Plunderbund

Update: Citizen Action goofs! See this PD Openers post

BSB had a great find yesterday on Ohio Citizen Action’s 2005 Campaign Finance Report. I’ve made a pdf of the report you can get:

Full Report in PDF (221 KB)

Full Report in Word from Citizen Action (1.51 MB)

It shakes out like this:

Flannery - F
Strickland - B
Blackwell - B
Petro - B
Dann - F
Chandra - B+ (They list him as Chandra Subodh! ugh)
Montgomery - A
Grendell - F
Cordray - B
Bradley - A+
O’Brien - F
Sykes - F
Taylor - A
Brunner - D
Hartmann - B+

I decided to dig even more and found an interesting Blackwell tidbit…

First of all, it appears Strickland leads the way in big money donations, with 73 $10,000 donors, 19 of which are unidentified. Blackwell trails 62/11 in that category.

It was when I looked closer at the Blackwell stuff that things started popping out. Well, let’s just say GOD started popping out - in the strangest places.

HSR Business to Business is listed as Ken’s second largest contributor at $61,380. HSR is a marketing firm out of Cincinatti and is led by and was co-founded by Richard A. Segal Jr. Two things stand out about Rick and his company. One, he touts his religion on his corporate bio:

Rick also devotes much of his free time to his community and church. He sits on the board of trustees for The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, and is an elder in his church. Rick is proud that he was referred to as “the best PR Chair we’ve ever had” by the Reverend Billy Graham for his work on Graham’s 2002 mission to Cincinnati.

So you say, OK, he’s religious. Though it might be a bit odd to tout it in a corporate bio, it gets worse. Apparently it would be uncomfortable to work at this company if you are anything but Christian as this is how the “Values” section of the corporate About section starts:

We acknowledge the presence and power of God in our lives and in this business and are thankful for the unique abilities with which He has blessed us and for the opportunities that He has given us to enjoy.

The remainder of the values statement is great, but why do this? Why create an atmosphere of dogmatic theo-corporate God worship? It seems completely inappropriate to me and exclusive of those who may be fully talented, spirited individuals that might happen to be Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Pagan, Agnostic, or Atheist.

That we see this in so many political and governmental institutions today and now in companies that should be public and non-discriminatory is saddening. Get me straight on this one. You should NOT have to hide your personal religious views and values and you should by all means strive to live by them (so long as they are not distorted bastardized views of what Christ may have been about). However, to begin to inject them into a corporate philosphy or within the governing of many diverse individuals crosses the line in my view and this type of activity should be discouraged.