roll.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
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TweetAre school levy supporters pushing hard enough?
Today’s DDN editorial asks if leaders of Dayton’s school levy campaign need to kick it up a notch with the fall election closing in.
Over at the Get on the Bus education blog we’re asking city resident and school district employees to give their impression — is the levy push as hard this time around as it was in 2007?
If you have thoughts on the levy, please post them in the comments at Get on the Bus.
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TweetEditorial: Ohio could have executed the wrong man
Recent news is a reminder of just how dangerous the death penalty is.
Law enforcement officers in Hocking County, near Chillicothe, believe they have solved a 1982 double murder of a young couple. They arrested two men after one confessed. But in 1984 the wrong man was convicted and sentenced to die for this crime.
Dale Johnston, a onetime Xenia resident, spent five years on Death Row before he was released after his conviction was reversed by the Ohio Supreme Court. How the wrong man got so close to being executed is instructive about the flaws in Ohio’s death penalty process.
In a Sept. 4 Dayton Daily News commentary, Dayton Daily News Staff Writer Mark Fisher recalled how he covered Mr. Johnston’s 1984 trial and was stunned by the outcome.
Suspicion fell on Mr. Johnston quickly after his stepdaughter Annette Cooper and her fiance Todd Schultz disappeared and turned up dead 10 days later. The rumor was that Mr. Johnston had had sexual contact with Ms. Cooper and was jealous of her relationship with Mr. Schultz. He was arrested and charged with their murders.
But from the trial’s start, Mr. Fisher wrote, it was apparent prosecutors did not have a strong case. Even so, there was intense community pressure for a guilty verdict.
In the end, those inside the courtroom who had watched the trial stared in shock when a three-judge panel convicted Mr. Johnston. Outside, a large crowd listening on a radio exploded with a hauntingly satisfied roar, briefly interrupting the proceedings.
After the conviction was overturned, prosecutors had the opportunity to charge Mr. Johnston again, but decided not to do so.
Ohio’s history with the death penalty dates to the 1800s. No state outside of the South has executed more people. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Ohio’s death penalty law unconstitutional, but executions started up again in 1999 under a new law with new procedures.
Across the nation, DNA evidence has forced Americans to rethink the death penalty, and support for it is sinking in public opinion polls as a growing number of Death Row defendants are freed by new scientific evidence.
Last year, the American Bar Association reviewed Ohio’s death penalty procedures and raised alarms, citing this as one of five states where processes were most seriously flawed. Since 1973, five Ohio Death Row inmates have been exonerated, and the danger remains strong that more mistakes could be made. But there has been no serious effort to institute better safeguards.
The bar association found that a mixture of simple and complicated steps could do much to protect the innocent. On the simple side, it called for rules requiring biological evidence to be kept as long as a defendant is jailed and mandating videotaped witness interviews for capital cases. Both of these changes could make cases easier to re-evaluate if doubts are raised or new scientific methods become the norm.
The nation is moving in the right direction on the death penalty. DNA evidence has caused both the public and many who work in the courts and in law enforcement to reconsider the death penalty itself.
On one point there is unanimous sentiment: Innocent people should not die. Ohio must take steps to ensure tragic mistakes don’t ever happen.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Scott Elliott
TweetDeath penalty defense: Too fat to die?
Richard Wade Cooey
Maybe you’ve heard about the case of an Ohio Death Row inmate who’s lawyer claims he his too fat to die? It grabbed a few headlines around the country.
If you’re interested in the story behind the story, check out Richard Wade Cooey’s actual legal argument in an op-ed column by his lawyer from the Cincinnati Enquirer. He writes that Cooey’s various weight-related medical conditions increase the likelihood that he will suffer pain during the execution.
The parole board rejected that idea. His execution is scheduled for next month. Cooey was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of two college students.
Today’s DDN editorial looks at a different death penalty case in which the wrong man might have been executed after spending five years on death row. It’s the latest example of the growing national concern that has many asking if the death penalty should be reconsidered.
Tell us what you think in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Law Enforcement and Public Safety
TweetGrilled Alaskan
As of this writing, I haven’t seen the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson. Will entertain reviews here.
What’s striking at this stage is all the interest around the idea of Sarah Palin actually doing an interview, or even a few. Doing interviews is what all the other candidates have been doing all along.
