You gotta laugh at what is going on in Akron's mayoral race ...

[zbdent]

First, Repukes in the area know that they can't get enough of a win ... closest they can get to beating Plusquellic is attacking him for pulling a Cheney and accusing him of being very heavy-handed (sounds like a Republican wet dream) - and also electing a Republican mayor of next-door neighbor Cuyahoga Falls (which has seen better days on the State 8 shopping area).

Anyway, Plusquellic won the primary ... leaving him to be a shoo-in, because no Republican candidate has been fielded. His margin of victory was almost twice what "Bush won Florida" with ... approximately 1000 votes. Don had 53 percent.

So, all this pissing and moaning going on about "non-Democrat voters being turned away" at the polls ... meaning, Repukes who couldn't find anybody to put up a good fight, so they "switch" conveniently ... and then, about 200 absentee ballots show up the next day ... not due to the election office's error, but some post office decided to hold them up. Most postmarked in the qualifying time, but not delivered until the next day.

Well, all hell's breaking loose, if you believe the whiners ... and I want to scream at them ... "YOU SEE WHAT YOUR IDIOT TOOL KEN BLACKWELL DID TO YOU? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!" - Blackwell put mega-restrictive measures in place to keep absentee ballots from being counted in heavily Democratic voting areas ... like Akron. And, even with Strickland the Dem governor in place, you have a State House and Senate still controlled by Repukes ... ya think they're going to make the voting process fair?

[NEOBuckeye]

1. Actually, Plusquellic's challenger was also a Dem

Plusquellic's challenger, Joe Finley, is actually a left-center Democrat who takes issue with Plusquellic's administration and his handling of city finances. Hence the September election instead of a November one. It was a Primary. The Republicans aren't running a challenger against Plusquellic in November, meaning that he's basically free and in the clear for another four years.

The thinking here is that Plusquellic is actually a centrist Dem who has worked with the business community on economic development issues. Plusquellic right now is working to keep Goodyear, Akron's last major home-grown rubber company, here in town. Business leaders put pressure on Summit County GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff to keep a challenger out of the race, though it's not like a Republican could really win in this town anyhow these days, given Akron's demographics (urban, predominately Dem) and that Plusquellic pretty much destroyed Arshinkoff's last challenger (former state Rep. Bryan Williams) four years earlier.

Finley supposedly campaigned to get the few Republicans who do live in the city limits to cast their vote for him, but to do so, they would have had to change party registration at the same time, since that's the way Ohio's primaries are structured. Most Republicans here, however, would rather eat crow than switch parties to vote Democratic. So when they showed up at the polls and learned that they would have to switch parties to vote for Finley, most just walked away.

[zbdent]

2. but a lot of whining has come from the

repuke types ... "I'm a non-Democrat" (new euphamism for Bush-fellating Republican trying hard to not admit it) "who has been disenfranchised!"

and now the latest tactic is that Plusquellic had a deal with, of all people, Alex Arshinkoff (head of GOP in Summit County) to make sure that there are no Republicans running for "supposedly safe" Dem seats ...

Now that charge is coming from Alex Arshinkoff's rival for the head of the Summit County GOP is Kevin (kid who refuses to attend the school in his district whines about not being able to use the pool, KC runs through legislation to waste that district's $$$ on a kid who refuses to carry the stigma of his alma mater's name) Coughlin ...

And the Repukes are whining about being forced to follow the hard-line rules set down by ... Ken Blackwell?

That's why you have to laugh ...

[liberalnurse]

3. kick