From the Steve Christopher for Attorney General Campaign:

As of today, March 12, 2010, Steve Christopher has given his attorney, David Langdon of Cincinnati, photocopies of all of the petitions that were filed with Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s office on February 18. Langdon attempted to work with the Secretary of State’s office in an effort to find a resolution to the lost or misplaced petitions. It was Christopher’s intent to have these petitions sent to the proper county Boards of Elections so that the signatures on the petitions could be properly validated.

A fair and equitable agreement could not be reached with the Secretary of State’s Office. Steve Christopher has authorized Langdon to proceed with court action to secure his rightful position on the May Republican primary ballot. Due to the extremely restrictive time restraints regarding election laws, Christopher has no further time to wait for a resolution. Langdon has filed a complaint for writ of mandamus with the Ohio Supreme Court on Christopher’s behalf.

And Dennis Willard has a good column on it today in the Akron Beacon Urinal:

Jeff Ortega, a spokesman for Brunner, said the office does not count or check the signatures because that responsibility falls on the local boards.

”Nothing was lost. Nothing was misplaced. Everything was handled according to a proper chain of custody and we can prove it,” Ortega said.

He said an employee asked Christopher how many signatures were collected and, after hesitating, Christopher said ”2,750” and that was the number written down.

Ortega said the 788 total signatures were sent out to be checked and the local election boards reported back to Brunner that Christopher had collected 638 valid signatures and 166 invalid signatures.

Ahem, that’s 804 total signatures. Ortega said he would check on those figures and he responded via e-mail.

Ortega emphasized the focus is on valid signatures.

”Those numbers were double-checked by our office. The number of valid signatures is what is reflected in the letter notifying candidates whether they are or are not on the ballot,” he wrote.

But the numbers don’t add up.

”There may be some discrepancies in some of the numbers sent to us by the counties, but these are minor calculating errors that will be addressed via amended work sheets that counties will submit in the near future,” Ortega wrote.

He noted that ”Medina County reported 96 valid signatures, 18 invalid, adding up to 104. It should have been 96 valid, 8 invalid, which does add up to 104. One other county, Hardin, reported 101 valid, 6 invalid, but added it up as 101. Of course, it should have been 107.”

Of course. Why didn’t I see that in the first place?

”Again, these are minor discrepancies that do not affect the number of valid signatures,” Ortega wrote.[...]

By the end of the day, Christopher did what any self-respecting attorney always does. He sued Brunner.

Rankin succinctly pinpointed the situation now.

”The numerous allegations made by Mr. Christopher and his supporters must now be proved in a court of law, where the party bringing the charges bears the burden to prove them,” Rankin noted.

In other words, this is no longer a ”he said, she said” debate.

Christopher is going to have to prove he was bumped from the ballot either through omission or commission in Brunner’s office.

For Christopher, this is the chance of a political lifetime. By winning, he can show he was wronged and demonstrate he has the skills, an abundance of skills needed, to actually be attorney general.

Relevant documents documents can be found below the fold:

And he hired a prominent conservative lawyer to make sure she does her job:

Attorney David R. Langdon, representing Christopher, said he has sent Brunner’s office copies of the 140 part-petitions that he says were not sent to county boards and is asking Brunner to forward them.

If Brunner doesn’t respond or refuses to act, Langdon said he will file a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court today seeking an order to force Brunner to send the part-petitions to the counties and to have the counties put Christopher’s name on the ballot in case Christopher is later certified.

Brunner’s office is reviewing what Langdon submitted today, spokesman Kevin Kidder said. But he said the office still stands by its contention that Christopher turned in only 104 part-petitions.

There are more than enough signatures and personal accounts of signature collectors to completely demolish anything Brunner’s office can say. And no matter if this situation is corrected, we already see that Ohio has an incompetent Secretary of State.

Things only get worse for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, as there is no way for them to definitely prove they didn’t receive extra signatures. This is from the Steve Christopher for Attorney General campaign:

Yesterday, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner issued a press release entitled, “SECRETARY BRUNNER RESPONDS TO UNFOUNDED ALLEGATIONS.” In this release, Secretary Brunner stated that she did not know why Steve Christopher would not contact her office. In fact, a representative for the Christopher campaign did visit the Secretary of State’s office on Monday regarding this situation. In this meeting, it was reiterated by Secretary of State personnel that the 788-signature count would stand. Election laws are very specific and if Christopher would have waited for a resolution, he would have lost his legal recourse to be placed on the ballot. Christopher retained legal representation to ensure his right to be on the ballot. Christopher’s legal counsel is attempting to arrange a meeting with the Secretary of State’s office, and will discuss the issue of the campaign’s copies of its petitions.

