Ohio GOP launches all-out drive for Bush (Walden O'Dell fund-raiser) [View All]

[phoebe]

didn't see this posted either..

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1064655398128350.xml

Columbus - A Republican all-star cast kicked off the Ohio campaign to re-elect George W. Bush yesterday, pegging the state as one of the toughest battlegrounds for the president in 2004.

Gov. Bob Taft, who will serve as chairman of Bush's state campaign, told a gathering in the Statehouse Atrium that Bush's record fighting terrorism, waging war on Iraq and backing economy-stimulating tax cuts "inspires us all."

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Virtually every Republican elected to an executive or legislative office in GOP-controlled Ohio - including its two senators, its Republican congressional delegations, all the statewide executive officeholders and the current and former leaders of both chambers of the legislature - will join Taft in campaigning for Bush.

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After the event, Mehlman was headed to a much-publicized Ohio Republican Party fund raiser at the Upper Arlington mansion of voting machine executive Walden O'Dell. O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc., wrote in an invitation to the function that he was "committed to helping deliver Ohio's electoral votes to the president" in 2004. He has since expressed regret if his political activities cast aspersions on the integrity of the voting machines he plans to sell in Ohio.

Mehlman said that people are able to separate their political beliefs from their professional activities and that everyone has a right to get involved in the election process.