It’s common knowledge that she’s been busy cramming. I don’t expect her to make any monumental mistakes. She’s got great teachers, and they know what questions she will face. I expect Cliff Notes answers.
That will be enough for the people who want to support her and not for those who don’t.
I did read about how she couldn’t answer Gibson’s question about the “Bush Doctrine.” She didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. I wouldn’t have either. This is a question about jargon, not substance. Gotcha! The fair question is what she thinks about pre-emptive war, not the “Bush doctrine.”
Still, she does need to be pressed. Not because the election is at stake. Traditionally, when all is said and done, people vote for presidents, not vice presidents. (Look at Dan Quayle.) Might be different this time, as the polls suggest, but I’m not convinced.
She needs to be pressed — and investigated — because she is asking to be put a heartbeat away. John McCain created her out of Nowhere. (No, it’s not slam against Alaska. Figure of speech. Political Nowhere, ok?)
I’m reminded of the old Lenny Bruce bit, where a guy is talking to a genie, and he says, “Make me a malted,” and the genie says, “Phhht: You’re a malted.”
Phhht: She’s a national figure. And two months away from a heartbeat away.
If the media tread lightly because the partisans whine or because she’s a woman, they ought just hang it up. Their work is cut out for them.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetScott Elliott: Despite the facts, parents can’t stop hovering
There are crazy, irrational people running loose in my suburban Kettering neighborhood, and people are scared.
But here’s the odd part. It’s the scared people who are crazy and irrational. I know because I’m one of them. So are many parents.
Here’s what happened during the first week of school.
My plan was to drop 8-year-old Kate at school on the way to work. There was a red light as I approached the school, so I dropped her on the sidewalk with instructions to cross at the crosswalk and walk maybe 100 steps to school.
But Kate didn’t make it to the corner before the light changed, so I traveled on through the light toward work as she remained standing on the corner.
What I did next was certifiably nuts.
I went around the block. I came back to the same light and watched to make sure Kate crossed the street and walked in the door to school.
I should know better.
Two years ago, when Kate was in kindergarten and her older sister was in second grade, I started a wildfire on Get on the Bus, our Dayton Daily News education blog, with a simple question — would it be OK for them to walk to school alone for six-tenths of a mile from our house to school?
“DON’T EVEN CONSIDER IT!” one of more than 41 comments screamed. “It is too dangerous in our times to allow these young children to walk alone. If you care for your children, walk with them.”
But are these really extraordinarily dangerous times?
There is no question that bad things happen. Erica Baker’s disappearance in Kettering almost a decade ago is a haunting reminder that it can happen anywhere. But then there was the scary story recently of a girl kidnapped from her front yard in Huber Heights. That story turned out to be a hoax.
Parents absolutely should take precautions. But we should also be rational. And we are not.
In a 2007 U.S. Census survey of parents, one in five parents said they try to keep their children indoors “as much as possible” to protect them from harm. One in five! Those numbers held steady across all types of neighborhoods and communities — urban, suburban, rural, high-crime and low-crime. There are certainly places where extra vigilance is absolutely necessary, and more parental attention in general is certainly better than less.
But the Census survey suggests a high degree of overkill by many parents. Statistics also tell us it is not nearly that dangerous on most of our sidewalks and streets.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports 2,185 children are reported missing each day in the United States. But read further and you’ll find that nearly all of those kids are found quickly, and most turn out to be with a family member nearby.
Some of those are the terrifying “stereotypical kidnappings,” children taken by strangers for more than a day, taken far from home or killed. But only a very small percentage of them.
The center reports that the average is 115 such kidnappings a year.
That is a tiny number. Think about it. There are 75 million children in this country. This means the chance that any one kid will be kidnapped is roughly one in 750,000. By comparison, the chance that a person will be hit by lightning in any given year is one in 700,000. The chance of dying in a plane crash in the average year is one in 391,581, according to the National Safety Council.
We all take cover when there is a storm, but do any of us really think there’s much chance we’ll be hit by lightning? And be honest. If you knew someone who refused to get on an airplane for fear it would crash, you’d shake your head at how irrational he is.
Still, I drive around the block to make sure Kate makes it 100 steps from the corner to the schoolhouse in broad daylight.
That’s how I know I’m insane.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Editorials, Law Enforcement and Public Safety, Scott Elliott
TweetConscientious parent or helicopter dad?
