perfidy

Who knew? In an opinion piece from today's WSJ, Kimberley Strassel writes:

In the Ohio governor's race, Ken Blackwell is trailing his Democratic competitor, Ted Strickland, by double digits. Save a last-minute miracle, Mr. Blackwell will lose the governor's mansion, and so end 16 years of GOP dominance.

In the Florida governor's race, Charlie Crist is leading his Democratic competitor, Jim Davis, by double digits. Save a last-minute misstep, Mr. Crist is set to give the state GOP a third term in the governor's mansion, overseeing a strong Republican legislative majority.

Their respective failure and success is not ideological: Messrs. Blackwell and Crist are both running on the same agenda of tax cuts, fiscal responsibility and broad government reform. This, instead, is a story of the state parties behind them. In Florida, Republicans have spent the past eight years keeping their promises to voters; in Ohio the GOP forgot what "promise" meant somewhere in the '90s. The tale of these two GOPs offers broader lessons for congressional Republicans, who are facing a rout this fall.

As my fellow Minister Ross pointed out just yesterday, it's important to hold politicians to their promises (after, of course, you've convinced yourself they're not morally lower than whale shit, and then voted for them). He spoke in terms of how the left side of the blogosphere should "declare its independence from the political order", and while I think he was being far too specific to one portion of this medium, it was, after all, his post, and thus his opinion. But his overall point was quite valid, even before I filtered it through my own worldview.

I am not intimate with Florida politics, though a proto-communist friend of mine claims that the state's a mess, with crumbling infrastructure and enough other woes that I'm curious why, oh why, he relocated to Tampa, having commuted to the area for quite some time (ironically, from Ohio) before deciding to move house. But if, as Ms. Strassel says, the Republicans are cruising to a victory there, I guess that some large proportion, a majority even, of the state's voters think things are fine.

And on the other side of the ledger, we have Ohio. I'm somewhat more current on my knowledge of that state's, uh, state. Ken Blackwell, aside from periodic flashes of near-zealotry that have no place in politics, has long seemed like a guy I could support if I were still an Ohio resident. Says Ms. Strassel:

"There hasn't been a bigger critic of the Taft administration than Ken Blackwell," says Ken Blackwell . . . again and again. Voters can't find it in themselves to make the distinction.

All true - Mr. Blackwell has been, rightly and deservedly, a complete pain in Bob Taft's ass. (And mine, now that I think about it, referring to himself in the third person. Who does he think he is, Bob Dole?) I can, however, understand the desire of the state's residents to "throw the bums out", as the stench of corruption, devil-may-care tax policy, and flat incompetence has gotten bad enough that I can almost smell it from South Texas.

More than once over the past several years, I've been reminded that Ohio was a good place to be from, and if a majority of the residents think the same, well I can't say as I blame them. I don't remember Ted Strickland as a scary guy at all, and he could hardly do worse for the state than the execrable Mr. Taft, who, along with the lachrymose George Voinovich, presided over tax increases of more than 70% since I left the state last century.

And there's the problem, as I think I intimated in a comment to Minister Ross' post - it sucks to have to wait so long to flush the toilet. And that goes quadruple at the Federal level, where our elected spastics can do some damage worthy of the moniker.

Some day, if this entire "Internet" thing ever takes off, there might be a way to coherently, and in an adult manner, express an opinion between elections that someone will listen to.

At least that's my hope.