Secretary Brunner states, in this same press release, that the number of signatures purported on the receipt is given by the candidate. The number of signatures on the receipt given to Christopher was filled out by a Secretary of State employee. The employee accepting these petitions does this for a living and could easily detect a discrepancy of almost 2,000 signatures, merely by size of the stack of paper.

Today we obtained an Excel spreadsheet file that was created and distributed by the Secretary of State’s office to all 88 Ohio county Boards of Elections. This spreadsheet was created on February 18^th at 5:51 PM, over five hours after Steve’s petition submittal. We can produce this document upon request, pending the approval of the campaign’s attorney.

It sounds like total incompetence at the Secretary of State’s office, which is backed up by reports from those who personally went around their neighborhoods collecting signatures…

First, from Phil Herzing in Dayton:

I see that a narrative has developed: Steve Christopher is crazy. He can’t count, and wasted all his time going to the Sec. of State’s office to turn in a pile of signatures that he ought to have known was inadequate. Except that I called the S.o.S. office myself to inquire after the location of the signatures I myself gathered (about 90). Montgomery County Board of Elections only received 4 (you read right: FOUR) for validation. A nice young lady named Alison in the Brunner’s office claims that the candidate never turned them in.

Fair enough, I said to her. “Suppose in a couple years I want to run for some office, and I have to turn in my nominating petitions in the Secretary of State’s office, like Christopher did last month. What process do I have to follow to ensure that I don’t end up in the same boat that he’s in now, holding a receipt for 2750 submitted signatures, but being subsequently told that I only turned in 788?”

(A Their word against mine. More precisely, their word on Feb 18th versus their word now!)

“What procedure does your office have in place to prevent discrepancies like this?”

The answer I got: “We don’t have one.”

“In other words, the receipt you give out is worthless. Is that what you’re telling me now?”

Silence.

So, in the absence of any verifiable proof that Brunner’s office is telling me the truth, I guess I’m free to believe whom I choose. Since I gathered nearly 100 signatures myself, I choose to believe that the Candidate turned them in. Why shouldn’t I?

And this is from Thea Shoemake, Vice Chair of the Clermont County GOP Central Committee:

On Wednesday, February 17, Steve Christopher spoke to the Clermont County Central Committee in Batavia.  He was very well-received.  In addition to the signatures I procured for him in Clermont, a few other people who had been circulating his petitions here as well as in neighboring counties, came to the meeting that night to hand-deliver them to Steve.  I’m estimating that he had – from that stop alone – approx. 300 signatures from Clermont, Warren & Hamilton counties (combined).  It was my understanding that Steve was going to drive to Columbus after the meeting – petitions in hand – and would file the next day.  Somewhere between then and March 5th, those signatures ceased to exist, including my own and other committee members’ (which I know are valid).

Here is the information that I have confirmed with our county Board of Elections:

1.      The SoS’s office sent out a worksheet of estimated signatures from all candidates, parties & races (ours reads 2,750 for Christopher).

2.      The next step in the process dictates that the SoS then sends the candidates’ petitions back to the respective county BoE’s for validation.

a.       Attached is the Directive sent by the SoS regarding Steve Christopher’s petitions. Near the end it reads:

§  “Please return the original completed certification form and part petitions to this office by a trackable method; e.g., in person or by certified U.S. Mail, U.S. Post Office Express Mail, UPS, or Fed EX.”

b.      But according to our BoE, none were ever received from the SoS office.  So where are those Clermont petitions?  Where are the others?  This isn’t about the validity of the signatures, it’s about signatures that never made it back to the counties for validation.

While we could speculate ad nauseam about other scenarios and their suppositional motives, at the end of the day, the issue at hand is that many Ohioans just got “lost in transmission,” and it is in the best interest of everyone involved to get definitive answers and an acceptable resolution.

