….we’re doing a “A Case Against….” all the candidates running for chairman. So far the two we’ve done are on the black candidates running for the job. I’m not accusing RedState of anything, I’m just saying it gives ammo to the media.

I sincerely hope this is not being done because there are some conservatives fearing we’re embracing “identity politics”

The fact of the matter is, Michael Steele and Ken Blackwell along with Saul Azunis are the only candidates who “get it” and are two of the three people this humble poster believes are the best people for the job.

Do these companies he invested in *only* produce these goods you mention, or do they also do other things, such that a reasonable person might not have known what you outline here?

You’re painting him as directly putting his dollars into slot machines and abortions, but you fail to link to any inforomation about the entire operations of the companies in question so that we see if that’s the whole story here.

Also, you highlight the size of his portfolio as though it’s some bad thing in itself. Why?

And in fact, isn’t the fact that he is pretty well off a mitigating factor in his investing in a couple of questionable firms? How many companies has he been invested in? How much of his wealth went into the two companies you list here?

He talked bad about a Democrat. Cry me a river.

(I’m not a Ken Blackwell fan. If questioned before reading your piece, I would have guessed him to be a politician from Ohio, and I maybe could have pulled out Secretary of State if pressed. )

Talk about “smear campaigns”. Leading the article with what stocks a guy owns? Did you check also whether he lives in the right subdivision and or owns an American-made car?

Questioning his party loyalty by saying he supported Jimmy Carter in 1976? Thirty two years ago, I supported Jimmy Carter, too. I was 13, and I liked his smile and Sunday-school simplicity after the political turbulence of the previous decade. Times were just different then, and we were all quite a bit younger.

In general, your attacks on Blackwell seem insubstantial. I kept waiting for the real motivation, but it never came. If you want people not to draw the wrong conclusion, you’ll have to be less superficial in the future.

segments from the linked article…

<font color=”MediumVioletRed”Although he opposes potential November ballot initiatives to permit slot machines at Ohio's horse-racing tracks, Republican gubernatorial candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell holds stock in the world's leading maker of slot machines.

Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said that is not an issue because Blackwell opposes the expansion of state-sponsored gambling and “there's no conflict, real or perceived.”

Blackwell will fight any gambling ballot issue because he does not think such gambling provides a stable funding stream for government and that for every $1 it brings into a community, $3 are spent on social and other costs, LoParo said.

…

The secretary of state reported the IGT stock this week on his annual financial-disclosure statement filed with the Ohio Ethics Commission; he has listed the stock on his reports since 2003. Under Ohio law he does not have to disclose amounts, and LoParo declined to do so.

Both Blackwell and Petro have extensive investment portfolios that include both blue-chip companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, as well as more-controversial companies, including Wal-Mart.

…

Blackwell, who opposes abortion rights, also holds stock in Barr Pharmaceuticals, maker of the controversial Plan B, or the morning-after pill, to prevent pregnancy.

Neil has already addressed the lame hits on his investment portfolio - does Barr Pharmaceuticals only produce the morning-after pill, and is it a major source of their profits? And quite frankly, since when did having a multimillion dollar investment portfolio indicate being a “poor manager” and since when did owning millions of dollars worth in stocks become a bad thing in the GOP?

Second, despite owning stock in IGT, a major advocate and sponsor of campaigns to bring state-sponsored gambling to Ohio, he opposed it, despite the fact that it would have certainly made him a wealthier man, and gave his reason as being that;

… he does not think such gambling provides a stable funding stream for government and that for every $1 it brings into a community, $3 are spent on social and other costs.

And your position is that this proves that he’s a hypocrite? And if he had supported it, that would prove that he’s corrupt, I’d bet - putting his pocket above the interests of Ohioans. In other words, in your book, he’d be damned either way.

As for the little factoid that he supported Carter in 1976. So? That was 32 years ago. More than three decades, and eight Presidential election cycles ago. To put the lack of relevance of this factoid in perspective, note that 32 years before Reagan won the Presidency, he was an avowed FDR Democrat campaigning for Harry Truman.

More relevant would have been information on who it was he supported in 1980. Why no curiosity on that particular Presidential election year, I wonder?