If you read my column today, tell us what you think about “helicopter” parents — those that hover obsessively over their kids. Am I one of them?
For background, here is my original blog post about kids walking to school alone that sparked a healthy debate in 2006. And here is another post from last year in which I outlined my argument that parents have gone over the edge.
Share your thoughts on this topic in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment |
TweetHuckabee for, uh, commentator
Watching the Republicans descend to exceptional lows the other day with their shameless nonsense about lipstick and pigs, I found myself wondering whether there comes a point in their descent at which even some Republicans might take offense — and say so publicly.
Isn’t there ANYBODY in the party who is embarrassed and distressed to see what has become of John McCain?
Then I slapped myself in the face and told me to get real. This is politics. Who is right and who is wrong has nothing to do with who is right and who is wrong. It’s about which side you’re on.
So let’s give a cheer for Mike Huckabee.
On Fox, he said that the Obama statement about pigs and lipstick was harmless and not relevant to the campaign. He said, “It’s just an expression.”
On the same day, he sent out a message to supporters saying the same thing: “Almost twenty four hours into this new controversy, and the accusations are continuing to fly from both campaigns. That’s too bad. Let’s shift back to the issues.”
He says Republicans should be “trumpeting” their views on energy, health care, education and more.
“A return to the issues is what the American people expect,” he wrote, “and it is a mistake to think that our Republican ideas somehow can’t compete with the Democrats. And frankly, if anyone tells you otherwise, that dog won’t hunt.”
Dog?
Oh, well, let’s move on.
(As for Huckabee’s hugely wrong statement at the Republican Convention that Sarah Palin got more votes for mayor than Joe Biden got for president, let’s assume — in the spirit of this fleeting moment — that he was just kidding.)
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetSteve Austria promises to be an “independent thinker”
Steve Austria
Over at the Politicker Ohio blog, they have an interview with Steve Austria, who is running for Congressman Dave Hobson’s seat to represent chunks of Greene and Clark counties, among others.
In the conversation, Republican Austria emphasized he was an “independent thinker” and Politicker described him as backing away from the party label.
Does a Republican running in the right-leaning seventh district really need to distance himself from the party? Tell us what you think in the comments.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: Miami Valley Politics
TweetPigs, Pitbulls and Politicos
Barack Obama was talking the other day about how John McCain’s policies haven’t changed. He said putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t change the pig’s species. Some Republicans immediately took offense. They denounced the alleged slur against Sarah Palin, who had famously said that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick.
The Obama people deny that he was talking about her. They point out that he was making the point about pigs long before anybody ever heard of Sarah Palin, which turns out to be true. John McCain uses the line, too.
The question now is, do any sophisticated people really believe that Barack Obama is the sort of low-life who would go to “pig” language about a woman, who would get so personal, so ugly?
Obama says they’re just pretending to believe it, just, in effect. lying.
The alternative explanation is that have gotten so caught up in this politics stuff that all their reasoning mechanisms have shut down, and they are now simply crazed with blind, ignorant hatred.
In the context of the rules of politics, Obama gives them the benefit of the doubt.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Post your comment | Categories: National Politics
TweetOlbermann Overboard about Palin
I found myself watching Keith Olbermann on MSNBC last night (Monday), something I never do. Wow. He was — choosing this word carefully — apoplectic about all manner of alleged horrors stories relating to Sarah Palin’s religious views.
He was fascinated and unmistakably appalled at the revelation that people in her church speak in tongues. But the church in question is the one she grew up in and has left. So what’s the issue?
He was all excited about the fact that a YouTube video shows her asking her current church to pray that problems involving a pipeline in the works for Alaska be worked out. But that pipeline is God and country in Alaska. Everybody is for it. To ask people to pray for it is like asking them to pray for the troops or for military victory.
And Olbermann referred to an upcoming story about something that was said from the pulpit of Palin’s new church. But it turned out to have been said by a visiting speaker (a Jews for Jesus spokesman saying Israel was paying the price for angering God). Surely the Obama people don’t want to start holding Palin responsible for things that are said (by a visitor, no less) from the pulpit of her church, after all the Obama people have been through.
I can’t remember if it was Olbermann, but somebody during the evening was upset about a YouTube video showing Palin saying something about God’s will and Iraq. As I listened to it, all she seemed to be saying was that people should pray or hope that we are doing the right thing there by God. Hard to see what’s so offensive about that.
