Enquirer Endorses Mallory and Pepper

In their Sunday edition, which this story appears online for some reason today, the Enquirer endorses Mark Mallory and David Pepper in the Cincinnati Mayoral Primary. Reece and Winburn got a some comments, and the Enquirer gave their idea description of what the mayor should be.

Will this help anyone? I would be inclined to say that it will help Pepper and Mallory marginally. It hurts Winburn significantly.

Getting Out of Hand?

When you have to move the time of a high school football in part because of fears of violence, then the solutions in place are not working. What is causing the increase in local teenage violence? Is this all just teenage drug dealers encroaching on the schools? I do not understand how the people doing this can't be routed out and locked up. What is holding that back?

FOP Gets to Pound Some Sand

The State Employment Relations Board upheld the city police reform allowing the hiring of senior police managers from outside the city. This will in the long run a plus for the CPD and the city. If we can get new blood into the CPD leadership, police relationships with the rest of the community have a great chance at improving. If the FOP would only dump their right-wing leadership, they too might improve their relationship with the city leaders and with the citizens.

Negative Ads

Are negative mailers going to do anything for the candidates in the mayor's race? I got most of the mailings mentioned and more. I actually got 2 from Winburn in one day, someone needs to cross match one of their mailing lists. Reece seems quiet in all of this. Is she the stealth candidate who will emerge from the fray with one of the two top seats? I have pegged her in third place. The one poll out there puts her in a surprisingly close second. Next Tuesday I think will be a nail biter.

Fountain Square Revamp Coming

With a wise choice, the city and 3CDC waited until after Oktoberfest to begin the revamping of Fountain Square. It should be open again by Oktoberfest 2006, with luck.

Rudy and Charlie

National Blogs picked up on Rudy's endorsement of Winburn, TPM and Crooks and Liars both picked up on Winburn's born again only comment.

Is Giuliani on Crack?

No, Rudy is not on crack, as far as I know. Instead he is doing something minor to try and gain support for a Presidential bid in 2008. Winburn is not going to pull in any primary votes for Rudy, so I think Rudy has bad advisors. Did the Cincinnati FOP promise Rudy primary votes? What this does to moderate GOP voters is show that Rudy is not really paying attention, and is only supporting him because of internal party politics. It makes him look like a party hack.

Is there a Taft Curse?

Damn, can anyone around Bob Taft get a break? I mean, can't a man and his stripper companions be left alone?

Pardon Me

When there was the smallest hint of scandal, Bill Clinton was leveled for who he pardon. Today Peter Bronson mentions in passing without much more than a quip. I guess when you pardon 9 members of your staff, you are just about "changing the culture." I guess Peter wants a fundamentalist culture that not only is milquetoast, bland, and dull, he wants people who pardon people when they are accused of a crime. That is I guess the kind of culture where it is ok to break the law, well I guess the minor ones. If I use the conservative logic now, every kid in Kentucky will now be seeking pardons every time they either stay out past curfew or I don't know, speed.


"Everyone does it Dad, don't you want me to be like everyone else?"
"Yes son, I do, You are hereby pardoned."

Pepper Calls

News reports indicate that "someone" is faking campaign calls from David Pepper that make him sound racist.

What is unclear is this, from Korte eariler today:

CAMPAIGN CALLS: The Pepper campaign is disavowing a recorded phone call that asks registered voters to support Pepper as "the only white candidate in the Cincinnati mayor's race."

At a debate Tuesday night, Pepper said the calls were "dirty tricks politics" and promised to investigate who was behind them.

"This campaign is getting ugly quick, and this campaign is one of the ugliest things I've ever heard of," he said.

All three of his major rivals disclaimed responsibility and denounced the phone calls Tuesday.

Winburn denounced the tactic as "bigotry"; Mallory said the phone calls were illegal; and Reece said all the candidates shared a desire to debate the issues without "dirty tricks."

Michael Earl Patton, a Republican from Oakley, filed a complaint against Pepper with the Ohio Elections Commission on Tuesday, accusing Pepper of being behind the phone calls. He did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Nate has more and damns Pepper fairly quickly.

Shall we assume a "he who smelt it, dealt it" stance? If a Republican is pushing the complaint, then is it a reach to say that someone who would have known about the calls tipped him off or made sure he got one of the calls? Could he have sent them to himself? It smells like GOP dirty tricks to me. It could though be another Democrat doing it, but the only candidate who stands to gain significantly by hurting Pepper is Winburn. Reece and Mallory are going to win with those who will not vote for Pepper anyway.

I don't get how this call would have worked anyway for anyone. People who think Pepper is a racist already think he is one. It seems like it is just out there to occupy Pepper's time, and keep him on the defensive, which is what he has been on for a while now. He is not good on the defensive, and it shows on stage.

Jeffre Dragging Feet?