Best,
Thea Shoemake

And from Kimberly Fletcher, President and Founder of Homemakers for America, in Dayton:

I would be happy to comment on this issue.

I opened my home for an entire day during those huge snow days and despite the terrible weather I had 65 people file in my house apologizing all the way for tramping through my living room wet snow covered boots. And I just looked at them and said with a big smile, “You just bring those patriotic, snow covered boots right in her and sign. This is much important than a floor or carpet.”

I collected signatures at church, community events, door to door for a week in the snow. My friend Phil and I organized signing parties. He took south Dayton and I took north. I had all the petitions and I needed to get them to him but I was heading to Cleveland for a speaking engagement (where I also collected signatures) so we coordinated a drop site. I told him I would just drive down I 75 find a good place and leave the envelope and then let him know where to pick it up. I found an old abandoned building just off the Main St exit downtown Dayton. He picked them up that afternoon and started gathering signatures. He had over 100 people meet him at Starbucks to sign petitions. It was like this over the state.

Once we had our petitions done we organized drop sites for Steve to pick them up. I took all my petitions and the ones people collected from north Dayton to Miami county where there several more waiting. Others dropped theirs at the south drop point. The Steve drove through and picked them up. It was amazing. Because of all our efforts we collected over 2000 signatures in four days. Steve already had 800 he had already had turned in to him. This is the power of the people in action. Ms. Brunner and ever corrupt politician out there should be shaking in their boots. We the people are rising up and in America the people rule. Ms. Brunner might want to remind herself of that. We are her boss. And the boss is not happy with her performance.

And this is just the surface of dedicated conservative activists who worked hard to collect signatures, but somehow Secretary of State Brunner’s office lost them. But with at least 2000 of the signatures photocopied and in the hands of Steve Christopher, he has a strong legal case to make here.

Stay tuned for more details!

As an update to my post from this morning, I have it from unimpeachable sources that  the Sec of State’s office sent a spreadsheet to all the county BoE’s listing how many signatures were submitted by each statewide candidate. Under Steve Christopher’s name, the number was listed as 2,750—which matches the receipt Steve got the day he filed.

It’s a shame that Christopher doesn’t have the extra 734 signatures which the campaign received at the last minute. But the numbers don’t match anyway.

Brian Shinn and others in Secretary Jennifer Brunner’s office should be updating their resumes now. Heads are about to roll…

Encouraging background information from David Wolfford in the print edition of the Weekly Standard:

[Rob Portman] rode the ’94 GOP wave back for a full term and won five more, typically with 70 percent of the vote. Portman was popular in Washington, too. His proudest moments in his 12 years in the House, he said, were “when we passed the balanced budget agreement and the welfare reform bill.” Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayer’s Union recalls Portman’s leadership on the IRS restructuring of 1998. “He set a professional work environment that rose above partisanship and ultimately gave taxpayers more rights.”

In 2005, George W. Bush named Portman U.S. trade representative, then later budget director. In his year at the Office of Management and Budget, Portman fought to contain spending and earned the sobriquet “Dr. No.” He also pushed for a revised line-item veto bill that would stand constitutional muster, and after consulting with taxpayer groups he established an online listing of earmarks. “He was extremely interested in engaging us and others,” said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, confirmed that Portman’s efforts “moved earmarks out of the shadows.”

Over the weekend, I made fun of a few kook suggestions that Board of Election’s purposefully ruined Ohio AG candidate Steve Christopher’s petitions. But ever since, the buzz has been that there was a good old fashion example of incompetence, and as more details come out- Secretary of State Brunner is looking worse.

From James Nash in The Dispatch:

Nearly 2,000 petition signatures simply vanished in the hands of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a man whom Brunner disqualified from the May ballot for attorney general alleged yesterday.

Kenton lawyer Steve Christopher, a conservative Republican who had sought Ohio’s top legal job, was one of five candidates Brunner scrubbed from the ballot Friday for failing to turn in 1,000 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters.

While three have accepted Brunner’s judgment, Christopher and a U.S. Senate hopeful are accusing the state’s chief elections official of bungling the signature-verification process. The would-be Senate candidate, Traci “TJ” Johnson, had hoped to run in the Democratic primary in which Brunner is a candidate.