And as for his 2006 campaign; Well, quite frankly, he made a significant number of missteps, most especially misjudging the environment he was operating in, and how it had changed due to the perfect storm to the Democrats’ benefit that was the 2006 election season. I believe he probably lost himself something like 5%.

The rest of his 24% loss, came from [1] the fact that he won over the opposition of the “moderate” OHGOP establishment (which supported “moderate” AG Jim Petro) and they actively worked to undermine and sabotage his campaign. [2] Former Gov. Bob Taft (R), the man he was running to succeed, was a weakling (as “moderates” tend to be), an incompetent, and a crook, and he, more than anyone else has poisoned the environment for the GOP in Ohio up until today. [3] George W. Bush and by extension the GOP-controlled Congress’ popularity (remember Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff, etc?) was approaching that of the Ebola virus.

To illustrate just how bad (thanks mostly to Bush) the environment was for the GOP, Bob Erlich, Governor of MD, held a 55% personal approval rating and a well over 60% job approval rating … and he still lost.

And as for the email by the consultant, I notice that you’re reduced to nothing more than innuendo - of the type I generally expect from NYT reporters. Because the link you cited as your source (here) not only fails to establish that Blackwell had anything to do with Lankford’s stupid email, it actually points out that Lankford was working for the OHGOP, quite distinct from the Blackwell campaign, when he sent the email - from their headquarters in actual fact.

On a personal note, I’m sure everyone here is more than willing to entertain arguments against any of the contenders - whether it be Blackwell, Steele, Anuzis. Dawson, Saltsman, Duncan, etc. - but they have to be scrupulously researched, substantive, well-argued and keep the sleight-of-hand and unfounded innuendo at a minimum.

I repeat, with all due respect, considering that you’re front page contributor, this failed on every front.

---

 To me, “consensus” seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects … There are still people in my party who believe in “consensus” politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors … I mean it.
      - Margaret Thatcher
NOTE: “consensus” = “Bipartisanship™”/”Centrism™”

case. Ken Blackwell could do a lot for the GOP, more so than the others. If only we didn’t spend all of our time eating our own based on stupid reasoning. No wonder we’re in the position we’re in today.

In your first paragraph, you end it with “Blackwell’s record has remained unexamined. That ends now.” There some angry words right there.

From all of the comments above, showing where the information has already been out there, just where have you examined anything that wasn’t already examined?

from this. We need to remember Reagan’s eleventh commandment. The backbiting serves no purpose but to take down the party even further. Unless Ken Blackwell has violated criminal or ethics laws, then none of this should matter. I am not however a Ken Blackwell supporter. He lost the Ohio Governors race by a lopsided margin. He ran a bad campaign and made slanderous comments about Gov Strickland that should not be part of any campaign. And this may not sit well with redstate supporters but I believe that the party needs a new face to lead it. Also I believe that we need a chairman that will be inclusive. I do not only mean inclusive by race. We need to grow the republican party. That means growing the party in Maine as well as Mississippi. My opinion is we need a chairman and vice chairman who wil be the face of the party for the next four maybe eight years. They will need to make a long term committment to building the party from the ground up. the next chairman needs not only ot appear on the television shows but make personal appearances. I do not have a team of leaders that come to mind but I am not sure if any of the current candidates meet that criteria. On a later post I have some ideas I would like to share with Redstate about new technology that could be used by the next chairman.

from this. We need to remember Reagan’s eleventh commandment. The backbiting serves no purpose but to take down the party even further. Unless Ken Blackwell has violated criminal or ethics laws, then none of this should matter. I am not however a Ken Blackwell supporter. He lost the Ohio Governors race by a lopsided margin. He ran a bad campaign and made slanderous comments about Gov Strickland that should not be part of any campaign. And this may not sit well with redstate supporters but I believe that the party needs a new face to lead it. Also I believe that we need a chairman that will be inclusive. I do not only mean inclusive by race. We need to grow the republican party. That means growing the party in Maine as well as Mississippi. My opinion is we need a chairman and vice chairman who wil be the face of the party for the next four maybe eight years. They will need to make a long term committment to building the party from the ground up. the next chairman needs not only ot appear on the television shows but make personal appearances. I do not have a team of leaders that come to mind but I am not sure if any of the current candidates meet that criteria. On a later post I have some ideas I would like to share with Redstate about new technology that could be used by the next chairman.

