His favorite game

Muffet — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:40:01 -0700

is craps. He loves to roll those dice.

My understanding

modernesquire — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:13:35 -0700

Is that he's always supported gambling interest in Congress and that he is quite the gambler himself. But you only need to look at all the Hail Marys he's done in this campaign, to know that.

Thanks for pointing this one out

Jill — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:20:04 -0700

Wow. And yet, not surprising, huh? I know there have been articles about McCain and Obama on gambling - I forget what they said but I'm guessing McCain gets money from them/some of their interests? Is that the hang up?

Washington Times: Ohio GOP and McCain campaign not working together well

modernesquire — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:03:43 -0700

You can sometimes dismiss a newspaper organization like the Washington Times because of its partisan bias, but when it reports bad news for the side it normally is biased in favor of-- it gets your attention.

In today's articled titled "McCain Camp Irks GOP leaders in key states," we get a nice sampling of how the McCain campaign is arrogantly ignoring the needs and advice of the state parties, such as ignorning the VA GOP Chairman's concerns that the campaign wasn't taking Obama's efforts in the State, and particularly in northern Virginia seriously (smart one, Schmidt.)

Or, say this nugget about Ohio:

In Ohio, long-boiling friction between the McCain campaign and the state Republican Party on a variety of issues reached a new intensity over a complicated local gambling question. The state Republican Party's central committee had voted to oppose a proposed state constitutional amendment to permit a casino in Clinton County. The state party included its "vote no" view on the "slate card" of recommendations it sends to early voters.

The McCain campaign unilaterally removed that recommendation from the mailer, overriding Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett and threatening to block funds to pay for the printing and distribution. Mr. McCain favors legalized gambling, and his campaign did not want to appear to support it some states and oppose it in others.

The state party worked with the opponents of the amendment to send another mailing, using the pictures of U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich, Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted and Mr. Bennett, along with their words of opposition on the gambling question.

"Why in the world would anyone want to amend the Constitution of Ohio and put a monopoly in for one individual to build one casino in the state of Ohio?" Mr. Voinovich asks in his statement.

Get that? So the Ohio GOP central committee decided that the party would take the official position on Issue 6 and publicly oppose the proposed constitutional amendment creating a private casino monopoly in Clinton County, but they could not tell their voters this because McCain, a federal candidate for office, didn't want to pay for the shared costs of printing out a slate which also mentioned the State Party's position on a state constitutional issue in addition to his endorsement. So much for McCain's claimed love of federalism; he unilaterally removed the expressed opinion of several key Republians in the State who serve on the central committee while forcing the party to spend money it could be using to help McCain or help save the Ohio House from going to our Party.

So instead, the GOP had to send out another mailing (probably at some additional expense) to let early Republican voters know where the party stood on this state constitutional amendment issue.

(Of course, if you're Tom Blumer @ Bizzyblog, endorsement of a candidate means that you support every position that candidate holds. Therefore, Sen. Voinovich, Speaker Husted, Chairman Bennett and the Central Committee of the Ohio GOP actually supports constitutionally protected monopolies of casinos since they all support McCain. Of course, I think it's silly to say that supporting a candidate means that you must support every important position on the issues that candidate holds even if you're voting records says otherwise. But I'm not Tom Blumer.)

And this, apparently, hasn't been the only issue where the Ohio GOP and the McCain campaign are in conflict. How sad is it that I have to learn this from a newspaper in Washington, D.C. and not the Columbus Dispatch?

Buckeye State Blog - Washington Times: Ohio GOP and McCain campaign not working together well - Comments

His favorite game

My understanding

Thanks for pointing this one out

Washington Times: Ohio GOP and McCain campaign not working together well