Why The GOP Is Attacking Jennifer Brunner
Submitted by Paul on Mon, 10/20/2008 - 9:00pm.
It's my opinion that this has much less to do with the 2008 Presidential election and much more to do with the 2010 Secretary of State's race and the corresponding impact on the Apportionment Board's activities in 2011.
Kevin DeWine et al know full well that the 200,000 so call "fradulent registrations" really are complete bull-waste.
These attacks are clearly an attempt to grease the skids for Jon "Where Do I Live" Husted in his expected race for Secretary of State in 2010. Jon has more money than God (but less than Obama) but we can't leave these things to chance.
In October of 2011, the state Apportionment Board will meet to draw the boundaries of state house and state senate districts. The Republicans currently need to retain their State Auditor's seat and win ONE of either the Governor's race or Secretary of State's race in 2010 to take back control of this board.
So much depends on this process for both parties. The lines have been drawn by Republicans for several decades now. Despite that, we are 4 seats shy of winning the state house (we were 11 seats down before 2006) and we have a good chance to win control in 2008 despite the GOP drawn districts.
The state senate, however, is another matter. We gained one seat in 2006 and it's looking like a challenge to pick up even one more seat in 2008.
No, this is all about damaging Jennfier Brunner, making her chase her tail and painting her as a culprit come 2010.
Yes, of course, you are exactly right
I have been hammering this for months. The screeching about 200,000 disenfranchised voters is misguided. What the Republicans really want is the November 4 elections thrown into chaos. Force the SoS office to devote its time to triple-checking registrations instead if trouble-shooting the upcoming election. Make lots of people forced to present additional ID or vote provisional because those are the two things that clog up the precincts and create long lines. The more chaos occurs, the more campaign ad footage they have for 2010. And yes, it is half about the apportionment board, since they clearly feel defeating Strickland is a long shot. The other half is about the opportunity to again take a sledgehammer to our election system and re-destroy what Jennifer is fixing, to send us back to the bad old days of Ken Blackwell. Each and every time the GOp makes a specious attack on Jennifer, I will be sending her a donation. You can do so too at her personal website, JenniferBrunner.com. I have already let her people know I am ready to volunteer as soon as she ramps up her campaign. In fact, this will be my main focus in 2010, although I hope to spend some time working on defeating Voinie too. The man looks like he needs more time to play golf.