Ohio, the heart of it all

[Ed Anger]

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed people who got sick after attending the Butler County Fair last week had a strain of the H3N2 the influenza virus. This strain is often referred to as the swine flu.

Nine of the 10 people suspected of contacting the virus tested positive, according to the CDC. The 10th case is still being tested.

Hoosier land got some too.

[Ed Anger]

Unless Republicans can buy a couple miracles, Mitt Romney isn't going to carry Ohio this November; Barack Obama is. And Republican State Treasurer Josh Mandel, of Lyndhurst, will have a tough time unseating Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, of Avon.

That's not to say that Republican Romney can't win the presidency. In 1960, Democrat John F. Kennedy didn't carry Ohio, and yet captured the White House. Trouble is, no Republican has gotten to the White House without Ohio's help.

Either way it's obvious Republicans think Romney has an uphill battle here. That doesn't make him a bad guy or Obama a good guy. It means Obama is better at sales. You have to wonder if Romney, no matter how able he may be at corporate finance, could sell a pyromaniac a book of matches.

According to a Quinnipiac University-CBS News- New York Times swing-state poll released Wednesday, Obama, in the voter-passion department, leaves Romney in Ohio's dust. Among likely Ohio voters who favor Obama, the Quinnipiac survey found 60 percent strongly favor him. In contrast, among likely Ohio voters who favor Romney, 42 percent strongly favor him.

As for Mandel's scorched-earth Senate campaign against Democrat Brown, it calls to mind repeated attempts by Republicans to unseat liberal Democratic Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum, also a Greater Clevelander. The pre-election Republican claim always is that a Metzenbaum or a Brown is "too liberal" for Ohio.

But in 1988, facing Cleveland Republican George V. Voinovich, Metzenbaum carried Hamilton County (Cincinnati), which only four times in the 20th century backed a Democrat for president.

How did Democrat Metzenbaum, supposedly pink as a salmon, carry GOP bedrock? Because Metzenbaum was seen, philosophy aside, as a politician who slapped around the Big Guys (oil companies, drug manufacturers) on behalf of Ohio's Little Guys and Gals. In Ohio, that beats a philosophy lecture every time.

Down-ticket, thanks to congressional districts drawn for his home state by Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner of suburban Cincinnati, there isn't much suspense. Mathematically, true, a Democrat could be competitive in the Northeast Ohio district of U.S. Rep. Steven LaTourette, a suburban Cleveland Republican. LaTourette announced last week he's retiring from Congress when his current term ends. The Democratic nominee in LaTourette's 14th District is Dale Virgil Blanchard, of Solon. The congressional district's GOP county chairs will appoint someone to LaTourette's November ballot slot.

Meanwhile, amid the presidential sound-and-light show, a critical development got lost. Besides Obama-Romney tallies, the swing-state poll also found that 47 percent of Ohio voters approve of the job Gov. John Kasich is doing, while only 38 percent disapprove — a big improvement over a May Quinnipiac poll in which 41 percent approved of his performance and 44 percent disapproved.

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute's Peter A. Brown cautioned that Quinnipiac doesn't have earlier apples-to-apples "likely voter" polling on Kasich's approval rating, "but the improvement ... is so big that it must be at least in part because of the improving economy in [Ohio]." That's the Obama economy the GOP otherwise derides. (Earlier Quinnipiac polling measured the opinions of registered Ohio voters — not, like last week, "likely" voters.)

The specific reason for Kasich's rebound may not matter. But this does: As Romney and Obama, and Mandel and Brown, lunge and duck, Kasich and pals are positioning him better and better for re-election in 2014. That's called taking care of business, and that — unlike the "politics" of dueling TV ads — is real.

The dude, after a shaky start, has really rallied.  I guess a 7.2% unemployment rate helps.

And speaking of economy, the building boomlet is fully underway here. New office buildings are flying up as the empty old ones get gobbled up. And traffic is getting shittier as they throw them up.

[Tonitrus]

I remember Kasich as a GOP congressional golden-boy back in Newt's Republican Revolution days, but he always struck me to be more of the old Jack Kemp/Bush Sr/Bob Dole school.  Hopefully being a successful governer will give him some presidential timber some day.

[Ed Anger]

I remember Kasich as a GOP congressional golden-boy back in Newt's Republican Revolution days, but he always struck me to be more of the old Jack Kemp/Bush Sr/Bob Dole school.  Hopefully being a successful governer will give him some presidential timber some day.

He usually was, but then he decided to try and bust the pubic unions. The the voters said...hey waitacottonpickinminute.

But he seems to have calmed the retard urge down. His latest tax thingy has gotten the tea party a bit steamed. 

[Ed Anger]

The Swine flu has spread.

While I know there is no danger, I've still put the Wolf's Lair on Yellow Alert. Just for shits and giggles.

I die, punch Tim in the nuts for me. REMEMBER ME!

[katmai]

How we will know if you died?

[Ed Anger]

How we will know if you died?

Trumpets will sound.

[PDH]

I will make sure Pompey doesn't become the guardian of your children.

[katmai]

Make Jaron the guardian.

[grumbler]

How we will know if you died?

Trumpets will sound.

  Damn, but that was well-played!

[Valdemar]

How we will know if you died?

Trumpets will sound.

I guess there is only one way to prove that then 

V

[CountDeMoney]

CELINA —

An Ohio sheriff's deputy whose police dog died after being left in a hot cruiser says he accepts responsibility for what happened.

The Dayton Daily News reports that Mercer County Deputy Chad Fortkamp was suspended for 45 days without pay. Fortkamp left his dog Zak in his patrol car last week while he finished some paperwork at the office.

Zak suffered from a pre-existing heart condition that likely was aggravated by the temperature inside the car. The K-9 Unit's veterinarian said that even a healthy dog may have not survived the heat.

At a news conference, a teary-eyed Fortkamp apologized, saying he would always love and miss his dog.

The sheriff's office plans to suspend the K-9 program after losing two dogs in the last three years.

Suspended 45 days without pay for contributing to the death of a fellow officer.  Nice job, assholes.

[CountDeMoney]

Fortkamp has been on the department for 11 years. The only written reprimands have to done with a traffic crash on ice while responding to an injury crash in the county, and for taking an extended break longer than allowed. Grey noted that as Sheriff  he is hard to work for, and said for other Sheriff's those would have been verbal reprimands, not written ones.

The Mercer County prosecutor will decide if any charges will be pursued.

Maybe it will have a happy ending after all.

[Ed Anger]

People seemed more angry that Zak was paid for by donations to replace the first dead dog and that the money was wasted.

[Syt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62DGe9i9lGQ

Welcome to glorious Cincinnati! Queen of Ohio's pal-pine ski-ing resorts!

[...]

C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I, Cincinnati! The best town in O-H-I-O, Ohio, USA! At first they called it Cincy, but since Cincy is so natty, they named it Cincinnati, so they say. Hey, the girls are really pretty in this pretty little city, the fellas are the feistiest I've seen. And when it comes to ball teams, the Reds and Bengals maul teams, they knock the socks off all the other teams. I mean to argue's indefensible, the facts are common sensible, Cincy is invincible, know what I mean? Cincy's more than merely natty, she's Ohio's Maserati, Cincinnati's at the center of the scene!