Swing State Project

« Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In? | Main | LA: Filing To Commence This Week »

Monday, August 07, 2006

OH-18: Ney Takes The DeLay Way Out

Posted by RBH

Ney's leaving now, (fortunately for Ney, it appears to be a legal strategy):

Rep. Bob Ney, enmeshed in a congressional corruption scandal, abruptly abandoned his race for re-election Monday after months of prodding from Republican leaders worried about losing his seat this fall.

Ney said in a statement he is innocent of any wrongdoing, and had acted for the sake of his family. "I must think of them first, and I can no longer put them through this ordeal," he said.

Unfortunately for Mr. Ney, dropping out of a Congressional race does not mean that all the investigations into your corruption will disappear.

So, when it comes to replacements, which Republican did he hand the ball to?

A Republican who accused a former hostage of Hezbollah of being soft on terrorism

Padgett Accused Her Opponent of Being Soft on Terrorists. Padgett’s 2004 Senate opponent was a former foreign correspondent for The Associated Press who became famous after Shiite Hezbollah terrorists kidnapped him and held him hostage in Lebanon for almost seven years. Padgett accused him of anti-American behavior and that he is soft on terrorists. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Padgett, also “sent out campaign mailings this month showing Anderson with a Hezbollah terrorist leader. She called Anderson “part of the ‘Blame America’ crowd” that is sympathetic to Mideast thugs intent on hurting Americans.” What she failed to mention was that the terrorist pictured with Anderson was the secretary general of Hezbollah, the group that abducted him in 1985. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/30/04]

The women of the Ohio Republican Party sure are pleasant, nice, down to earth people. (Although that quote doesn't mention that Padgett also compared Anderson to the 'supreme villain' that is Dan Rather)

The Republican switcheroo doesn't appear to have a huge effect on Zack Space. The Republicans didn't nominate Mr. Clean. Also, Space will have a CoH advantage for awhile, and should be pretty well off money-wise for most of the way to election day. Since this is now an open seat, he'll benefit. As well, if Padgett lives up to her reputation from the Anderson race, Space could benefit by getting people who are sick of nasty attacks.

Either way, things just got even more heated in OH-18.

Posted at 02:01 PM in 2006 Elections - House, Culture of Corruption, Ohio | Technorati

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/2487

Comments

Behold the right wing loon replacement

http://einside.kent.edu/files/March202006/complete08.jpg

http://einside.kent.edu/files/March202006/complete08.jpg

Posted by: Tom C in NY at August 7, 2006 05:11 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Apparently, Pagett might not be able to run due to Ohio's "Sore Loser" law.

Posted by: bosdcla14 at August 8, 2006 02:39 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment