The press grows a pair re Teddeth Blackland
CLEVELAND (AP) — In a reversal, the candidates for Ohio governor allowed The Associated Press to shoot still photos Wednesday for pool coverage during their second debate.The campaigns of Republican Ken Blackwell and Democrat Ted Strickland had said photo coverage would be restricted to the candidates' handshake before the debate and interviews afterward.
In a letter to the campaigns, the AP, dozens of its member newspapers and the Ohio Newspaper Association demanded that photo access be given for the full debate. The AP and those organizations were prepared to boycott photo coverage of the debate if full access was not allowed.
That's nice. Now, how about they do something really radical and boycott coverage of the debate unless all candidates are included?
I could have shown up for an hour before work to join the Libertarian unwelcoming committee at Channel 5, but I didn't...I really needed to practice. I heard a bit of the advance auction of stolen goods debate on the way in. And if Blackwell would find a way to bail on the debates that wouldn't make him look bad, he'd be ahead, because he's blowing it on stylistic grounds. You can't have your opponent lay out a plan, and then say "My opponent has no plan". Nor can you get your rhyme groove together and call him "the man without a plan"; imitating Johnny Cochrane is not going to help with one demographic and will actively hurt with another. Blackwell's positions are not unreasonable, at least no more so than Strickland's. But he's losing points on presentation.
Another thing: one questioner threw out the stat that higher education costs 45% more in Ohio than the national average. I'd like to see what went into that conclusion; it seems a little glib. Are we comparing apples to apples? What are the ratio of OH private-college to public-college students? A fair comparison would be to compare Ohio's public universities with other public universities of similar academic standing. The questions are whether Ohio students are getting enough bang for the buck, and whether they can afford the bang.
Comments
Posted by: Jo
Posted on: September 22, 2006 10:41 PM
My daughter said that she and her highschool mates watched part of the debate, and ended up laughing their heads off at quite a few of Blackwell's comments.
She said that what made her snerk the most was Blackwell's use of the letter F when speaking words with a TH. "He can't even pronounce words properly...why would anyone want him as a governor after seeing how Bush slaughters English?" was her comment.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: September 23, 2006 05:54 AM
I hope you used this as a Teachable Moment about logic. Talking badly and ruling badly are not necessarily connected, though certainly the correlation is, well, interesting. Besides, doesn't she know that mocking a black man for his accent is highly Politically Incorrect? If a teacher had heard that, she'd be in detention for sure.
Posted by: Jo
Posted on: September 23, 2006 06:36 PM
I've strived to make sure my kids don't fall into that PC-schmeeCee crap. And I'm glad that her teacher was guffawing at Blackwell's idiocy, too.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: September 26, 2006 09:22 AM
Well, I mean John F. Kennedy talked funny too, though he never confused distinct phonemes. And was the teacher laughing at Strickland's idiocies too, or was this a partisan thing?
It makes me sick that Blackwell wants to follow in the Shrub's foodsteps and make education even more centralized than it already is. Decrentralization is what is called for, with local school principals within a district making their own decisions on everything: curriculum, hiring, union contracts. Let the tax money follow the student, and the student go to whatever school they want. And let the district fire the underperforming principals.