3/12/06 Update at bottom of this post
I have received intel reports that the establishment Ohio GOP is so scared of Bill Pierce beating lackey Senator Mike De"Whine" that they have created a candidate to split the over 60% of voters who dislike the job DeWine is doing. His name is David Smith. He is not a serious candidate. You may remember him. He ran in the Ohio 2nd special election as a republican. Yes, you may say, I don't remember him, but he is there. Now, he is being used by Mr. Bennett to sabotage the candidacy of Mr. Pierce, according to sources deep within Ohio GOP and those close with several of the campaigns.
Here is the story fueling the fire: This past weekend, Mr. Pierce was scheduled to give a talk to a group in the Cleveland area. Well, someone who shall remain nameless, but highly placed in the area, leaked the date, time, and place of the engagement to Mr. Bennett. Bennett then alerted David Smith, who promptly showed up unannounced or invited, and proceeded to disrupt the presentation by working the room, passing out literature and gladhanding people.
It was the height of rudeness, quite frankly, and Mr. Pierce finally had to ask Mr. Smith, "is it ok if I continue?"
It is clear, the establishment, pork barrel loving, corruption encouraging bosses of the Ohio GOP do not want Bill Pierce to win, just as they don't want Blackwell, though it is clear that Blackwell IS going to be the candidate for governor. They fear Bill's candidacy, because he IS an outsider, not an insider like DeWine. They already co-opted Hamilton County's supposedly "fair and open" endorsement process by encouraging them to endorse all incumbents without debate, a lazy and apathetic way to do things, if ever I heard one. Now, it appears they are using a joke of a candidacy to split the anti-DeWine vote to keep someone in office who has proven unresponsive to the will of the people of Ohio (gang of 14, etc.) and who has one of the highest unfavorable ratings of all incumbent senators.
Is this the 21st century or have we stepped back into the era of Boss Tweed, Mr. Bennett? Stay tuned....
UPDATE
Thanks SW OhioVoter over at Columbus TownHall.com for sending SOOOOOOOOOO much traffic over this way. However, SWOhioVoter seems to have a bit of problems with the facts. He claims that Matthew Hurley, contributor here at WMD and blog administrator for Pierce for Senate, wrote or contributed to the above piece. Of course, he is wrong!
Let me be clear. My name is Mark, not Matt. I am a member of an Ohio county GOP central committee. As such, I have mingled with many members of many campaigns within the Ohio GOP. My sources were not from Bill Pierce's campaign blog administrator, Mr. Hurley. If you READ the article with a bit of a clear mind, you can see that I reference sources within the Ohio GOP and several campaigns. Notice that. Let me be even clearer. Mr. Pierce did not contribute to this article.
And, SWOhioVoter, I don't appreciate, first of all, your attributing MY work to others. And, even worse, I don't appreciate you doing it for BLATANT, and quite frankly, tasteless, political gain. If you are going to use material from this site, please be accurate. Really, does it take so much to look at the top of an article to see who wrote it? Hmm?
And, to all of you interested folks from ColumbusTownhall, let me say thanks for stopping by, and be sure as I write this that the Pierce campaign had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the commentary espoused in the above reference article. The impressions were gained from people AT (as in real eye witnesses) from the event in question, as well as people in the Ohio GOP who for the sake of their jobs, would like to remain annonymous. So, to sum up:
1. Matt Hurley did not write this. I did. Check the headline, heck, check the timestamps and the identity of who was on blogger.
2. SWOhioVoter is obviously trying to besmirch a campaign that has a chance of winning, as opposed to a three time loser aka, Mr. Smith.
3. Again, SWOhioVoter neglected to really read the article reasonably and rationally and instead jumped to conclusions of mass hyperbole.
4. Mr. Smith and his supporters should be more concerned with answering questions of their own, rather than seeking to raise aspersions on another candidate.
5. Keep coming back, ColumbusTownHall.com folks, we love the traffic.
Thanks, Have a nice day.
Sincerely,
Mark , not Matt. For SWOhioVoter, that was Mark, not Matt.
Are We Clear?