His is likely the weathiest person running for mayor which means he shouldn't be the last person to file his income with the State. He can hire more accountants then the rest combined, so I don't think he can claim delays with much credibility. It is reasonable for a candidate to not want to appear rich, but you look worse when you get caught trying to deflect attention from that fact.

Also in this story we learn that Sandra Queen Noble may be suffering from a "mental injury." The WCET debate left no doubt in my mind.

Natives

Quinn Brady is saying what many have been saying and feeling for a long time. Those many are immigrants to the City, like myself. I went to Miami University. If you care that I graduated from Jamestown High School, that's fine, but guess what, I am not from here. That does not mean your parents or childhood friends will hate me. They may hate me for other reasons. If they don't want you to have anything to do with people who are not Native, then you might want to think about finding a new family and set of friends. The family part is rather difficult, but you should dump your friends if they really are still living in high school.

Once you hit 30, I think this wears off. Either that or I really don't hang out with many locals. Come to think of it, that may be true. Locals are more likely to be fearful of downtown, in my opinion. So, I would guess they don't hang out where I do, at least not as often.

An interesting question: those here in Cincinnati who care where you went to high school, are they more likely to be conservative or liberal? I would guess conservative, but I would ask for opinions on that.

Nightmare

Let's hope few will doubt the hell that was life in the Superdome last week. These lifesavers should be proud of their service and everyone should thank them for being there for people in desperate need.

Local Rule?

If Peter Bronson hates the NCAA's attempts to change college mascots, and thinks of it as a local issue, then I wonder how he feels about a minister and his local church agreeing to have gay weddings and then the national organization of that local church voting to kick that minister out of the church for doing that. How is that different than the NCAA action? Are both wrong or not? Or does it just matter what the big organization is doing? Local control or no local control? This is not a government issue, but the organizations are the
"governing bodies," so the parallels exist. I guess I don't get why Peter Bronson was not outraged when a local Minister was kicked out of his pulpit for doing what the locals wanted.

MidPoint Music Festival Schedule

If you have not seen it yet, the MPMF schedule is up. The line up is great. Jake Speed made it to Arnold's 1 AM on Friday night.

Mike Brown Must Go

No, Not the owner of the Bengals. Mike Brown, the head of FEMA, should be immediately fired and replaced with someone who understands how to deal with a disaster. If the Bush Administration thinks FEMA's focus should be responding to terrorism, then how do they plan on evacuating a major city after a series of Dirty Nukes are set off? The failure to evacute New Orleans indicates that in real terrorist attack situation the aftermath would be the real killer, not the actual attack. The answer to Mike for this type of situation seems to be to pretend that nothing is going wrong, as illustrated by this CNN report. If nothing else, the man is over concerned with the PR spin of his teams efforts. If you are going to be a good department/agency head, you need to let the White House worry about the spin, and you just do your job, especially for an agency whose sole purpose is to deal with emergencies.

I personally would lay this at the foot of the President, but the more important thing is to fire the incompetent man, not the guy who hired him. I would love to fire Bush, but alas we are stuck with more of his bad choices until 2009. We also are stuck with the bad choice of Mike Brown and his Bengals, and can't change that unless he wants to sell. Let's just hope this year they break the curse and make the playoffs.

SCOTUS Change

With the Death of Rehnquist and this morning's announcement of Roberts for Chief Justice, the Supreme Court will now become a battle ground with heavy change in the balance. It is going to get ugly and get ugly quick.

This was a wise political move for Bush, and reduces the number of battles he has to fight. I don't know if it was a good move for the SCOTUS or not. The role of Chief is not one to directly influence case law, in that respect the Chief has no more power than the other 8 justices. Who gets that position is not that big of a deal. The battle starts again as to whom will replace O'Connor. The gloves will be coming off, and the knuckles are going to get bloody.

If True, Damn!

Kevin Drum is doing his usually wonderful job blogging and reports on Bush's alleged staged Photo-Ops on his visits to the Gulf Coast Area. How can anyone like a man who allows his handlers to create any kind of stage and to create what appears to have been fake food distribution areas just for a photo opportunity. I will admit that even I am not willing to accept these allegations as valid on face value, but the glove fits. Erecting a stage for Bush is not only likely, I would bet on it. The food distribution point, which are the more egregious charge, is what I am more skeptical on. If that is true, then the Man and his handlers are heartless scum. If others can find more information on this, I will update the post, even if you can find credible reports discounting or disproving the allegations.

We Are Asking For Aid From Europe

I am glad we are doing it, but I don't know why the USA need to ask Europe for emergency assistance, including blankets, first aid kits, water trucks and food. Why do we need to go outside the USA for this? I am sure we could use money to buy more of these things, but I don't think we need to ship a bunch of blankets across the Atlantic.

Labor Day Lull

Ok, I really have little that I want to post on or am prepared to post on, so if you are Jonesing for a thread, have at it.