As Election Day in Ohio approaches, and in the spirit of the ghoulish Halloween season that precedes it, the significance this year of "Trick or Treat" takes on a new, scary meaning.
The "trick" this year, like Dracula on the hunt, could come in many forms. From electronic voting machine foul ups, potential voter disenfranchisement brought on by disparate interpretations of Ohio's new voter identification law to voter confusion resulting from federal court decisions to poor and unclear election directives and heavy-handed Republicans who will intimidate voters as part of Karl Rove's and Ken Mehlman's so-called 72-hour plan, the variety of scary scenarios that await Ohioans is all too real.
The "trick" could also come in the form of Greg Hartmann, the Texas Flash who moved to Cincinnati about seven years ago and quickly gained political altitude by rising to top elephant of the Hamilton County GOP and who now wants voters to elect him Secretary of State.
If Ohio voters want to scare themselves this year, all they have to do is consider scary differences between the widely respected and endorsed Democratic candidate Jennifer Brunner of Columbus and her immature and inexperienced Republican challenger.
When masquerading as the Cincinnati equivalent of Dr. Jekyll, the well respected doctor in the Robert Louis Stephenson's horror classic, Lone-Star Greg sounds like an upstanding community leader and family man. Married with children, the Texas Flash claims on his website that he "devotes much of his time to community causes such as the Catholic Inner City Schools Initiative, the Cincinnati Community Action Now Commission, and the Ohio Reads Program."
When he morphs into Mr. Hartmann, the malicious creature that takes pleasure in attacking Jennifer Brunner with intentional misrepresentations and false conclusions about some of her judicial rulings [one of the trademarks of his campaign manager, Mark Weaver, who also manages the campaign of Betty Montgomery, a Republican running for Attorney General], the malevolent Mr. Hartmann shows his Halloween face, one that gives him the ability to talk out of both sides of it.
If Ohio voters employ the same logical thinking about the candidates and their claims that all of Ohio's major newspaper editorial boards have done, the choice of Ms. Brunner over Mr. Hartmann is, frankly, a "no brainer," as Dick Cheney might say.
Employing the theory that the best predictor of future performance and integrity is demonstrated past performance and life-long integrity, the differences between Ms. Brunner and Mr. Hartmann are as clear as the difference between a trick and a treat.
THE TRICK AND THE TREAT
THE TREAT: In Ohio, the treat this year is Ms. Brunner, who was born, raised and educated in Ohio. Her hardworking parents and relatives were also native Ohioans. Ms. Brunner, a wife of 28 years, is also a mother of three children and has raised foster children as well. She is active in her community and has served on various boards with distinction including as a member of the Franklin County Board of Election.
THE TRICK: For Ohio voters, the trick they want to avoid is Mr. Hartmann, who was born and raised in Texas and had his professional career created for him with the help of his wealthy and powerful Republican lawyer father Robin P. Hartmann, who performed legal work for Dick Cheney in 2000. Mr. Hartmann has only recently moved to Ohio to be close to his billionaire in-laws in Indiana, according to published reports.
THE TREAT: From 1979 to 2005, Brunner served as a statehouse aide, graduated from law school, served as legislative counsel to Ohio's Secretary of State, started her on election law firm and then defeated a hand-picked political crony of Republican Governor Bob Taft to become a Common Pleas Court Judge. She voluntarily stepped down from a secure seat on the bench because her passion for restoring trust and integrity to Ohio elections again was a calling she could not resist. Along the way, she has also authored published articles for the Ohio State Bar Association, law review, and the Columbus Board of Realtors
THE TRICK: From 1988 to 2006, Mr. Hartmann lived the life of a college frat boy in North Carolina, where he caroused, was arrested and convicted for an open container violation and has after 18 years refused to pay the court-ordered fine, is sued by PepsiCo in California and looses the case and again runs from his personal responsibility to pay the court-ordered fine of $15,141.33; lies about his past arrest record on a Hamilton County Prosecutor's job application, has his pay docked for repeatedly attempting to use vacation time when he doesn't have any, allows thieves to steal personal information from the clerk of court's website in spite of being warned repeatedly about it and having a lawsuit filed against him; is chastised by the Supreme Court of Ohio for failing to serve legal documents in a timely manner and starts a statewide campaign based on a slim and shady resume that, when matched up against reality, raises more questions than it does providing answers.
And now that The Cincinnati Enquirer, the very conservative megaphone of southwestern Ohio, has endorsed Ms. Brunner, effectively giving her a clean sweep of Ohio's major daily newspapers, it should be clear to even the more diehard GOPers who say they value experience and trust that Ms. Brunner is the only person in the race that can do what she says she will do to again make Ohio elections open, honest, fair and accurate.
After reading his hometown newspaper's strong endorsement of his well-respected and accomplished challenger, Mr. Hartmann should understand that no matter how much he attacks Ms. Brunner with scary TV commercials based on misleading false conclusions, his Halloween mask of respectability and business proficiency is just that, a false front voters know is a trick that Ohio does not need played on it.
Useful sites: http://www.truthaboutgreghartmann.com/ and http://www.jenniferbrunner.com/