Liberty Voice Candidates Prevail in Primary
by sherry mann
Following the announcement of candidates who met the signature requirements to run in various area races, we contacted a few of the most liberty minded candidates to offer them a unique advertising opportunity. For very little cost these candidates were invited to submit articles on the subject of their own passions, and these were included in our January print edition. Other candidates heard about the opportunity, and we did not refuse to include any candidates who contacted us.
We are pleased to share the results of “our” candidates’ efforts. (The candidates who have links are the ones who participated in the opportunity.)
U.S. Representative – District 15 (C)
Ryon, David (C) 51.26%
Macisco, Chris (C) 48.74%
Governor/Lieutenant Governor (L)
Ken Matesz, Margaret Ann Leech (L) 100.00% 4,255
U.S. Representative – District 12 (L)
Irvine, Travis (L) 60.54% 339
Florek, Eddie (L) 39.46% 221
State Representative – District 02 (R)
Brenner, Andrew (R) 24.42% 4,162
Schweitzer, Craig* (R) 22.77% 3,880
Lear, Beth (R) 22.32% 3,803
Saliba, Traci (R) 13.61% 2,319
Phillips, Mark (R) 8.60% 1,465
Mayle, Jeffery (R) 8.29% 1,413
* Although Craig Schweitzer did not win, his impressive showing is notewothy considering he is a first time candidate who beat out Traci Saliba, a 17-year political veteran in Delaware county, Mark Phillips, a Delaware area attorney, Beth Lear, who worked as a legislative aide for nearly a decade which includes her educational issue work at the Buckeye Institute and Jeffery Mayle who ran in the Republican primary against Kris Jordan in March 2008. Though Mayle was defeated in 2008 by the widely known and popular Jordan, he took 30.33 percent of the vote.
Schweitzer lost to Andrew Brenner with just a 1%+ spread. Brenner is a political veteran and won the difficult four-way 2004 County Recorder race. His wife Sara Marie serves as a Powell City Councilman.
Congratulations to these liberty-minded candidates. We wish them much continued success!
Hightower: Two Right-Wing Billionaire Brothers Are Remaking America for Their Own Benefit
How billionaires’ money took over Washington — and created the mobs who rant against reform.
by Jim Hightower
hat tip: Hightower Lowdown
March 19, 2010
Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television’s yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothings, tea-bag howlers, Sarah Palinistas, et al.), the great majority of Americans support a bold progressive agenda for our country, ranging from Medicare for all to the decentralization and re-regulation of Wall Street. Indeed, in the elections of 2006 and 2008, people voted for a fundamental break from Washington’s 30-year push to enthrone a corporate kleptocracy.Yet the economic and political thievery continues, as the White House, Congress, both parties, the courts, the media, much of academia, and other national institutions that shape our public policies reflexively shy away from any structural change. Instead, the first instinct of these entities is to soothe the fevered brow of corporate power by insisting that corporate primacy be the starting point of any “reform.” Thus, when Washington began its widely ballyhooed effort last year to reform our health-care system, step number one was to announce publicly that the monopolistic, bureaucratic insurance behemoths that cost us so much and deliver so little would retain their controlling position in the structure. Likewise, Wall Street barons who crashed America’s financial system were allowed to oversee the system’s remake–and (Big Surprise!) the same top-heavy structure and shaky practices that caused the crash are being kept in place.
In other words, the foxes who ate the chickens keep being put in charge of designing the new hen house–so nothing really changes.
This is more than frustrating, it’s infuriating –and it’s debilitating for our democracy. As a fellow said to me about the lack of real changes in national policy during the Clinton presidency, “I don’t mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win.”
Why does this keep happening to us, and who’s doing it? It’s not merely a matter of too many fickle and pusillanimous politicians–they’re the on-stage actors in this drama, but not the producers, not the ones behind the scenes plotting to thwart the people’s democratic will. Who, specifically, are these plotters, and how do they impose their narrow agenda of self-interest over the public interest?
