Mea culpa, and a request for help...

modernesquire — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:20:55 -0700

The fact that we allowed the Tea Partiers to act like soccer hooligans and disrupt Congressman Steve Driehaus' town hall meeting is our failing. Fact is, I didn't even KNOW that Driehaus was having such an event until I read about it.

My bad.

We simply are not doing enough to get you involved in addition to giving you a forum to get informed.

Here's where we can begin. I'm asking all Congressional offices to let us know about your recess events in Ohio for the remainder of this recess. We'll promote them here so that we can have people there who aren't there simply to shout down any discussion of the issues. We're looking for folks with cameras to be there as David and I can't always be there. We're going to work with other Ohio bloggers to get these events covered better. We simply have to. We cannot let the Tea Bagging birthers have the public stage to themselves. (I don't understand why Progress Ohio, with its professional, paid blogging staff, doesn't serve this function, but oh well.)

Second, if you're like me and you're hopelessly represented in Columbus by Republicans, it's time we turn the tables. State Senators Buehrer, Gillmor, Husted, Seitz, Cates, Goodman, Patton, Stewart, Coughlin, Grendell, Schaffer, Gibbs, Hughes, Schuring, and Widener and State Representatives J. Adams, R. Adams, Amstutz, Bacon, Baker, Balderson, Batchelder, Blessing, Boose, Bubp, Burke, Coley, Combs, Daniels, Derickson, Dolans, Evans, Gardner, Goodwin, Grossman, Hackett, Hall, Hite, Hottinger, Huffman, Jones, Jordan, Lehner, Maag, Mandel, Martin, McClain, McGregor, Mecklenborg, Morgan, Ruhl, Sears, Snitchler, Stautberg, Stebelton, Uecker, Watchmann, Wagner, and Zehringer all voted against the Conference Report approving the state budget compromise.

I guarantee that every election these folks run promising lower taxes and less spending. I say write a letter to the editor to the local paper that points out that when they actually had a chance to vote for the only state budget to actually cut taxes and reduce overall government spending, these politicians betrayed their campaign promises and voted against lower taxes and less government spending. It's Operation Chaos Part II. Let's point out that we'll remember their failure to support lower taxes and less spending during their next campaign and so should everyone else. Let's turn the budget vote around and make them own their partisanship. Mention that it was a vote against helping people pay less for electricity by opposing tax incentives to make residential solar power affordable and a vote against making health care more available without a government takeover of health care.

Because let's face it, it's not that Republican prefer a different approach to these problems. It's because they refuse to acknowledge that they are problems at all. If they have events in the district, get folks to them and ask them why they opposed less government spending and lower taxes in Columbus. We don't need to shout them down. All we need to do is calling them out on their partisan b.s.

Call your State Representative and ask them if you can count on them to support House Bill 176 which will protect people from being discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity or sexual orientation under Ohio's anti-discrimination laws. Speaker Buddish has promised us a floor vote on this issue soon. And let us all know what you're hearing from your state lawmakers.

It's been reported out of the House State Government Committee since June. It's about time for a vote. And then it's onto the State Senate.

The last two days have been our second and best traffic days in the last thirty days. Our traffic last month was the second highest all year. So, let's get engaged. If you have an idea for a call to action, write us or put something in the forums. Let David or I know about any upcoming events so we can promote it. I know we've been bad lately telling folks about upcoming events (like the ODP State Party dinner, for example), but I'm going to try to do something about it. I just got an email of upcoming events from the Brunner campaign. I'm adding them to our events calendar.

But I can't do it alone. (Help me!)

Buckeye State Blog - Mea culpa, and a request for help... - Comments

Mea culpa, and a request for help...