Salon has just published a blistering and eye opening investigative article. It details political contributions from Judges looking to be confirmed to the federal bench to Senators. Those Senators include Mike DeWine and George Voinovich prominently, along with Arlen Specter, the Judiciary chairman.

Bob Ney is getting desperate. Maybe even desperate for some man love - after all he seems preoccupied with it. Maybe he is just warming up to the idea of some prison sex as his closest aides are all getting trapped in the ever expanding corruption ring

The news that Blackwell has stunningly retreated on the biggest plank of his platform and campaign promise - his TEL amendment has the far right in a tail spin of spin.

Somehow this man of conviction and principle backing away from his signature piece of policy and handing the responsibility of state spending over the the GOP legislature he has repeatedly called failures is a victory. It's enough to make your head hurt.

I am sure you are all aware of Ohio coingate and the cess pool of Republican corruption. We've talked about it quite a lot in the past.

Well ohio has a new political rockstar who is running to be the next Attorney General. His Name is Subodh (ryhmes with abode) Chandra (rhymes with tundra).

He has been wowing democratic party events up and down the state with his intellect, wit and incisive thinking.

The Plain Dealer, ABJ, sun newspapers have all endorsed him. But this is a guy you have to experience for yourself.

It seems that one sentence at BSB caused a little stir today. So much so in fact it caused the PeeDee to make some calls

We nearly aspirated our Frosted Flakes this morning when we read what one of our progressive blogging friends had posted just before 2 a.m. Saturday: that conservative Republican Ken Blackwell is dropping out of the governor's race.

But on the off chance that the unbelievable might actually be true, we called Blackwell's people, who are on duty today but were unaware of the latest buzz surrounding their candidate. By the time spokesman Carlo LoParo stopped laughing, it was clear that Blackwell is more likely to become a flaming liberal than a gubernatorial dropout.

LoParo went on to compare -- a bit harshly, we thought -- the blogger in question to those unfortunate people who get regular messages from alien civilizations.

"I guess all that tinfoil has paid off," LoParo said.

Heh. I'm laughing but LoParo really shouldn't. Let's consider....

I have been blogging the ins and out of the Ohio Senate race from the beginning at The buckeye Senate Blog. About a month ago I began getting tips that Paul Hackett was being smeared. I didn't write about it at the time because frankly I didn't know what to do about it.

Motherjones has the story, and its sordid

You may have problems getting to the link, I think it has been slash dotted

The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper is using it's online news site, Cleveland.com to host a blog for Ken Blackwell.

For 3 days in a row now they have posted, without disclaimer or editing campaign material from Ken Blackwell, including links to his campaign website, campaign emails, campaign logos and pictures taken by campaign staff. The blog posts are written by Blackwell's internet communications director.

This appears to be a significant in kind contribution from a corporation, with no disclaimer in direct violation of Ohio election law.

more blow the bump

So everyone is spinning the cloture vote to put the best possible face on it. "From we did our best and they know we exists" to "at least our powder is still dry", my favorite personally is "it was always near impossible".

It always seems impossible. but we got to get ready for the next fight, right ? NSA spying ? SOTU speech ? whatever it is it's none of that.

Our next fight is to inject some spine into our Senate Democrats, by force.

Unless you have been living in a vacuum you have heard by now that Paul Hackett unleashed a barrage against the fundamentalists who have hijacked the GOP. In typical Hackett fashion, when challenged by the Ohio GOP for his statements he didn't back down.

The fun really starts below the break.

Well the ODP Chair Forum was interesting last night. Lieberman, Redfern, Gwinn, Eckart, Reece and Mitakides turned up.

Before I go any further, let me just say that whomever is the next chair, it won't be any worse - it might not be any better, but it definitely won't be worse. All the candidates had some good points, and if you could mash all their positives together we would have one hell of a chair.

The game however changed tonight. First, Chris, when everyone is blasting you for wanting to do 2 or 3 jobs at once the last thing you want to do is leave the debate 30 minutes early to go to a Christmas party ! That aint the message to be sending.

As some will be aware the ineffective ODP Chair Denny white resigned, and the replacement is to be voted on by the Ohio Democratic Party Central Committee (137 members) on the 19th December.

Grass roots in Ohio pressured ODP to hold regional debate forums as part of the process of selecting the new chair. This would give everyone a chance to hear what each candidate has to say, what their plan would be and to be questioned on it.

ODP decline this opportunity, so grass roots organizations set about "Democracy for Democrats"

If you follow Ohio Politics at all you will have heard that the Ohio Democratic Party (ODP) chair Denny White resigned last Wednesday. A good thing for all, given how utterly ineffective he has been.

Now we have a golden opportunity to get a chair who can rebuild Ohio and take it back from the GOP corruption and incompetence. But it isn't going to be easy.

There has been much rumor swirling around about insider moves, coup's, and smoke filled back room deals.

So to the gossip and the actions we can take in the extended.

I hope to god that the Republicans choose John McCain as their 2008 Presidential nominee because the guy is batshit crazy.

Let me lay out my case for you to decide, on this Veterans Day.

Before I get to the fun of blogging the results as they come in I want to take a minute to thank a whole bunch of people without whom RON simply would not have happened. The list is in no particular order, and apologies to those i forget - because there are so many.

into the extended then...

The Columbus Dispatch has released it's mail in polling results for State issues 2,3,4 and 5. This poll is notoriously accurate, and just 2 days out form the election - the outcome is wide open in Issue 4 and 5 - and issues 2 and 3 look like a done deal.

Results in the extended

So I have been ballistic lately over RON, transparency and corruption.

Let me introduce you to the latest fucking outrage.

Jimmy Dimora is the chair of the most powerful Democratic county party in Ohio. Cuyahoga.

What's he been doing lately ?

Only fucking ROBO calling in ANTI RON messages paid for by Ohio First - and entirely GOP funded operation to maintain the status quo and defeat these reform measures.

In 7 days time we will know if all our efforts over the past 12 months have been worth it. We will know if we have reformed Ohio and taken back our government from corrupt pay for play cronyism. But before we pop the champagne corks we got a lot more work ahead of us.

2005 is an off election year, turnout will be low, and the polls are close on Issues 4 (redistricting) and issue 5 (replacing Ken Blackwell) so to maximize our chances against the enemies of reform and good government we have 7 days to work...the tasks if you wish to accept them are in the extended.

We officially got our first candidate in the race for Ohio Senate today. Paul Hackett made his announcement from his home in Cinci.

His announcement speech highlighted why so many people are enthused by him

Into the extended is the speech, a pic from the event and some links.