These are the democrat talking points from the election for governor. As a citizen of Ohio, I thought they were as dirty then as I do now. As for landslide loser, I refer you to Boob Taft, whose incompetence and RINOISM insured that no republican will win Ohio for some time to come. I bet you loved Boob Taft, maybe mroe than you love Ted Strickland!

… to try to present a more accurate description of fellow conservatives. It’s not enough to have some facts; giving only facts that reflect poorly on someone while neglecting to present positive facts–especially when such facts undermine your position–results in an unfair and inaccurate portrait of a candidate. This is how it comes across to readers, who believe that members of the politically conservative community ought to benefit from even-handed criticism because they are our allies.

One detail you neglected to mention is that in addition to serving with the FRC, Blackwell also serves on the Board of Directors for the Club for Growth, which undermines your suggestion that Blackwell is fiscally unconservative.

Best wishes for your future posts.

Just as there are reasons why EVERY candidate — as well as every non-candidate, like you and me — should not lead the RNC. No one is perfect (not even me, just ask my wife). But whatever the reasons against Ken Blackwell, James Richardson’s diary above does not state them.

This is just a piss-poor, ill-written diary mostly filled with rumors and innuendos. About the only relevant thing in it is that Ken Blackwell is not the best campaigner (and for that reason, I personally do prefer Michael Steele and possibly Saul Azunis) but even there, the article only really makes a statement and not an argument. James Richardson’s diary reminds me of nothing more than the New York Time’s hatchet job against McCain about his supposed affair with Vicki Iseman.

This was just bad and I am honestly surprised to see it on the front page of RedState. I mean, there have been things on the front page of RedState that I have disagreed with (cf. front page stuff written in support of the financial bailout) but this was more than that. At least the other things I disagreed with had some logic in them but this was just … TERRIBLE.

Unfortunately, smear campaigns are a sad reality of politics, but they’re evidently a staple of Blackwell campaigns,

The hypocrisy of this statement after the peice you stuck it in is simply breathtaking!

First off…Blackwell’s failed gubernatorial campaign:

The to biggest factors in his defeat starts with the rampant corruption of the taft administration and the party machine that supported him. Blackwell started out behind the eight ball in his run for Governor simply by being associated with Taft by the R before his name…But as bad as that is…there is even more to the story…Blackwell won the nomination from the Taft machine backed Jim Petro in that race and the Taft machine set to work trying to destroy him from that point on!

Blackwell was a persistent critic of Taft and Voinovich and the squish leadership in Ohio and they’ve pulled out all the stops in his 2006 general election for Governor and no to stop him from ascending to the RNC.

Then there is you smears on his investments…What seir…have you invested in and are there any companies affiliated with any cause that you oppose? I would bet the farm that you don’t have a clue because I’ve tried to shape my investments to conservative friendly stocks and bonds but it’s all but impossible to know who is tangled up with whom!

As for voting for Carter 32 years ago? I would have voted for cart 32 years ago based on my political beliefs back then…and I don’t think there is a soul at Red State that would question my conservatism since I’ve gotten to be well known here.

and aren’t you one of the ones that were arguing that Romney’s conversion to the pro life cause as recently as 2 years ago shouldn’t be questioned? I may be wrong but I’m thinking we’ve been at lager heads over that one in the past…either way…I don’t see how the person he voted for over a generation ago has any more bearing over the history he built up in OH as a thorn in the side of the Liberal Republican Party Establishment there?!

How about taking Blackwell on about what he’ll do as chairman and his past political affiliations and leave is investments and the personal snarks out of it as we’ve al;l tried to do where Steele and Duncan are concerned…well…maybe not duncan cause he’s just an idiot:>)

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

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You say you are going to personally end Blackwell’s “free ride” and then you proceed to tell us about companies he might own stock in???? Sir, I know a bit about politics, and a bit more about stocks, you know zero about either subject. In fact, anyone that mixes one with the other de facto has no clue.

Sir, I think you are at the wrong site.

virtual troll rate

If that’s the best case you can make against Blackwell, he’s got my support.