While Johnson is alleging a conflict of interest on Brunner’s part, Christopher’s charges are even more explosive. In effect, the lawyer says the secretary of state simply lost petition forms containing 1,962 signatures. His campaign says it turned in 2,750 signatures in all.[...]

Brunner’s office said the phantom signatures never existed.

The secretary of state said Christopher’s campaign submitted 788 signatures, of which 638 were deemed valid by county boards of elections. The candidate turned in 104 part-petitions, with 27 lines available for signatures on each part-petition, so the maximum number of signatures is 2,808, Brunner’s office said.[...]

Christopher’s wife, Jill, said the campaign has copies of about 2,000 signatures that it submitted to Brunner’s office. The campaign doesn’t have records of the 750 others because they were collected in the final hours before they were submitted Feb. 18, she said.

The problem here is, why would Secretary Brunner even bother to check the names at all, if there weren’t at least the minimum requirement of 1000? I think the very fact that she is looking is proof that her office thinks they screwed up.

Below is Brunner’s receipt showing that he filed approximately 2750 signatures… along with his “disqualification letter.”

And below that is the “worklogs,” showing how many signatures and petitions were sent out from Brunner’s office to various counties. The problem here is that they do not match with reality at all. TEA party activists swear that the number of reported circulators in many counties are far too low.

Steve Christopher Receipt for 2750 Sigs

Steve Christopher Sec of State Worklog

Brunner’s office messed up, and is too busy running a partisan office with allowing the homeless to register at park benches and working on behalf of gambling interests…. and not to mention running for the US Senate…. to do the job she was elected to do. Brunner is am embarrassment and I’m glad Christopher isn’t backing down.

If any Christopher petition gatherers want to tell their story and dispute these numbers, please send me an email.

Update: Bill Hershey reports in the Dayton Daily’s political blog:

Christopher’s campaign has said he has copies of a majority but not all of the petitions he submitted to Brunner’s office.

Meanwhile, Phil Herzing of Washington Township said that he gathered about 100 signatures on his own for Christopher’s campaign, most of which came from Montgomery County. Some came from Warren and Greene counties. Including the 100 he gathered himself, he and acquaintances gathered about 400 signatures from Montgomery, Greene, Miami and neighboring counties.

Herzing said he collected 60 signatures gathered by a woman from Mercer County. Brunner’s log showed no signatures from Mercer County.

Brunner’s office released a log that her office sent only four signatures from Montgomery County voters to the Montgomery County Board of Elections for validation and that all four were validated.

Something is rotten in the state of Ohio. And someone, such as Brian Shinn, is about to get fired.

I keep hearing that the buzz is, Jennfer Brunner completely screwed up by misplacing signatures for Attorney General candidate Steve Christopher. Grand conspiracies in government aren’t nearly as common as just plain, old fashioned incompetence. There hasn’t been more media updates about it, but this is what the Dayton Daily News reported yesterday.

And in other news, Jennybenny got slapped down for her latest efforts to try to “expose” a conservative 501c4’s group donors, even though there is no legal precedence for such organizations having to do so (Just ask Progress Ohio!).

The latest development is that Brunner can’t issue subpoenas to people who don’t live in Ohio. She is an attorney and a former judge- How does she not understand the law?

The Ohio Supreme Court issued an order yesterday putting on hold, pending a final determination, the last of the remaining subpoenas from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner in a dispute about the funding behind a proposed referendum.

Last week, the court delayed enforcement of subpoenas issued to people affiliated with LetOhioVote.org, the group seeking the referendum on whether to add electronic slot machines at horse tracks, as well as to Tim Crawford, president of New Models, the Virginia-based nonprofit that was LetOhioVote.org’s sole source of funding last year.

Yesterday, the court also delayed a subpoena issued to Norm Cummings, identified as a consultant for LetOhioVote.org living in Colorado. Cummings and Crawford had argued that Brunner cannot issue subpoenas out of state.

While state government should always be transparent, here is a classic example of why private political organizations should not have to be. The purpose of Brunner’s witch hunt is a purely political one: to expose donors and make sure they feel political retribution. Basically, this means the state, on your dime, is doing the work on behalf of the gambling interest that Chris and Kim Redfern lobby for- MTR. Does no one else find this outrageous?

From Jennifer Brunner’s Twitter page:

Doesn’t Jennifer know it’s not good to leave your dogs in a car for any extended period of time?

