Why Ohio Is Oh No No

You may recall that in recent weeks we spent a W/E in the Buckeye State. On the last night, a friend of our friend. well lubricated with Cabernet Savignon, practically pleaded with me to 'move back' to OH. Her insistence eventually led me to make some rather nasty commments about the state of the political power structure - i.e. particularly despicable version of Republican Rotten-ness. Such topics were not to be discussed at this gathering and others rapidly moved the talk in other directions.....but....

Let's look at this from the Local (Columbus) paper. The Fine work of Christians:

Ohio GOP in denial over e-mail questioning Stricklands’ sexuality
Sunday, July 30, 2006
JOE HALLETT

Standing over the body with bloody knife in hand, the Ohio Republican Party pleaded innocent.

It didn’t kill the candidate it had just stabbed to death, the party said. And if it did stab the candidate, it didn’t know it was stabbing him. Most assuredly, the party protested, it would never condone stabbing the candidate it had just stabbed.
Only a political Houdini could rationalize that twisted logic. Still, that was the GOP’s explanation — for a couple of days, anyway.

By Thursday, state Chairman Robert T. Bennett knew the party had been caught red-handed and issued an apology to the victim, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee for governor. But the scurrilous mission had been accomplished: Let the whispering campaign begin.

The attack had nothing to do with records or resumes or policy. It was brutally personal – and a lie. The message the GOP had asked its followers to spread across the Ohioscape is that Strickland and his wife are gay, never mind their nearly 20 years of marriage.

In yet one more perversion of religion, the state party hired a conservative Christian to do the dirty work, using a computer at party headquarters to spread the rumor via e-mail to "profamily" conservatives. Gary Lankford, headmaster of a Christian home school, started in early July as the Ohio GOP’s "social conservative coordinator."

On July 17, Lankford launched an e-mail titled "10 Things to Know About Ted Strickland." The e-mail noted that Strickland married his wife, Frances, at 46, they have no children and they live apart, which, in truth, is the case when Strickland is tending to his congressional duties in Washington. Lankford linked readers to an Internet blog written by Scott Pullins, who questioned the sexual orientation of both Stricklands.

Pullins is best known as the former anti-tax crusading head of the Ohio Taxpayers Association. He lost his credibility around the Statehouse when he gave the green light to corporate-tax increases in a budget-balancing bill and later attacked GOP lawmakers for tax increases.

After appalled recipients of Lankford’s e-mail forwarded it to news organizations, including The Dispatch, and reporters began asking questions, the GOP went into its Houdini act. The party didn’t know about Lankford’s attempt to assassinate Mr. and Mrs. Strickland’s good name, a spokesman said. That is not a strategy the party would ever contemplate. Certainly, the party would never condone Lankford’s tactic.
But emerging details about Lankford’s connections make it difficult for the party to disavow knowing exactly who it was getting when it hired him. Lankford was less than two months removed from serving as a paid "voter contact consultant" for the primary election campaign of Republican gubernatorial nominee J. Kenneth Blackwell.

And before being hired by the GOP, Lankford worked for the Ohio Restoration Project, a conservative religious group that has been accused of violating its tax-exempt status by favoring Blackwell at its meetings. The group is headed by the Rev. Russell Johnson, a staunch Blackwell supporter and pastor of the Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster.

In an interview Thursday, Johnson perpetuated the rumor by suggesting that the Stricklands file a lawsuit and go to court to prove they are heterosexuals. If Lankford’s claim is untrue, Johnson said, "It’s slanderous and they’ve got a case. I’m withholding judgment until the facts are in."

Boxed in by a rash of incoming bad publicity, Bennett did the right thing: He fired Lankford and sent a letter of apology to Strickland, continuing to disavow any prior knowledge by him or his senior staff of Lankford’s e-mail.

Strickland accepted the apology with skepticism, saying it was issued only after "they got caught." Meanwhile, the e-mail is wending its way to "pro-family" homes and echoing in the blogosphere.

"I’m pretty battle-hardened when it comes to politics, and I’m not a novice at this, but I think it’s very unfortunate that they would draw Frances into this," Strickland said.

Sadly, it’s just the start of what portends to be the ugliest governor’s race in state history. By Nov. 7, Ohio voters might be too sickened by it all to go to the polls.
Maybe that’s the goal.

Joe Hallett is senior editor at The Dispatch.