Plunderbund

The bad blood fueled by the Sherrod Brown’s campaign has caused them yet more problems (nevermind the already poor polling numbers). The Toledo Blade is reporting a leaked internal Hackett campaign memo which highlights opposition research showing Brown’s problem with terrorism and intelligence (hat tip OH02).
Republicans are swift to pick this up:
Mr. Hackett […]

New poll shows Strickland with commanding lead:
Strickland leads Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell 47% to 35%. This is a weaker showing for the Republican than we found in January.
The flip side is the Senate race, where DeWine has taken advantage of the Hackett job and has pulled to a 9 point lead. […]

OK, let’s get this straight. Make one of the most Orwellian statements ever uttered in a SOTU speech (”we’re addicted to oil”), then visit a place designed to help fix that AFTER you’ve already cut their budget. Are these people for real?
from Rocky Mountain News:
President Bush will tour the National Renewable Energy Laboratory […]

The Tip Hat
I’ve put out a tip hat (top right). It’s a nice old hat from my grandpa’s closet. I used to wear it while goofing off on the farm. Feel free to drop in some spare change, which will go toward the following:
Plunderbund Podcast: I’d really like to be able […]

Blogcritics picks up a piece by Steven Hart at The Opinion Mill, a New Jersey blog, that parrots the same old misleading poll BS.
Why don’t we let Ohioans decide when to dial down the anger, huh Steven? I prefer to rechannel it - into rebuilding the party one piece at a time. […]

Sound like a good strategy? Paul got forced out, yet Sherrod Brown’s numbers among Dems went down - 8%. That is not good. Russell has the details.
Brilliant!

No matter what you believe or don’t believe in the divisive Senate primary race, this quote from longtime Hackett friend Michael Brautigam shows us clearly what needs to change (from PD):
“The real reason [for Hackett’s withdrawal] is, the political process does this to people who have not been around it since they were kids,” […]

Sure, run off the war veteran and then sell some dog tags.

OK, OK, Ted…ahum…most likely had nothing to do with any of the underhanded shenanigans that took Hackett out. But I surely hope we don’t see a Sherrod Brown dog tag. The Ohio blogosphere would go absolutely apeshit!

David Sirota is in all out panic mode. He’s probably seeing and hearing all of the news about the apparent swiftboating of Paul Hackett. So the biggest Sherrod Brown shill out there is just straight up lying, trying to sell the notion that Paul was “beat”…and beat fairly I might add.
He points to […]

There might not be enough time to swap the colors. Are we seeing the disintegration of the fighting Dem frame? Russell points to the tea leaves.
Better get out in front. Full ahead flank!
I linked to this below contextually, but it bears repeating:
Mother Jones: Backroom Battles

Redfern’s MTB interview is up.
First of all, I want to commend Chris for stepping up to the plate and not pulling a “Brown” at Meet The Bloggers. If you know anything about blogs, you realize it’s a no brainer. Do MTB and you might get roughed up a bit for an hour. […]

On September 23, 1779, John Paul Jones was in a bloody battle for his life. His own ship The U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard was struggling with a 44 gun Royal Navy frigate known as “Serapis”. The battle was fierce and appeared over as Jones’ vessel was battle weary, burning, and sinking. In the […]

for those of you (yes both of you) who might be wondering what I’m thinking:
Going Deep - Self-Examination At Depth
There are times when life urges us to seek more. Small changes to our comfort zone may fail to alleviate any sense of stagnancy or frustration, and we may need to examine our lives and […]

…I’m stepping away for a few days. I hope to return with both a plan and renewed spirit…

Check this comment from a Kos thread:
Just had in interesting chat with a GOPer here in Cincinnati, a student who’s in the National Guard. Most of his unit is shipping over to Kuwait soon. He still believes that it made sense to invade Iraq, and believes Bush is telling the truth about what he knew […]