And why would Jenny-Benny, an anti-gun God-less liberal, be invited to the National Wild Turkey Federation dinner in Coshocton County, where she gave the dinner prayer? Can you even imagine Jennifer holding a gun?!

The folks who go to this type of event are sportsmen, usually with plenty of disposable income to spend on silent auction items (guns, knives, prints of wildlife scenes, and hunting gear). In other words, not a big turnout of Democrats who vote in primaries.

And I have confirmation that the Pink Pistols were not there. So is Jennifer already in General Election mode?

Good! Jennifer Brunner, perhaps at the request of former advisor Sandy Theis (who before  leaving to work for Strickland, was simultaneously working for Jennifer & MTR, the gambling company which owns the race tracks), has worked hard to oppose your right as a voter to approve or disapprove of slot machines in Ohio racetracks.

Jennifer Brunner wants LetOhioVote.org to disclose donors, even though there is no legal precedent for a 501c4 to have to turn over donors. She is lying when she says otherwise:

The group attempting to block Ohio horse racing tracks from getting slot machines is suing to try to stop a probe by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

Brunner last month subpoenaed the principals behind LetOhioVote, hoping to force the conservative group to reveal its mysterious funding source and ensure it is complying with state campaign finance rules.

LetOhioVote on Monday countered by asking the Ohio Supreme Court to intervene and stop Brunner, saying that it is in full-compliance with Ohio’s laws and that the secretary is outside her scope of duty.

“Secretary Brunner is patently and unambiguously without authority to issue subpoenas, to compel testimony, to command production of documents, or to seek to enforce the subpoenas in furtherance of an investigation into whether LetOhioVote.org violated any campaign finance laws,” the group’s attorney, David Langdon, wrote in a brief to the court.

Brunner, a Democrat, said she expected LetOhioVote to run to the Supreme Court for help again.

“Going to court probably worsens its case in the court of public opinion,” Brunner said in a statement. “We believe the law requires disclosure, and that’s why we’ve undertaken an investigation that is required and authorized by law.”

LetOhioVote has already successfully taken a case related to the slots issue to the Supreme Court.

The group was created after Gov. Ted Strickland last year proposed allowing 17,500 slot machines at Ohio’s seven racetracks to raise money for the cash-strapped state budget.

LetOhioVote sued the Democratic governor, and the state Supreme Court sided with the group, saying Strickland’s plan was subject to a voter referendum.

The group then launched an effort to put the issue on the November ballot, which all but killed the governor’s plan.

But LetOhioVote has repeatedly dodged questions about where its funding is coming from. And when the group did finally have to file a campaign finance report, it listed all $1.55 million of its money as coming from one source — a Virginia-based outfit called New Models.

New Models was formed to engage in political activities but is required only to file reports with the Internal Revenue Service.

Tim Crawford is president of New Models. He raised money for former Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell’s 2006 campaign. Strickland beat Blackwell that year. Gene Pierce and Carlo LoParo, who are also active with LetOhioVote, also worked on Blackwell’s campaign that year.

The problem with this expected level of transparency would be to set various donors up for political retribution. Instead of being happy that voters can cast their ballot and decide if Gov. Strickland can put ballots into racetracks, Jennifer is working on behalf of gambling interests which funnel money to Democrats and is using the power of her office to expose what she likely expects to be are competing business or gaming interests.

In the end, she will lose in court and waste mountains of tax dollars in legal bills in the process. The goal here is to score cheap political points against former consultants to Brunner’s favorite punching bag, Ken Blackwell, while stop YOU from having a vote on state sponsored slot machines. I thought Democrats loved democracy?

Thankfully the phone company hasn’t shut their lines down for nonpayment yet:

Just listening to her call is depressing. Her heart is so not into this. Give me a call Jen and I’d gladly share some jokes to boost your spirits.

If you think this is all a big coincidence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – The sudden entrance of 2 new Democratic women into Ohio’s U.S. Senate race could spell trouble for the lagging campaign of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.

1 of the women, Traci “TJ” Johnson of suburban Columbus, previously worked for Brunner’s chief competitor, Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher. His campaign is adamantly denying any involvement in her candidacy.

Johnson was joined in yesterday’s filings by Charlena Renee Bradley of the Cleveland area.

