Question: What distinguishes State Sen. Kevin Coughlin from any other Republican in Columbus?

Answer: Nothing.

What is this all about if it’s not about ego?  Coughlin is running for Governor?  Yep.

This quote from the Dispatch article takes the cake:

Promising to change “the smallness of our politics and our government,” Coughlin said, “We have to make sure we are focused on issues that are really important to Ohioans and there is nothing more important than reviving our economy and bringing jobs to this state and retaining jobs.”

The only “smallness” in Ohio politics and government has come from two places over the past six or seven years:

1. Ohio Republicans
2. Marc Dann

The only adults in the room at any given time on Capital Square are Ted Strickland and sometimes Sen. Harris.  It appears that Strickland has put forth something the Republicans couldn’t do in sixteen years of being in charge – a plan for reforming Ohio’s education system.  I also seem to remember that last year the Governor dragged the Republican House and Senate through the Energy bill.  Without Ted Strickland’s leadership, Ohioans would be paying more to heat and light their homes and Ohio businesses wouldn’t be able to count on stable energy costs.  Republicans came along, but only at the Governor’s urging.

Republicans have done a lot of small talk over the years when it comes to state regulatory reform – Strickland has done something about it.  An Associated Press article that got more treatment around the country than it did in Ohio reported a couple of weeks ago about the weeks of time businesses are being saved in their dealings with Bureau of Workers Compensation.  Not too long ago Strickland had ODNR, Ohio EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers all in one room for a week to fix the problems with some coal mining permit processes.

The “biggest” thing that’s happened to Ohio politics and its positive impact on people since the bygone era of Vernal G. Riffe and Jimmy Rhodes is Ted Strickland.

When Coughlin talks of  “smallness” in state leadership he need only look at his own Ohio Republican Party for the best contemporary example.

Editor’s Note: Just when you think the Dispatch editorial staff is still on vacation, they came up with this interesting piece in Sunday’s Insight section.  Let’s hear it for localizing a national story and doing it from a broad perspective.  The economists include a liberal, conservative, a federal reserve staffer, and private sector expertise.  Check it out.

• After the Flames: The Story of the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire – The Plain Dealer
• Killings rip apart city’s fabric – Cincinnati Enquirer
• Cuyahoga sheriff lays off some, rewards family friends with raises – The Plain Dealer
• Op-Ed, Thomas Suddes: Suddes’ Crystal Ball
• Op-Ed, Joe Hallett: Brown, Strickland optimistic on economy turning corner – Columbus Dispatch
• Editorial: That Sinking Feeling – Toledo Blade
• Strickland, Governors call for $1 trillion in aid to states – The Plain Dealer
• Measure takes aim at sexual slavery – Toledo Blade
• Plans afoot for coal to liquid fuel plant in Wellsville – Youngstown Vindicator
• New Ohio legislature begins Monday – Dayton Daily News
• Ohio AG’s Washington Office closing – The Plain Dealer
• Columbia Gas, state reach deal on gorge – Columbus Dispatch
• Fewer truckers needed as economy gears down – Columbus Dispatch
• Fighting off the bear market – Columbus Dispatch
• Dick Feagler talks about 45-year career – The Plain Dealer
• Consumer advocates see bright spot in 2009 – The Plain Dealer
• Most important Ohio legislation passed in 2008 – The Plain Dealer
• Editorial: Husted made his mark – The Plain Dealer
• Editorial: Husted won’t just warm senate seat – Dayton Daily News
• BGSU to lay off 43 salaried workers – Toledo Blade

• FEC closing books on Noe scandal
• O’Shaughnessy leaves legacy for city
• Central Ohioans depart for war
• Probe dishonest, biased says Dann
  

Cleveland Plain Dealer

• Op-Ed, Thomas Suddes: House-keeping ideas for Ohio Dems
• Michael Connell death spurs conspiracy theories
• Financial analysts aren’t banking on 2009 to be much different

Dayton Daily News

• Could Ohio become ‘Silicon Valley’ of alternative energy?

• Wind, water, biomass in Ohio’s future
• Green push could have local firms seeing green
• McLin legacy celebration
• Strickland says education cuts possible
• Editorial: PNC needs to hear from Dayton region
• Op-Ed, Bill Hershey: Plant closing a bittersweet reminder of GM’s glory days

Toledo Blade

• Finkbeiner bullish on Toledo development prospects
• Tom Noe now at Hocking Correctional
• Editorial: Population Squeeze

Other Sources of Ohio News

• States seek efficiency using Japanese method - Associated Press
• Ohio reaches for a lifeline – Washington Post

I’m not talking about the subject of the report either – I’m talking about the investigators, the authors – the watchdogs.

