With Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) running virtually dead even with Sen. Mike DeWine (R) in the crucial Ohio Senate race, Democrats are nervously awaiting the GOP's expected onslaught of negative ads as well as their vaunted turnout machine. The Republicans certainly don't need any help for the latter, but they may be getting some nonetheless.
There's no gay marriage amendment on the ballot, such as the one that helped spur the vote amongst the religious right in 2004. But the bad news is that Issue 3 on the ballot is starting to stir up impassioned opposition that could give conservatives something to forget Mark Foley by.
Issue 3 is sponsored by a group called Learn and Earn. Take a look at the
home page of their website.
Ah, little kids at play. An illustration of a graduation cap. "A lot of GOOD will come of this," we're assured.
Learn & Earn is an exciting new proposal that will put a college diploma within your reach! This unique program will deposit nearly one billion dollars a year directly into college grants and scholarship accounts of all Ohio students who have successfully completed the core curriculum established by the Ohio Board of Education.
So what could be objectionable to the morality police about this? Scroll down a bit more on the home page and you'll find the answer.
Learn & Earn will be funded by proceeds on slot machines at 9 venues in Ohio (7 at existing racetracks).
Uh-oh. Gambling. The same scourge that Sen. Frist attempted to make illegal on the internet (other than the ponies) by attaching a law to a must-pass port security bill in the closing days of the session. "Gambling is a serious addiction that undermines the family, dashes dreams, and frays the fabric of society," said the Senate Majority Leader [Daily Mail UK], and man, how inappropriate are statements like this from any member of the Republican party who has not loudly demanded the resignation of Rep. Hastert.
Nonetheless, the opposition amongst influential clergy across the denominational spectrum is growing, and that could be grim news, as reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon and the rest of the state's Catholic leaders declared that a November ballot proposal that would bring slot machines to seven Ohio racetracks and two sites in downtown Cleveland is not in the state's moral, social or economic interests.
"Slot machines have been called the 'crack cocaine' of gambling," the bishops said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.
Earlier in the day, United Pastors in Mission, a leading group of black clergy, voted unanimously to oppose Issue 3.
"You don't solve moral dilemmas with immoral activities," the Rev. C. Jay Matthews, president of United Pastors, told a fired-up group of clergy at Antioch Baptist Church. "Issue 3, really in the next month, we got to hammer that one."
The two groups join an already powerful coalition.
It's a collection ranging from United Methodists to Muslims, who are planning to take the anti-gambling message to their congregations.
What religious leaders say is fueling the unusual activism is both a theological opposition to casino gambling and a sense of outrage at what they believe is a deceptive multimillion-dollar advertising campaign by Issue 3 supporters that portrays a vote for gambling as a vote for education.
And the truth is that Learn and Earn has made themselves easy to dislike. In order to get casino giant Penn National to get behind the plan, they dumped Cincinnati as a casino location; Penn National owns a riverboat casino in nearby Indiana that could have been hurt by the competition.
When a group in Cincinnati attempted to gather signatures in support of a rival referendum that would include a Queen City casino, Learn and Earn strong-armed them out of the process by hiring every available signature gatherer in the state. "It's become more and more clear that you need a professional firm to do this job, and it's not likely that there is one available at this point," said Louis Beck, the leader of the group in announcing that they would fold. [Cincinnati Enquirer]
Learn and Earn petition gatherers were accused of misleading prospective signatories by not telling them where all the money to support these wonderful educational programs was coming from. A lawsuit against them for these actions filed by a Cincinnati councilwoman was dropped when Learn and Earn offered to cut the city in for a piece of the action. "If elected officials tried the very same tactics, it would be called bribery, and people would go to jail," said one anti-slots leader. [Columbus Dispatch]
And then there's the matter of the deceptive advertising mentioned above. Even an article in the Cincinnati Post which points out that Ohio ballot proposals may not be what they seem comes up (if you're lucky) with a Learn and Earn display ad which features the eager kids and no mention whatsoever of the slots. Charles Ruma, the chairman of the group, admitted the other day that the group's claim that they would raise "nearly one billion dollars" a year for education was an exaggeration of the official projection of $853 million. And although he said on Tuesday that "If I can, I'll stop [the ads] today," [Akron Beacon Journal] the claim is unchanged on the home page of their website (as linked to above the fold) as of this writing.
It's clear that the group's arrogance alone could inspire voters across the political spectrum to vote against it. That, in itself, would not necessarily effect the turnout and vote for the Senate and House races. But the religious leaders' support certainly could. In a state in which 'Republican' and 'corruption' go hand in hand, anything that riles up the conservative base and turns them out on Election Day has to be a worrying development, and it makes a bet on a favorable outcome an uncertain one.
- For more on Learn and Earn and the slots initiative in Ohio, you can check out some posts on my blog Left at the Gate, here, here, here, and here. Thanks for reading.