Ohio Daily Blog has the scoop: apparently, supporters of state Sen. Steve Buehrer (the man who narrowly lost a noisy and contentious primary against Bob Latta last month) are passing out handbills asking Republicans to stay home instead of voting for Latta.
To see a copy of the pamphlet, which hits Latta for his tax-hiking record, click here.
UPDATE: Looks like this one was probably a fake. ODB has removed the post.
Maybe I’m overthinking this, but is it possible that rather than suppressing the GOP vote, this flyer could actually HELP Latta’s turnout by simply reminding people there IS a special election to fill Gillmor’s seat on Tuesday?
I know, I know, I really might be overthinking this.
But it’s awful hard to actively tell people NOT to vote. The best way to do that is to be quiet and let them forget there’s an election at all.
Oh, and if all they’re doing is passing out this flyer outside a Wal-Mart and maybe a few other places, then ultimately this flyer has ZERO effect. It’s just not reaching enough people that way. They gotta do direct mail or this flyer just doesn’t matter.
Mary J. made the promise of No More Drama
And Nixon has a secret plan to find Osama
Bush sent our troops to fight Saddam
Because America needs another Vietnam
We seek the support of the security MILF
And stamp out all of other people’s filth
They liked Bush better after Al Gore‘s sigh
But they can’t even choose between Vote or Die
It’s time for the changes that we can bring
From the Democratic Party’s democratic wing
Peace
This is why we can win lots of districts that are Republican leaning at a Presidential level and they can’t compete in very many D+1 or D+2 districts. We understand that more conservative districts won’t elect really liberal Democrats. Republicans don’t seem to get that not everyone loves the Club for Growth — and seem to be getting pissier and pissier when they think the most conservative candidate didn’t win their primary.
You’re not hearing very many Democrats criticizing Nancy Boyda or Brad Ellsworth or Heath Schuler (let along Gene Taylor or Jim Matheson or the like), but it seems like when Republicans have open seats vacated by relatively moderate members like Deborah Pryce or Jim Ramstad, their first reaction is “Oh Goodie! Now we can get a more conservative candidate in there” rather than “Crap — this one is going to be tough to hold.”
There are places to pick nasty in-party fights when necessary (like supporting Donna Edwards over Al Wynn), but not in marginal districts and not right before a GENERAL election. And the fact that in this special election, Ohio 5 can in any way be considered marginal in terms of who will win shows the Republicans are in a lot of trouble.