The media do have to go at the Palin story hard, of course. Out of the blue, she is put forth for the heartbeat-awayship. If anything ever screamed out for aggressive investigative reporting, this is it. But there’s a right way and a wrong way. Olbermann got it wrong that night. (And MSNBC got it right in taking him — and Chris Matthews — off anchoring duties at events such as conventions. Let’s not kid ourselves about who he is.)
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TweetBoth candidates need to be specific about education plans
Sens. McCain and Obama Tuesday
Here’s a sneak preview of Wednesday’s editorial about visits to the Dayton area by Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain:
At Stebbins High School on Tuesday, Sept. 9, Sen. Obama pitched mostly ideas he has supported in the past — more money for early childhood education, teacher pay, college tax credits and classroom technology upgrades.
But to make a big difference in any of those areas would require a major financial commitment. “We can do all this for the cost of just a few days in Iraq,” was all he said about how to pay for it. That’s easier said than done.
And Sen. Obama got wild applause from a crowd thick with teachers in blue union T-shirts when he mocked No Child Left Behind as only preparing kids to “fill in bubbles on a standardized test.” But he doesn’t offer a better way to evaluate student achievement beyond a vague promise that teachers should help develop “new assessments.”
What kinds of assessments does Sen. Obama have in mind, and why would they be any better?
For his part, Sen. McCain is actually even less specific about his education plans. His position can be summed up pretty simply — he (and Sen. Obama) would focus more federal money on needy pre-schoolers, and he supports expanding school choice. In Sen. Barack Obama could have picked any city in the country for Tuesday’s speech on education, but it was fitting that he chose to embrace charter schools in the Dayton area.
Arguably, this is the charter school capital of the country. From 2001 to 2006, Dayton was No. 1 in the nation for the percentage of schoolchildren attending charter schools, and the city slipped to No. 2 in recent years only because New Orleans is rebuilding its schools after Hurricane Katrina with a largely charter school system.
By saying he supports doubling federal support for charter schools — increasing that spending to $400 million — Sen. Obama moved closer to his opponen’s position. And he is disagreeing with the prevailing view among public school teachers and the National Education Association, which are among the Democratic Party’s most loyal supporters.
Coincidentally, Sen. John McCain was speaking just 25 miles to the south in Lebanon. Sen. Obama’s new affection for charter schools followed Sen. McCain’s convention speech last week in which he touted his allegiance to school choice as the primary plank of his education plan.
So both candidates favor charter schools. But voters still don’t know what either really would try to accomplish when it comes to schools, because neither has been specific.
Sen. McCain’s case, choice includes vouchers that allow students to attend private schools using tax dollars. Sen. Obama has embraced public school choice through charters, but not private school vouchers.
In opinion polls, education always ranks among the issues voters most care about. But this election season, it has been overshadowed by the economy and the war.
There’s still time for both candidates to be more direct. Now that the race has entered the home stretch, voters are listening.
(Image credits: Teesha McClam and Nick Daggy, Cox News Service)
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TweetCharters big in Obama education plan
At Stebbins High School Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama promised to double to $400 million federal funding for charter schools. For a complete report on the speech, visit Get on the Bus.
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TweetWhat will Obama say about education at Stebbins?
For excerpts from Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s upcoming speech this morning at Stebbins High School touting charter schools, teacher performance pay and after school programs, hop over to the Get on the Bus education blog.
What is Barack Obama’s take on education? That’s not as easy to explain as you might think. To learn more about the battle within the Democratic Party’s two big education camps for Obama’s allegiance, go here.
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TweetOhio will be at the center of presidential politics again
Should low scoring traditional public schools be forced to close after three years as Ohio law now dictates for charter schools? Discuss today’s editorial at the Get on the Bus education blog.
As the presidential election now kicks into full swing for the final two months of the campaign, journalists across the country are assessing what states will matter and no matter how you examine the electoral map, Ohio is at the center of it. Check out the Christian Science Montior, the Toledo Blade and the Newark Star-Ledger.
That probably explains why both Barack Obama and John McCain will be campaigning in the area Tuesday.
Elsewhere around Ohio this weekend, the state’s big newspapers seem to like the decision to pull from the November ballot Issue 4, which would have required seven sick days for full-time workers at companies with 25 or more employees. Weighing in approvingly were the DDN’s editorial page editor Ellen Belcher, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Columbus Dispatch and the Toledo Blade.
