What next?

There have been a number of posts about Sherrod Brown's "mending fences" tour, and there plenty of heated debate as you can see here. Not going to be easy to sort out since Brown did not allow any recording. For the record, the reason I *do* go to the trouble of typing up transcripts when none are available, is that it is important to have people's actual words, in context, rather than someone's best recollection of what they said, tinged by that person's own expectations and feelings about the person they are quoting.

Anyway, there was a "call for unity" by Brown's wife, Connie Schultz, reported in this Kos diary. Leaves me kind of cold.

We know we need every last one of you in this campaign. We understand that there are those who are disappointed there is no primary in this race. We are reaching out to you and asking you to join us. Bring your energy, your passion, your high ideals to this great progressive movement that promises to change the direction of our state and our country.

Funny thing about energy, passion, and high ideals--they can make it hard for us to excuse ugly behavior by candidates "for the sake of party unity".

In addition, the Ohio Democratic Party Executive Committee came out with its endorsements last night. I recommend reading the write-up to get a sense of the process. It was good to see that the concerns I have been expressing for the past couple weeks were indeed raised, but disheartening that they were overruled.

Plunderbund has a good post about the "Lawnmower Culture" in the party.

My thoughts on all of this? (I know, it's not like you asked.) Well, I don't "fall in line" and I don't support people who play "dirty pool". So, you're not going to see a Sherrod Brown bumper sticker on our car, and you're certainly not going to see Demetrius creating a "Flat Sherrod" to upload to our web space so that people can print them out and assemble them--or any of the other grassroots graphics he was willing to do for free for a race he believed in. From last night's thread

"politics is dirty" is why I never got involved in politics. My active political life (doing more than grudgingly pulling that lever in Nov.) only began with the belief that we could *change* the game. If they are intent on playing by the Old Rules I am intent on going back to my old mode of political involvement... which is to say *none*. There's *LOTS* of things around here that need tending to if my time spent on politics is just wasted anyway.

At least that should free him up some to work on the banner for the Faithful Ohio blog I started. Disheartened by the recent events in Ohio politics, and wanting something positive to focus on, forced myself to do something I *really* don't like to do, and made a phone call. I'm scheduled to meet with Rev. Tim Ahrens next week to talk about how my internet activism can support what the "We Believe!" group is hoping to accomplish.

The Rev. Tim Ahrens, senior pastor of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, has organized We Believe! It's a group of about 120 ministers, priests and rabbis from central Ohio with a mission statement that includes saying "yes to justice for all" and "no to prosperity for only a few."

Ahrens said the Rev. Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church in Columbus, an evangelical Protestant with a large following here and nationally, has challenged people of faith with a message different from his to "bring it on."

"In some ways, that's what we're doing," he said. "We're bringing it on."

I've also added a Subodh Chandra graphic link to Howard-Empowered People, as he is one of the candidates who got stiffed by the ODP executive committee--a move we saw coming from what Paul Hackett said in his interview with Ohio 2nd.

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