Begun The Campaign Wars Have

When you work in fast food, every damned day you encounter morons who can't figure out what they want to order, or how to tell you what they want, or in some cases what fast food restaurant they're even at. I won't say which chain I work for, but it ain't BK, though we constantly get people trying to order a Whopper. The scary thing is that today some of these clueless types were sporting "I Voted" stickers. It's frightening to think that, with less than twenty-five percent of registered voters expected to turn out today, our choices for Ohio's next governor are being decided by people who cannot even figure out a fast food menu.

It really doesn't matter, I suppose. The outcomes of both the Democratic and GOP primaries have been pretty much foregone conclusions for months. Just a couple of months ago, the Democratic race looked like it might be interesting, with Columbus mayor Mike Coleman still in it and talk floating around of former Cincinnati mayor Jerry Springer (yep, that Jerry Springer) possibly making a run for the Statehouse. In the end, however, Ted Strickland has basically lucked into the nomination simply by staying in the race while all serious opposition collapsed around him. He really didn't have to do anything. I don't think I've seen even one Strickland campaign ad on the tube. Ken Blackwell and Jim Petro, on the other hand, have gone back and forth trying to appear more conservative than their opponent to their GOP base. I think Blackwell has won that dubious honor, not to mention simultaneouly coming off as mean-spirited, bigoted and slightly nutty, but not in a harmless way.

Meanwhile, Dan Williamson of The Other Paper, one of the few writers at that mostly worthless rag who at least appears to have some knowledge of the subject he's writing about, has already practically annointed Strickland Ohio's next governor, reasoning that while he had no primary opposition to speak of and thus was able to save all his campaign funds for the fall race, Ken Blackwell had some semi-serious competition in Jim Petro to fight off and may have depleted his war chest enough to put him at a disadvantage. Maybe so, but Kenny-boy is not going down without a serious and dirty fight. I bet he's had his ad writers and researchers digging for any dirt, or anything that could be made to look like dirt, on Teddy and I wouldn't be surprised if we see his first attack ad as early as tomorrow. The people with TiVo, who can skip over commercials, will be the lucky ones, for they will be able to avoid Blackwell's toxic cloud of blather, and the rest of will be wearing out the mute buttons on our remotes or heading to the kitchen during commercial breaks to make lots and lots of sandwiches.

Oh, yeah--it's gonna be a long six months 'til November here in the Buckeye State.