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TweetIn search of the “vanishing Republican”
In this week’s New York Times Sunday magazine, President Bush’s former speechwriter David Frum explains his theory of why polls are showing more people identifying themselves as Democrats and fewer as Republicans, even in what were once reliably Republican parts of the country.
His answer? As America has become more economically unequal it has trended more Democratic. Frum’s piece is a call to arms for action from Republicans to address the inequality crisis and especially the driving force, as he sees it, behind the crisis — skyrocketing health care costs.
Frum interestingly points out that places that are the most unequal — with populations of very wealthy and well educated tend to vote heavily Democratic. Where Republicans do best are in places that are relatively equal economically. And Frum warns that since 2000 income in the U.S. had trended toward more inequality, with the very rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer and incomes in the middle not growing. This, he writes, hurts Republicans in elections.
The idea that Republicans should support efforts to equalize income is a tough one as conservative orthodoxy generally considers individual economic status to be beyond the scope of government’s charge. But Frum believes the party can’t cede this issue to the Democrats. He’s pushing health care reform as a first step.
I wonder what local Republicans think of this argument and it they have ideas for what sorts of policies their part could push on the issue of economic inequality that would make sense for them? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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TweetStrickland in WSJ: ‘Look under Ohio’s hood’
Gov. Ted Strickland and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher responded to former Daytonian Chester “Checker” Finn’s trashing earlier this summer of Ohio in Saturday, Sept. 6’s Wall Street Journal.
“Responded” isn’t exactly the right word because, according to the lieutenant governor’s office, the WSJ doesn’t allow victims of commentary pieces to write direct rebuttals in their effort to set the record straight. You have to dress up your rejoinder as something else, pretend like you’re not aggrieved and asking for equal time.
Anyway, arguably the most dishonest thing Finn said in his June 28 piece was, “Ohio already has the fifth-heaviest state and local tax burden in the country (up from 30th in 1990) and finds itself stagnating.”
Finn was relying on numbers from the Tax Foundation, an anti-tax outfit whose ranking is widely seen as relying on goofy methodology even by those that come out looking good under it.
Among the things Strickland and Fisher say is:
“By 2010, Ohio will be one of only two states without a general tax on corporation profits or a property tax on business machinery, equipment and inventories. This year is the last for Ohio’s business property tax; next year is the last for the corporation profits tax. And Ohio’s personal income tax rates are falling by 21% across the board.
“Between 2005 and 2007, Ohio’s per capita state tax burden has already fallen to 38th in the nation, from 27th, according to the Federation for Tax Administrators. When the new tax cuts are phased in, Ohio’s business taxes will be the lowest in the Midwest.”
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TweetCommunity Organizing Better than Small-town Mayoring
At the Republican convention, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin disparaged Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer. They might now say that they didn’t mean to disparage the work itself, but to disparage it as a qualification for president, compared to being mayor of a small town. But it came off as sheer scorn, mockery, and it was widely reported that way. And the delegates seemed to eat it up, though sometimes what one sees and hears on television in the way of crowd responses can be misleading.
In truth, Barack Obama’s decision, upon finishing Harvard Law School, to be a community organizer, rather than take up life in a Republican law firm, was nothing in the world but admirable. He was putting his use of the law to work in behalf of a community on the south side of Chicago that had been hit by the closing of steel mills and that had had plenty of problems before that.
If you know that certain people hold such work in contempt, you have an insight into their political souls.
As for the comparison with being a small-town mayor, gimme a break. I’ve covered small town mayors on and off for decades. They are typically good people, volunteering for community service. But their work — generally pleasant, non-partisan, low-key and part-time — does not, in any teensy, tiny degree, prepare them to be president, notwithstanding the absurdly aggressive pretenses of apologists for the Palin selection.
Obama’s work — and what he learned about the problems facing distressed families and communities in these times — is incomparably more relevant to being president. And what he showed about himself was something special.
It’s absurd and a shame that any of this even needs to be said. It is so perfectly obvious. But partisanship pushes people to deny it.
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TweetDefinitely don’t miss the Peace Prize event
On Aug. 28, NPR’s Morning Edition had a fascinating report on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which was given 45 years ago that day.
Taylor Branch, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning “America in the King Years” trilogy and the winner of this year’s Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award, was interviewed. Recalling all the things that people got wrong that day — the expectation was that blacks would riot — Branch noted that “many newspapers, including The Washington Post, didn’t even mention his (King’s) speech in their coverage the next day.”
Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize folks undoubtedly took the anniversary into account when deciding to honor Branch this year. So, once again, the event promises to be one of the most moving and uplifting celebrations of the year for Dayton. The author-winners always leave thinking highly of Dayton for hosting what is the only literary peace prize awarded in the United States.
For information about the awards and the gala, click here. Trust me: you don’t want to miss the event. Act soon because it will sell out.
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TweetDumbest Moment at Either Convention?
What was the dumbest moment at either convention? The competition is steep.
Here’s one nomination:
Mitt Romney’s fantastical speech about how Washington is now under liberal control. He was absolutely not talking about the Congress in the wake of the 2006 election. He talked about the Supreme Court being liberal. (Really. He did.)
He said the whole place is liberal. He said the country needs change “from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington.” And let’s “throw out the liberal government in Washington and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin.”
Wow.
(Among the odd things here is that he is suggesting that John McCain is more conservative — that is, a more orthodox Republican — than George W. Bush.)
Other nominations for the dumbest moment being accepted.
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TweetConventional Observations
You’re in good company:
Know where John McCain and Barack Obama were during the Republican convention, at least at first? Right: In Ohio.
Not your average Joe:
I’ve always liked Joe Lieberman. Thoughtful, independent, skeptical of the dogma enforcers among the Democrats, usually pretty close to right. For my money, he lived up to this billing for much of his pro-McCain speech at the convention.
Moreover, his denunciation of mindless, hard-core partisanship was more creditable, more meaningful than most, because he was risking his Senate committee chairmanship by ticking off the Democrats.
He was OK until he got to the subject of the vice presidency.
He needn’t have gotten to that subject, at all. Could have skipped right over it. But, no, he had to insist that Sarah Palin was a great addition to the ticket.
This is just partisanship in another form. If partisanship is “my party, right or wrong,” he was living “my candidate, right or wrong.” All of a sudden, he finds himself spinning, denying the obvious, all in the name of political loyalty. That’s where partisanship starts.
Norman Ornstein, a respected, genuinely nonpartisan political analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said, “He’s just got to be churning inside about Palin. … Lieberman has said this is all about the transcendental threat of Islamic fundamentalist, transatlantic terrorism. And here’s this pick who is not ready on Day 1, 2 or 100.”
In one form, nonpartisanship is about the “straight talk” John McCain once espoused. It’s about calling them as one sees them, following the truth wherever it goes. But that is not the form Lieberman was deploying.
Also on this nonpartisan thing:
If McCain wants to be an antidote to berserk partisanship, the Palin selection isn’t helping. It is sending the most partisan forces in the Republican coalition into paroxysms of martyrdom. They are battening down the hatches and entering an us-against-them mode. They are telling their audience that Palin’s critics don’t like her because she’s a conservative. We have to embrace her because she’s one of us. The merits be damned. (They don’t say that last part, but they might as well.)
So much for the concern that conservatives wouldn’t be energized in behalf of McCain. The Palin selection might not have done it. The fight over her is doing it.
It’s the media’s fault:
Part of the pro-Palin effort is a bash-the-media thrust. The Democrats “and their friends in the media,” said Fred Thompson. Never mind that John McCain has always been a favorite of the press corps. (In fact, Republican conservatives have often accused him of playing to the media, instead of to them). It’ll be interesting to see how much he joins in this.
Many of the complaints about media coverage have to do with the pursuit of stories about her personal life, her background and her family life. Truth is, media people needn’t be partisans to lust after stuff like that.
Slip of the tongue:
Did anybody else hear Jo Ann Davidson, the former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives (who now has a high position with the national party), say in a speech “Sarah Pawlenty”?
(Though he may be forgotten now, Tim Pawlenty, of Minnesota, is a slightly less obscure governor who was considered for the No. 2 spot.)
Ready for his close-up:
Television cameras have shown close-ups of Dayton-area personalities Jon Husted and Kevin DeWine on the convention floor. In fact, Husted keeps showing up. One night, at least, he seemed to have a close-in seat, from which he had to crane his neck to see the speaker. The shot of him doing so suggested a very young idealist who’s a bit awestruck by the whole thing. You have to wonder if the camera operator knew he’s the speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives.
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