Yesterday I woke up with the Rep. Foley news and emails and IMs and Republican cover up ringing in my ears, and I thought, "Damn! Why couldn't this happen in MY district?"
I live in the Ohio 14th congressional district, and I've been represented by Lyin' Steve LaTourette (R) since 1994. Don't get me wrong -- what Foley did was horrible and I don't wish that on ANYONE, let alone a 16 year old congressional page. But I wouldn't mind another massive scandal that rocked the very foundation of the Republican Party, and have LaTourette's name all over it.
LaTourette has more money than he needs and lots of name recognition up here. He's also got lots of baggage, so the race is winnable. But realistically, we need a hail mary pass/big scandal to make things REALLY competitive.
Since that hasn't happened (yet), I did what thosands of other Democrats across the nation did today: I went out and canvassed for my candidate.
Lew Katz (D) is the kind of candidate kos is talking about when he says we need to fight in every district. Despite LaTourette's incumbency advantages, we have a great candidate. Katz (left) is a distinguished law professor, 67, and while he has never run for office, he's sharp, well-spoken, and knowledgeable about the issues. You can go to
his website to read more about his positions, especially his big three: Iraq, health care, and education.
When I pulled up to the Geauga County Dem HQ I thought I was running a little late, but most of the campaign staff hadn't arrived yet either. All told we had about 15 peeople show up to canvass, which was twice as many as the staff thought we'd have. Geauga County gave 60% of the vote for Bush and 70% for LaTourette, so we knew we had our work cut out for us.
I was assigned the town of Burton, Ohio. Burton is a quaint New Englandish town, but it does have its quirks. For starters, it has a prominent gun shop right on the town square called the Gunrunner. The guy who owns it also has a blog called "Burton Blog". One of the latest posts he has on his blog is about how we need to send "the Redneck Special Forces" to Iraq. "These Alabama boys will be dropped off into Iraq and will be given only the following facts about terrorists:
1. The season opened today.
2. There is no limit.
3. They taste just like chicken.
4. They don't like beer, pickups, country music or Jesus.
5. They are directly responsible for the death of Dale Earnhardt.
He's a pretty conservative guys who has donated to LaTourette's campaign. Another quirk is that the town is up in arms over whether to paint its water tower to look like a stack of pancakes. I don't know all the details, other than full page ads on both sides of the issue have been taken out in local newspapers. If only these residents were as passionate about health care or education....
So I wasn't sure what to expect when I got the list of houses, but I found my day went well. I stopped by about 75 homes and spoke to about 10 families (the rest I just left material in their door). Everyone was willing to hear what I had to say, and since I was tageting Dems and Independents, I didn't see too many Gunrunner types. The goal today was simply to get Lews name out there, to combat the LaTourette name advantage. No one in the district is really "excited" about Steve LaTourette, so if we can give them a credible alternative, I think we have a shot...
...and a nice big Republican scandal would help too.