Johnson and Bradley could divide the female vote, which had been favoring Brunner over Fisher.

If Jennifer Brunner is trying to smear Rob Portman as badly as Murtha smeared US troops in Haditha, she will have to try harder than this.

From National Journal, about Jennifer Brunner’s email asking for donations for various charities:

Brunner has been plagued by low fundraising totals. Through Sept., she pulled in just $582K and had only $111K in the bank.

But the headline is just begging for an easy joke: “Don’t give money to my US Senate campaign this week …” it reads.

That led one Hotline editor to giggle: “Hmmm, so far this hasn’t been a problem.”

From the National Journal:

We’re sure Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) are used to being mistaken for one another. But it looks pretty bad when someone running to join them in the Dem caucus does the mistaking.

In an email to supporters sent last night, OH Sec/State Jennifer Brunner (D) voiced her support for health care legislation free of anti-abortion language similar to the House bill.

“On Tuesday night the U.S. Senate turned aside a dire threat to the rights of women to reproductive health services when Sen. Bill Nelson’s amendment to the Senate health care reform bill was defeated by a 54-45 vote,” Brunner writes to supporters.

The only trouble is, the amendment was Ben Nelson’s effort to include Stupak-like language in the Senate bill. On a vote to table the measure, effectively killing it, Ben Nelson voted no, in order to keep his bill alive, while Bill Nelson voted yes.

The campaign immediately sent out a correction.

And this gets the truth of the matter: Brunner didn’t really flip-flop on Afghanistan or pander on heath care. Instead, Secretary Brunner doesn’t actually know a hill of beans about foreign policy or the minutia of what is going on in Congress. And her campaign is so cash-poor that she can’t hire smart staff to help her hide her ignorance.

Jim Geraghty mentions Jennifer Brunner’s major flip-flop-pander on Afghanistan, and Jesse Hathaway properly mocks.

But the truth here is Secretary Brunner doesn’t know a hill of beans about foreign policy and is simply saying what needs to be said. This isn’t about national security, and it isn’t a real debate about interventionism. Instead, this campaign about finding new, creative ways for Rick Brunner to cash in via his sugar momma.

This all might be really interesting if she was a serious candidate for the US Senate.

What Kevin Holtsberry calls “bold,” I call cheap, gimmicky Keynesianism, and reminiscent of President Bush’s 2008 tax rebate which was part of his “stimulus” package and had no effect on household spending.

From WCPN:

U.S. Senate hopeful Rob Portman says the economy needs an additional stimulus, besides what the federal government is already providing. So he’s advocating a temporary reprieve of some of the taxes that are taken from workers’ paychecks.

The Cincinnati Republican spoke in Cleveland Friday afternoon. Among his proposals was one that he maintains would jump-start both hiring, and spending.

Portman said “to spur immediate investment by employers and encourage consumption by employees; I support a one year payroll tax holiday. Beginning immediately…. for workers and employers on the first $50,000 of income.”

Workers would still pay state income and Medicare taxes.

The Heritage Foundation explains why such tax holidays don’t work:

There are several factors behind the failure of temporary tax holidays to stimulate economic recovery. One reason is that even if the key to future growth was to increase household spending, a tax holiday will not prompt the necessary splurge. That is because Americans adjust their spending according to what economists call the “wealth effect.” When the value of their stocks or housing is going up, as it did for many years, Americans tend to save less and spend more. But when their housing values and stock portfolios have plummeted, as [they did in 2009], the first thing Americans tend to do with unexpected cash is to try to replenish their wealth by increasing savings or paying down their credit card debt.[...]

Another reason tax holidays fail to prompt economic renewal–and this reason is related to the wealth effect–is that a family considering a significant increase in spending, or an investor contemplating a new business venture or expansion, thinks about the long term, not the next few months. Consequently, such individuals are motivated by the likely future patterns of after-tax family income and the after-tax return on an investment when compared with the risk of that investment. That is why American families will not go out and buy a new car just because they get a short-term tax rebate or tax holiday and why Americans with large-scale resources to invest will not break ground on a new factory if they are merely relieved of taxes for a couple of months.

The only way fiscal policy can change this spending or investing inertia is to improve the prospects for future after-tax income from earnings or from capital investment.

