OH12, SS3, & OhioChannel; The BlueBexley Week in Review.

1) The OH-12 race continues to become a higher profile race, at least regionally. The local NPR station, WOSU had both candidates give 1/2 hour interviews, which are available as streams in Windows Media or RealMedia. The Dispatch came out with an endorsement in the race, as part of a triple-header endorsement editorial. I've decided that the global theme of the endorsements was: 'Central Ohio has sent these Republicans to Congress every election in the new millenium. We think holding on to Republican incumbents is a good thing in and of itself, so we endorse them all.' I guess if I thought that the Republicans in Congress had been doing a great job, I'd say the same thing. Later in the week, Shamansky released a statement responding to Tiberi's NPR interview, and the news that the U.S. is planning on having troops in Iraq through 2010. Melding the two big pieces together: If you don't care about the big issues facing the nation today, send Pat Tiberi back to Congress. If you care about the War in Iraq, Social Security, Medicare, and the massive federal budget deficit, vote for Bob Shamansky.

2) While the OH-12 race is being fought out over the TV and radio airwaves, The Ohio State Senate District 3 race is getting more play in the Ohio Blogosphere and the local print media. For instance, in letters to the Editor and in the community weeklies. Let me be the first to say that the first sentence of that Bexley News article completely goes against what I said on Monday about dailies vs. weeklies, although the rest of the article pretty much fits. This one, however, definitely fits the pass-through model. Which is one of the weaknesses of that method of journalism, because the story is about Goodman's attack on Emily Kreider's history of voting in Franklin County. It puts Emily on the defensive by design and has an absolutely abominable title. But I applaud her for standing up and taking responsibility. Me, I would have been coming back and asking Goodman if he really wanted to tell the people in his district that anything less than perfect attendance at the polling place disqualifies you from holding public office. But I'm easily baited.
As for the blogs, most of the fun started here this week, ending with this post, but starting with the tangentially related copyright kerfluffle (see below).

3) "That followed a recent dust-up about an Ohio Republican Party Internet attack ad using footage of a 2003 legislative House session. The ad targets Democratic Rep. Barbara Sykes in her race for state auditor against Republican Mary Taylor.

The Ohio Channel, which provides unedited, commentaryfree coverage of the legislature, Supreme Court and various government meetings, asked the party to stop using that ad as well.

After initially complying, the party put the video back on its Web site. Dan Shellenbarger, executive director of Ohio Channel, said he sent a "cease and desist" letter to the party Oct. 2 without a response and has now contacted an attorney to explore legal action."

For those of you not keeping score at home, Republicans used footage without permission, flip-flopped on whether or not they would comply with the law, decided to defy the law, little happened, even after this flip-flop and defiance was reported upon, while in the meantime ProgressOhio put out a web ad with similarly copyrighted (but less chopped-up) footage from the same source (Ohio Channel archives), got much publicity, then were asked to comply with law, which they begrudgingly did, I got miffed that the other side could thumb their nose but our side played by the rules, so I went ahead and posted an ad using chopped up footage of David Goodman from OhioChannel archives, which turned out to apparently hit a couple of nerves, as it was shut down on YouTube in a matter of hours, which I said didn't bother me, as long as they were serious about protecting their copyright.

See here, here, here, and here.

The quote that opens this section of today's post, however, is from yesterday's Dispatch. Although WVIZ/PBS did not contact me directly about the footage, and the Dispatch does not mention my piling on, I can't help but be happy about the apparent outcome (assuming that this exploration of legal action results in actual legal action or compliance on the part of the Repubs). I pushed for something to happen and it happened. I'm gonna consider that a success even though I have no tangible evidence that my pushing tipped any scales.

Oh, and the weekly wrap-up should contain my mea culpa for criticizing the CBJ after two games. They won 5-1 that very night against Phoenix, and they are currently alone in first place in the division. Last year it took 95 pts. to make the playoffs in the Western Conference. Five down, ninety to go.

And yes, in high school football, the Bexley Lions are on a (6-1) tear this year. Best of luck against Lakewood.