Project Vote Smart is offering Ohio voters a free 2008 Voter’s Self-Defense Manual, paid for with funding from the Ford and Carnegie foundations.
“The 100-page Voter’s Self-Defense Manual is the first, best step to smart voting,” said Adelaide Elm, founding board member of Vote Smart. “The Voter’s Self-Defense System our interns and volunteers are creating enables each voter to strip away the campaign hype, spin and negative attacks to expose what the candidates may do for us - or to us - if elected.”
The manuals will have a sampling of information form the Vote Smart databases, covering more than 40,000 incumbents and candidates running for office this year. They include background and contact information, information on key votes and interest group ratings, campaign contributions, public statements and what the group calls a “political courage test.”
Manuals are available by request at www.votesmart.org or by calling the Voter Research Hotline at 1-888-VOTESMART.
Project Vote Smart is a national, non-profit, non-partisan research and information gateway.
Where to see it: It began airing Wednesday, Aug. 16, in Ohio, five other states and Washington D.C.
Script: (female announcer): “Ever use birth control? Then you’ll want to hear this.”
(A black screen shows the words: John McCain Interview July 10, 2008, and then shows McCain being interviewed by reporters.)
Interviewer: “… it’s unfair health insurance companies cover Viagra, but not birth control. Do you have an opinion on that?”
McCain: (pause) “I don’t know enough about it to give you an informed answer. …”
Announcer: “Planned Parenthood Action Fund is responsible for the content of this advertising because women deserve quality affordable health care.”
Video: McCain is being interviewed in Ohio aboard his “Straight Talk Express.” When he is asked this question, he hesitates, rubs his chin, looks away and finally speaks. Throughout, he appears uncomfortable.
Analysis: The reporter’s question was prompted by earlier comments by McCain’s national co-chairwoman Carly Fiorina, who said women are frustrated that some health-insurance plans cover the male impotency drug Viagra but not contraceptives. The Planned Parenthood advertisement is an excerpt from a slightly longer exchange in which McCain first says he doesn’t want to talk about the issue, and then says he cannot remember how he voted on the question of mandating insurance coverage for birth control.
McCain twice voted no on those mandates, which have not been approved. McCain said he was aware of Fiorina’s remarks, and he said he’d get back to the reporter with an answer.
The insurance coverage issue is likely to be seen by some women as one of fairness, and McCain’s stumbling may offend them. While it’s not unusual for candidates to lack encyclopedic knowledge of their prior votes, the issue is a hot-button one, and McCain’s chairwoman had broached the subject.
On Thursday, July 17, Blair Latoff, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, defended McCain’s support of “choice, innovation and competition” in health care.
But that, of course, doesn’t answer the question.
Lynn Hulsey is a reporter at the Dayton Daily News. E-mail: lhulsey@daytondailynews.com.
“Jobs” is a magic word these days in Ohio and opponents of a proposed ballot issue on sick days intend to use it to fight the proposal.
The opponents have announced formation of Ohioans to Protect Jobs and Fair benefits to battle the proposal that would require employers to let all employees earn seven paid sick days a year.
John C. Mahaney, Jr., treasurer of the group, on Thursday, July 17, called the proposal a “job-killer” in the eyes of businesses across the country at a time Ohio badly needs jobs.
Dale Butland, spokesman for the “Ohioans for Healthy Families” campaign backing the issue, said that it was “ironic” that Mahaney and his business allies say they can’t afford the sick days but plan to raise millions of dollars to run a campaign to keep “average people” from having the same benefits that the business leaders do.
Women voters flocked to Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries but now it’s Barack Obama’s turn to try to win their support.
To honor the 160th anniversary of the conference on women’s rights in Seneca Falls, N.Y., Obama’s Ohio presidential campaign plans a weekend full of grassroots, women-to-women events.
Altogether, more than 60 events are planned across the state on Saturday, July 19, and Sunday, July 20, including in the Dayton area. They’ll include phone banks, house parties, neighborhood canvasses and voter registration drives.
Just as Democrat Barack Obama prepares for a trip to Iraq, the John McCain campaign unleashed nearly eight minute video on YouTube that documents Obama’s shifting positions on the war.
While Obama’s short tenure in the U.S. Senate makes it more difficult to mine for inconsistent votes and stances, the McCain researchers have scoured video archives to produce “The Obama Iraq Documentary: Whatever the Politics Demand.”
The Obama campaign responded with its own attack on McCain’s Iraq policies.
“All John McCain has ever looked for in Iraq are reasons to stay there indefinitely. He has stubbornly championed a strategy of fighting an unnecessary war in Iraq regardless of the shifting facts offered to justify it, regardless of the levels of violence and political progress in the country, and regardless of the gathering strength of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And now, as he advocates a policy of staying in Iraq indefinitely, it is clear that he is going to continue to adhere to George Bush’s ideological agenda even as every other critical national security challenge is neglected, and our troops continue to fight tour after tour of duty and our taxpayers spend $10 billion a month in Iraq,” said Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan.
Same-sex marriage again is in the news during a presidential election and a new national poll shows that American voters oppose it, 55-36 percent.
However, the Quinnipiac University poll, released Thursday, July 17, also finds that voters don’t want government to get involved in banning the practice.
By a 56-38 percent margin, voters oppose amending the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. More narrowly, voters across the nation by a 49-45 percent margin oppose their states banning same sex marriage.
Sen. Barack Obama Wednesday, July 16, named Doug O’Brien the campaign’s Ohio Rural Vote Director.
O’Brien was most recently Assistant Director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture. In that job, he oversaw the department’s biofuels, bioproducts, and renewable energy policy efforts. He also chaired the Ohio Agriculture to Chemicals, Polymers, and Advanced Materials Task Force, a body created by the state legislature and Governor Ted Strickland.
O’Brien was raised on a farm in Iowa and has dedicated his career to agriculture. O’Brien previously served as senior advisor to Iowa Governor Chet Culver on renewable energy issues.
He is former counsel for the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee and worked as a Legal Specialist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the Clinton Administration.
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