Holding a Bible in one hand and the U.S. Constitution in the other, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell preaches tax and spending cuts to the faithful.

With at least a decade each in statewide office, the party’s Big Three intimately know their audiences — conservative, God-fearing, patriotic. Like singers in a well-practiced choir, the candidates hit the high notes from the Republican hymnal, praising Lincoln, quoting Scripture, avowing family values and disavowing big government.

[Ken Blackwell] spoke to Gallia County Republicans March 10 at a University of Rio Grande student center, but Blackwell just as easily could have been in a church. His speech might be best described as a political sermon.

"America was at its best, and America is always at its best, when God is at its center," Blackwell told the crowd of about 250.

....he (Ken Blackwell) metamorphed from a charter reform Democrat, into a Carter Democrat, then a New Democrat, then an Independent, then a moderate Republican, then a conservative Republican, and is now the state’s leading reactionary right-wing Republican.

Blackwell has always represented opportunism in search of a political position. His flamboyant rhetorical style has never changed, as he has gone from arguing for civil rights to recently comparing himself to Gandhi and King as he offered himself up for arrest in defiance of a federal court ordering him to count provisional ballots cast within a voter’s county.

Full Article

MSNBC Hardball's Chris Matthews is here in Columbus interviewing Secretary Ken Blackwell and Mayor Coleman

The Libertarian Party of Ohio is asking all members and activists to come protest Secretary of State Ken Blackwell for keeping the Libertarian Party off the ballot in Ohio.

National news media will be present.

Lyon Video 1201 Olentangy River Road Columbus, Ohio 43212-3118

2PM

Television interviewer Chris Matthews is in Columbus today to grill Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman and Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell about their ambitions to be governor for his MSNBC show, Hardball.

Coleman, a Democrat, and Blackwell, a Republican, were the first two candidates to formally announce a run for governor in the 2006 election.

The show, which will air at 7 p.m. on MSNBC, is being broadcast from the NBC4 studios on Olentangy River Road. Matthews spent 15 years working in politics and government, including four years as a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter.

We'll see how he handles this:

By persuading Heimlich, an archconservative, to join the ticket, Petro sought to wipe out the geographical and political advantage with conservative Republicans ascribed to Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor.

Heimlich, 51, is a fiscal and social conservative who as a councilman voted to roll back Cincinnati’s property taxes. He and Petro oppose abortion rights; Petro switched his position on the issue in 2000.

Last year, Heimlich waged an unsuccessful battle to retain Cincinnati’s 11-year-old ban on gayrights laws.

"We believe 100 percent in the sanctity of marriage, 100 percent in being pro-life, and that’s going to be part of our campaign and part of our administration," Heimlich said.

"You can’t get much further to the right in the Hamilton County Republican Party than Phil, and that’s pretty damn far right for the citizens of Ohio," said Tim Burke, Hamilton County Democratic chairman.

Intersting article in the NYT


Movement in the Pews Tries to Jolt Ohio
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/politics/27OHIO.html

The project, which describes itself as nonpartisan and nonprofit, will not endorse candidates. But Mr. Blackwell will be invited to speak to pastoral meetings and to a statewide Ohio for Jesus rally next spring, along with other prominent Christian conservatives like the Rev. Franklin Graham, Dr. James Dobson and Charles Colson, the plan says.

"The establishment of the Ohio Republican Party is out of touch with its base," said Russell Johnson, the pastor of the Fairfield Christian Church and the principal organizer of the project. "It acts as if it lives in Boston, Mass."