Conservatives should agree with Milton Friedman, who once said, “I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.” However, this sort tax rebate take off the table discussions of actual tax cuts and long-term tax reforms.

Instead, perhaps Portman could propose  to stop the torturing of American businesses with an absorbent 35% corporate tax rate (39.3% if you also include average state taxes), which is one of the world’s highest rates. Or perhaps a permanent repeal of the estate tax (a tax which Congressional Democrats are about to renew) or a multi-year reduction in income tax rates so families could predict their after-tax income.

And in the era of Obama the Messiah, cutting spending would be pretty swell, too.

To Rob Portman’s credit, he has pointed himself in a direction of lower taxes… which is much more than we would ever be able to say about a US Senator Fisher or Brunner.  But as President Bush’s former OMB Director, Portman should be more acutely aware of how bad this holiday proposal is than anyone.

From her column in HuffPo:

I doubt that General Stanley McChrystal is the leader whose advice we should follow without significant validation of his recommendations. Gen. McChrystal recommended the deployment of additional troops in a “surge” modeled after the one in Iraq. Also, General McChrystal’s previous association with the abuse of detainees and with the incident surrounding Pat Tillman give me pause as I evaluate his recommendations.

This is a very radical position to take which puts her at odds with President Obama. The “surge” worked.

But I suppose she is desperate for attention, as the sexist Democrat Party machine has already anointed Lee Fisher the candidate. And I won’t hold my breath waiting for Fisher to opine about the Afghanistan situation.

And on a state policy note, with SOS Jennifer Brunner’s very close associations to ACORN, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in business she directs to her shady husband’s lawfirm,  and her flagrant disregard for campaign finance laws “give me pause as I evaluate her recommendations” for election reform.

The DSCC Chair has “all but endorsed” Lee Fisher.

In the Democrat Party, sexism is alive and well.

According to JennyBenny, Ohio is actually very liberal, and you (yes, YOU!) SUPPORT “gay marriage,” but Ken Blackwell & evil Republican operatives tricked you in 2004.

The video is from Progress Ohio’s Candlelight Vigil for Buggery, where Jennifer received an award for endorsing further erosion of private-property rights:

Sooooooo just what hate is she talking about?

And what “faction?” The entire Ohio GOP establishment, Jim Petro, George Voinovich, and Mike DeWine opposed it. If this was just about politics, then why was the Ohio Republican Party actively campaigning AGAINST the interests of President Bush? If there was a faction, they could have met in a phone booth because it was Ken Blackwell by himself, standing on principle.

Also, isn’t comforting that 1 of the 3 potential replacements for Sen. Voinovich is happy to use the military as some sort of large-scale sociology project, instead of deferring to military commanders who actually know what they are talking about?

At this point, I would normally conclude by mentioning Jennifer Brunner’s work as the office manager for then-Secretary of State Sherrod Brown, where she turned a blind eye to an inner-office drug ring. But I’ll pass on that topic for now, because it might sound “hateful.”

Update: Daily Kossers are checking out this site. In the words of Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga, “screw them.” (Except this guy. That’s actually quite funny.)

Am processing video… nothing too exciting. Ran into Eric from Plunderbund, who I was going to talk to until he shoved a camera in my face. oh well. He is just at typical pot-smoking marxist thug. He is also in a very unhappy marriage, so I suppose venting by harassing harassing me is cheaper than going to a psychologist. But I’ll save this sort of uninteresting blogger vs. blogger stuff for Buckeye State Blog.

I missed Connie Schultz by a few minutes minutes! I asked Rep. Ted Celeste where she was, and apparently I was standing EXACTLY where she was standing before she left with Senator Sherrod Brown. so close! The spot still smelled from her lack of deodorant… which might have actually been the stench of self-righteous, maternalistic liberalism.

And I met the lovely SoS Jennifer Brunner with her husband who could easily pass as a conservative with his fashionable bow tie.  I tried to schedule an interview with her. She apparently has read this blog and therefore knows of my interview with Ohio AG Rich Cordray. Jennifer has reached out to the almost non-existent liberal Ohio blogosphere, so why not talk to a nice guy like me? If she does, I promise to reconsider my reservations about women’s suffrage.

I had some great lines and jokes for the Huffington Post reporter who spotted me, so I’m curious to see what she writes, if anything.