Congressional Races: News and Notes

Latest updates on Ohio's congressional races:

Senate: Today marks the fourth anniversary of Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Cedarville) voting to go to war with Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The campaign of Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Avon) marked the occasion with a press release:

Four years later, Senator DeWine continues to support President Bush's failed stay-the-course strategy. He failed to call for a winning exit strategy and said that troops should only be redeployed from Iraq if the country breaks out into civil war. Today, Republican National Committee Chairman and former Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman is campaigning with DeWine in Columbus, rewarding him for rubberstamping the President's war strategy and voting with him more than 90 percent of the time in Congress. . . .

DeWine continues to miss critical intelligence hearings and voted against investigating intelligence failures. DeWine has a record of failure and absence from the Senate Intelligence Committee. He missed nearly 50 percent of the public meetings of the committee, including all of the public meetings in the two years leading to 9/11. Even after the war in Iraq began, DeWine missed critical meetings - he has attended about 1/3 of public meetings in the past two years. According to committee sources, DeWine is also regularly absent from classified meetings.

DeWine sided with the minority of members on the Intelligence Committee in dissenting from a bipartisan report last month which found no linkage between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. He shelved for months a critical intelligence report which concluded that the war in Iraq was mobilizing jihadists and increasing the terrorist threat to the U.S., and then dismissed it as insignificant. . . .

2nd District: Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) will stump for Dr. Victoria Wulsin (D-Indian Hill) on Saturday. There will be a rally at noon at the IBEW Union Hall, 1216 E. McMillan St., followed by a press conference at 1:30 pm at the same location, and a fundraiser at a private home in Cincinnati. Aside from being a decorated Marine veteran and a leader of the Democratic Party, Murtha was the target of the infamous attack by Rep. "Mean Jean" Schmidt (R-Loveland) on the floor of Congress, questioning his patriotism and bravery.

15th District: Hypothetically Speaking delivers a takedown of a newsletter from Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Upper Arlington), claiming that the "national and central Ohio economies continue to flourish." Not if you look at the facts they don't. Not with one out of 17 Ohioans out of work, and Ohio among the states with the most foreclosures, among other facts.

18th District: DailyKos reports that the Evans-Novak email newsletter today upgrades this contest from "lean Republican" to "toss-up." The email predicts a 21 seat swing, and closes with this: "If it weren't for the Democrats' lack of funds, a tsunami-like gain would be a certainty. As matters stand, there may be time to avert the disaster that we currently see rolling toward the GOP Congress." We have to keep working like we were way behind.