Since I did Seventh District

[ishte]

I know some of my friends actually live in the 8th, so... here's my take on these guys.. wow.. um.. and you guys only have three (3) candidates running?  One incumbent Republican and two democrats with no experience?

8th district is Mercer, Darke, Miami, Preble and Butler counties.

Edit: Please note, it was pointed out to me that part of Montgomery County is also 8th district. This is mostly north and east Dayton and Huber Heights. Also, having said that, only half of Mercer is represented by the 8th seat, and only three fourths of Butler.


Ok... guys, YOUR district also has not had a democrat elected since 1936 when T. Brooks Fletcher took the seat from Grant E. Mouser Jr.  He did hold the seat for 3 terms before loosing it back to to Frederick C. Smith.  Smith held the seat for 6 terms (12 years) and then it was taken over by Jackson E. Betts in 1950.  Betts held the seat for 11 consecutive terms (22 years) and then redistricting after the 1970 census caused the 8th district to be represented by Walter E Powell.  Powell only held the seat for that term, and then Thomas N. Kindness held it for 6 terms (12 years.)  He was followed by Buz Lukens, who had that sex scandal in 1988 and in 1990 John A. Boehner took over the 8th's seat.  Boehner has been there ever since, and is running to defent his seat again this year.  I think it's highly unlikely that either of these two can defeat an eighteen year incumbent Repbulican sitting in that chair and there are no republicans running against him. Sorry guys, I predict you're stuck with Boehner. But let's look at them anyway. 

8th District

Democrats
1. Nicholas Von Stein -  Worked for America Votes... is the Southwest Ohio Organizer.  Works in a restaurant, and is an Air Force Veteran. Really the only thing this guy has going for him is his B.A in Political Science.  It's pretty obvious to me that he's not USING his BA though, if he's running for US congress against an incumbent republican in a primarily republican district with NO PRIOR EXPERIENCE?  What's he thinking? why not run for city council first? Get some experience, spend a term in the Ohio House if he has money to waste on trying to get elected to public office.  Ok... the biggest loser move here though, is frankly, no website. I can't find his website. I know nothing of his platform and the election is in two months.

2. Mort Meier  - Ok.. this first guy was completely inexperienced. This guy is 76... and well he's been a nominee... Get this:  2006 nominee, 1990 Republican Congressional candidate for nomination.  Ok.. so he used to be a Republican... he wanted to be nominated once, but didn't get nominated... and was nominated in 2006 and didn't get elected.  Looks like he ran against Boehner and lost in 2006.  I think that's how I follow it. But actually Boehner had campaign funds exceeding $3,000,000, and Meier ran on less than $3000  Meier still managed to pull down 36% of the vote.  That says something.  It took some doing to find a link to his website... uh... and it's broken.. no website, nothing about his goals or views. 

Republicans
1. John Boehner - He's the incumbent.  That says a lot.  He will face one of the two guys above.  Well, let's look at his policies.  He supports lower taxes, but sorry, he doesn't mention the fair tax at all.   I'd have to email his office to find out his stand on it.  He also wants to work for what he terms "environmentally responsible energy exploration in America’s deep ocean outer-continental shelf and in ANWR."  And I will say that makes sense.  The thing is, the area of ANWR that they want to work in is so tiny compared tot he overall size and the whole "but it's an untouched nature areas" and all pristine and all that. um.. that crap is blown way out of proportion.  if the whole of ANWR were a 6X9 area rug... the amount of area actually effected by oil exploration and so on up there is about the size of a postage stamp.  And even the road in and out would be only semipermanent... made out of ice from the permafrost.  The caribou are not going to care.  Beyond that he also says he supports research into alternative sources of fuel, and recognises a need to look at the big picture in the long term.  Boehner also works for farming.  That's important. Farming is an important industry in the 8th district.  While in Congress, he helped write the 1996 Freedom to Farm Bill and has led the charge to eliminate "death taxes.”  That's important too.  You see ads that make it out like the death tax only effects the children of rich fat cats.. the fact of the matter is it doesn't hurt them any, but it does hurt John Boy inheriting the family farm, when he has to mortgage it just to pay the tax burden on it. It effects small businesses the same way, Johnny Jr. has to mortgage Johnny's Pizza House when he inherits it from his dad, and then Johnny's Pizza House goes under because the new expense of the mortgage raises the operating expenses too much for the business to pull a profit any more.  Anyway, lets move one to other issues. Boehner wants our immigration laws enforced, and opposes efforts to reward (with fast tracks to citizenship etc) immigrants who have entered our country illegally.  Supports the idea that immigrants should be learning to speak ENGLISH here.  Which is true.  Ok.. unfortunately he also thinks that the No Child Left Behind act is actually a good thing, instead of something that is actively destroying our once fine education system. Thankfully, he supports school choice, and expansion of the College Access & Opportunity Act... that's helpful.  He has this idea about health care that has to do with allowing small businesses to pool their small groups together into large groups to reduce costs. It's a good idea.  It won't work... but it's a good idea in theory.  As long as Big Pharm, Big Hospital and Big Insurance are in each other's pockets though, it'll never work.  He also foolishly supports the New Medicare drug plan that will cost everyone else ten times what it was supposed to, and only actually ever benefited about 4% of medicare recipients.  My dad would have had to pay MORE for his Medicare D than what he does for his regular coverage... that's most retired people too.  It looks like he thinks that he's a proponent of retired people, but he seems interested in passing more laws which are more of a burden than less.  He totally avoids any discussion of Women's health care rights.  Supports allowing individuals to privately invest some of their Social Security... IF they WANT to.  Anyway, here is his website.  I figure you can look for yourself too. http://www.fojb.com/Default.aspx

Honestly, I don't think either of those two guys stands a chance against Boehner.  And I also don't think that's a 100% bad thing... it's not a 100% good thing, but at least Boehner stands in the right place on a few of the issues and at least he has a clue what he's doing and how to do it.

Edit: at the end here, the first two lines of the last graph got repeated twice, and I don't know why, so I removed them becuase it looks stupid. I still don't think either of the two democrats stands a chance against Boehner whether anyone likes that fact or not.