“Public Service” means serving the public. This is a circular definition, to be sure, but at the core it means doing your job. It does not mean putting the interests of your political party before those of your constituents. When you are the top election official in a state, you have an obligation to ensure the elections under your jurisdiction are conducted properly. Perhaps the most sacred aspect of this secular duty is to ensure the individual right to vote is protected.
A sane society would have thrown someone like Jon Husted in jail by now, or would have at least cast him out into the (political and perhaps literal) cold.
That he is still able to do things like this says as much if not more about us as it does about Secretary Husted.
Earlier today I proposed a plan for the Romney/Ryan campaign: donate to the Red Cross.
Specifically, I suggested they pull their advertising for the remainder of the week and donate their entire advertising budget to the Red Cross. Call on the SuperPACs to do the same, and challenge the Obama/Biden canpaign to follow suit. I didn’t expect them to do it, but they’re clearly flailing around, looking for a way to capitalize on Sandy politically. So why not get some good publicity the old-fashioned way: buy it?
Romney has a huge hole to dig himself out of. He’s on record advocating the privatization of FEMA:
And his performance as Governor of Massachusetts during the Green River flood in 2005 was less than stellar..
Instead, the R/R camp has done the opposite. They’ve doubled down on the “Jeep is leaving Ohio for China” lie Romney first voiced in a speech and later made into an ad. They’re spending $100k to run a radio version of it in the Toledo market.
They’re also starting to air commercials attacking Obama for the closure of coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania:
Here in PA, we have a love/hate relationship with coal. The mines have been good to us employment-wise, and the power plants have been a cheap source of electricity for decades, but we also have a history of mine fires, Black Lung, and acid rain.* Fortunately, the recent boom in natural gas is allowing us to replace our coal-fired electricity generation capacity with cleaner-burning natural gas plants.
And who is coming out looking the best in all of this? Chris Christie, the Republican Governor of New Jersey. By all accounts, he’s acquitted himself quite well in the disaster. He’s praised the Federal response in general, and President Obama’s hands-on approach in particular. And he rejected the opportunity to have a photo op with Romney. (I suspect he can smell the stench of defeat on the R/R campaign and is already thinking about 2016.)
*Our acid rain problem was attributed to plants upwind from us. The stuff we burn comes back down in New England.