This report does not read like a federal government GAO report.  It’s not a dispassionate exposition of the facts of Marc Dann’s ignoble reign.  It’s full of subjective, opinionated commentary and even some leaps without substantiation.

One also has to wonder why the IG didn’t just say, quite simply, there were these (insert bullet points) campaign finance-related “issues.”  They’ve been turned over to the Ohio Elections Commission for the appropriate authorities to investigate them.  I thought the IG was the watchdog for government, not campaigns.

Now we have Rep. Bill Batchelder rushing in with a legislative remedy which whether or not it could end up being a good bill, will be politically and emotionally colored by a report of investigation that read more like a Marc Dann story from the Columbus Dispatch.

Read the report for yourself.  After several months, is the best that the IG could do?  Did the IG investigation hold up other agencies who could have tackled the issues they know best while the Dann trail was still hot?  Is this a report of investigation or a compilation of news stories?  There are crumbs thrown out there in the report that left me wondering – well, did you investigate that or is it enough to say “this doesn’t look right?”

By no means is this a defense of Marc Dann.  He’s a bufoon.  He definitely mismanaged the office of Attorney General and there’s a lot of smoke there regarding actual lawbreaking and ethics violations.  But, we already knew that from what came out before the IG’s “investigation.”

I’m no expert, this is just my opinion.  But if this investigation could have been run better, more intensively and yielded more new evidence, the public would have been served.  What we got was a good read.  It’s obvious from the report that there are strings left to follow in the Dann case.  Let’s hope the appropriate, professional investigative agencies step in and finish the job.

Well, they can’t call him a douche bag in the newspaper, but I’m sure someone has in the Ohio blogosphere.  You gotta love the blogs – we can say how we really feel.

I heard someone on Cap Square utter “fucktard” in reference to Dann.  I was going to pull that one out myself tonight to try to say something that hadn’t already been said, but someone said it – I heard ‘em.

Marc Dann, Rod Blagojevich, Elliot Spitzer, Larry Craig — the list goes on and it will never end.  There’s something about these men – you never see women screwing up like this – and their arrogance that just leaves one dumbfounded.  Blago says he’ll fight and fight and fight some more.  Spitzer does the cruddiest of cruddy and drags his wife to the press conference where topic one is his penchant for hookers.  Larry Craig says he’s not gay, but did you ever see him do the “He’s a naughty, naughty boy” routine on Meet the Press?   That was pretty gay.  Dann today said he’s innocent and that IG Tom Charles is on a witch hunt.

Put the media coverage aside and just page through the IG’s report.  This wasn’t a “witch hunt” or Charles exacting some revenge for some criticism Dann leveled at him when he was in the State Senate.  Witch hunts are inherently bogus, McCarthyistic – a lot of smoke and no fire.  What was going on in the AG’s office was a five-alarm public disservice catastrophe.

It’s become obvious that Dann was incompetent.  He was a boor and a pig.  He wasted a helluva lot of taxpayer money.  He bilked his campaign contributors to live a lifestyle that he didn’t earn.  There are so many lapses of ethics and good judgement laced throughout the report that you forget all about the sexual harassment of employees by Anthony Gutierrez and Leo Jennings.  You forget about the affair with the scheduler.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars – perhaps millions – of wasted tax dollars in little over a year overshadows all of that.

Then there’s the campaign cash.  Some folks say, that’s just what happens to campaign money.  I’ve been around enough fundraising and political campaigns to know that most candidates don’t treat their campaigns as slush funds.  Even if there weren’t rules, most people wouldn’t be giving campaign contributions to pad a candidate’s lifestyle.  When they pony up they’re either supporting someone they believe in or they are trying to advance their cause.  They’re not thinking, “Gee wouldn’t it be great if Marc’s kids get to go see Ludacris next month,” or, “You know, I bet the Danns could really use this money to get away to San Francisco for some quality time together – here’s 50 bucks.”

The Dannettes and all of that probably won’t get anyone indicted.  Some of this other stuff might.

Click the Picture for Full Glory

Click Here for Dann Report Part 2 (PDF)

He also appears to be “singing:”

“I’ve never seen people go through money as fast as them two in my life,” Gutierrez told the IG about Marc Dann and his wife Alyssa Lenhoff.

The Dispatch also points out that Charles used words like:

• absolutely incredible
• defies logic
• inconceivable
• difficult to fathom

to describe Dann’s handling of his campaign cash.  I would provide a link to the Dispatch story, but their own link is broken as of this writing.