Bill Todd takes the cake on political overreactions and throws in a little corruption too!
Rational people everywhere had a good laugh when Bill Todd called Mayor Coleman's decision to seize the failing City Center mall an overreaction. The hypocrisy was thick because just a few months previously Todd had called for the seizure of City Center under eminent domain laws. Mayor Coleman instead sued the managers of the mall because they didn't pay their rent, a course of action that doesn't trample property rights.
Anyways, fitting with the absolute stupidity of the Todd campaign, recent news suggests that the biggest overreaction of the year came from Todd himself. The Columbus Public Schools have moved up in the state's ranking system, achieving "continuous improvement" which is the district's highest ever rating. While Columbus still has a long road ahead of it in improving education, Todd's plan to seize control of the district from its elected school board is clearly an overreaction in the face of an improving urban school district.
Not only would Todd's plan disenfranchise voters, the Republican mayoral wannabe could never really articulate what he would do differently in running the schools. So why call for such an unnecessary and drastic move? At first, I assumed (and I think many agreed with me) that it was all part of Todd's strategy for getting his name in the paper through media stunts.
And then he filed his campaign finance report.
Turns out that Bill Todd's biggest donor behind the Franklin County GOP was David Brennan of White Hat Management fame. Brennan is in to the tune of $20,000 worth of donations to Bill Todd. The charter school magnate is exactly the type of guy who might stand to benefit from a school takeover by a Republican Mayor with an interest in charter schools.
Even if you didn't buy the argument that Columbus City Schools can improve under the board's leadership, the fact that Todd wants to hack apart the school district and sell if off to his biggest individual campaign contributor should convince you it's a bad idea. We already have too much corporate sponsorship in the world (AT&T Cotton Bowl/FedEx Orange Bowl anyone?), so Columbus doesn't really need the White Hat Management Todd Administration.
