After weeks of lying to Ohioans about his lucrative career as a professional lobbyist, Republican congressional candidate Steve Stivers got caught. Yesterday, Steve Stivers was confronted with signed lobbying forms demonstrating that, contrary to his own public statements, he was in fact a high-paid lobbyist in the state of Ohio for seven years.

In spite of this evidence, Steve Stivers refuses to come clean, resorting instead to the kind of ridiculous lobbyist doublespeak that voters hate.

“I was never a lobbyist per se,” Stivers told the Columbus Dispatch.

“In typical lobbyist fashion, Steve Stivers is talking out of both sides of his mouth and refusing to admit the truth,” said Ohio Democratic Party Communications Director Alex Goepfert.

Aside from signed lobbyist registration and financial disclosure forms, newspaper accounts from across Ohio have frequently recounted the activities of “lobbyist Steve Stivers.” Stivers even directed an entire team of other paid lobbyists and supervised their lobbying efforts.

“If Steve Stivers is willing to lie about his career as a high-paid lobbyist, then how can we possibly trust him to stand up for Ohio’s best interests in the Congress?” said Goepfert. “What else is Steve Stivers hiding about his lobbying career?”

A record-setting turnout in Tuesday’s Ohio Democratic Party primary demonstrated the incredible grassroots energy of Democrats across the state and heralded a major shift of Independent and Republican voters to Democratic candidates.  Meanwhile, on the Republican side, John McCain struggled toward an unconvincing 60-31 primary victory over Mike Huckabee, stumbling over key trade and economic issues and garnering fewer votes than either of the two Democratic candidates en route to clinching the GOP nomination.  

“As John McCain heads to the White House for another big hug with George Bush, he should think about the consequences of his continued embrace of failed Bush administration policies in Ohio,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern.  “John McCain is promising us a third Bush term and Ohioans of all political stripes are rejecting it.”  

The 2008 Ohio Democratic Party primary shattered turnout records and left Republicans with a dramatic party registration deficit.  Democratic ballot requests outnumbered Republican ballot requests in 71 of Ohio’s 88 counties, including 65 counties that George Bush carried in 2004.  Based on current returns, registered Ohio Democrats now outnumber registered Ohio Republicans by a ratio of more than 2:1.   

The historic shift was evident in key counties across Ohio.  In six historically “red” Ohio counties – Putnam, Brown, Shelby, Warren, Delaware and Clermont – more people voted for Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama in the 2008 primary election than voted for John Kerry in the 2004 general election.  

Ohio Republicans also displayed surprising weakness in key congressional contests.  In Ohio’s 16^th Congressional District, Kirk Schuring lost three of four counties, failed to break 50%, and barely fended off a primary challenge from Matt Miller, despite dramatically outspending him by a wide margin.  Recurrent Republican headache Jean Schmidt continued to embarrass her party in Ohio’s 2^nd Congressional District.  The two-term incumbent failed to break 60%, even after her main primary opponent, Phil Heimlich, withdrew from the race.  Weak fundraising and a scattered GOP candidate field defined Ohio’s 18^th Congressional District Republican primary and produced an unimpressive victory by Fred Dailey, who earned less than 40% of the primary vote.

“Republican congressional candidates are on the run in Ohio,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern.  ”This is the weakest crop of congressional candidates that the Republican Party has fielded in Ohio in more than a decade.”

Great stuff. Hope it’s a sign of things to come. Stay tuned for more updates on the Ohio primaries.

-Jen Steer

“During his brief primary campaign in Ohio, John McCain voiced his support for job-killing economic policies, told state manufacturing workers that their jobs were never coming back, then took the weekend off for a barbeque on his ranch,” said Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern.  “Is it just me, or have Ohioans seen this movie before?” 

-Jen Steer

The CNN delegate counter game allows you to plug in your predictions for the primaries to see who comes out on top of the delegate count. While I spent most of my time playing with the Democrat version, there is a Republican version as well. Slate has a delegate calculator that looks pretty similar, but it’s just for the Democrats.

There are several different delegate calculators out there. Buckeye State Blog has one that just calculates Democratic delegates in Ohio by district.

So enter you predictions, or the returns as the day goes on. Keep busy. Hopefully, we’ll have a much clearer pictures of the race tonight.

-Jen Steer

-Jen Steer

-Jen Steer

I was able to get into the arena with the photographers for a short time before NBC went live. The audience was filled with an interesting group of people. Of course, there was the usual cast of Senators and Representatives. Dennis Haysbert of the show 24 sat rows behind John Glenn. Kent State Director of Journalism and Mass Communication Director Jeff Fruit was in the second row. I even pointed out local car salesman Bob Serpentini to a guy from Buckeye State Blog, who was excited about the Republican’s presence in the audience.

As I snapped photos, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and Washington bureau chief for NBC Tim Russert bantered back and forth. Williams said no matter where they go, Russert has a connection to the area. Russert is a graduate of the Cleveland Marshall School of Law at Cleveland State. Williams did his best to show his appreciation of Cleveland by placing a Browns autographed Browns helmet on the desk. It was good enough for me.

We watched the debate from the filing room, however, a fellow TV2-er somehow snuck into the debate arena and got Clinton and Obama’s autographs. In the filing room, I sat down the row from Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. This was the place of my dreams and these people did not hold their reactions inside. There were oohs and awes, and even a few “oh snaps.” We all laughed as Williams tried to cut off Hillary Clinton so he could send it to break. She insisted on getting in the last one on Iraq, but Williams told her “Television doesn’t stop.”

After the debate, we headed to the spin room. It was a practice gym in the Wolstein Center that was lined with bleachers, light kits and cameras. At one end, Chris Matthews was interviewing Jesse Jackson. On the other end, politicians were filtering in to be interviewed. We went from sticking a mic in Ted Strickland’s face, to speaking with the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party Chris Redfern about young voters. I even tried to trick Sen. Sherrod Brown into telling me who his favorite candidate is. It didn’t work well, but it was worth a shot.

We were there late, interviewing everyone we could. It was an awesome opportunity for a young reporter.

-Jen Steer

-Jen Steer

The flags were brought for the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem.

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.

Tim Russert and Brian Williams shake hands and banter before the live broadcast begins.

The candidates look friendly before the debate.

Take your seats, 3o seconds until NBC goes live.

These past few days I was able to do something I’ve always wanted to do: Cover a rally for a presidential candidate. Not once, but twice. I was in Lyndhurst for a Hillary Clinton rally on Friday and on Monday I went to Youngstown State to cover Barack Obama.

I spent an entire Friday evening in Lyndhurst. I waited 45 minutes in the cold to get in the press entrance. I stood for five hours straight. And I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.

It was a chance to hear Clinton talk for longer than the same 15 second soundbites that play on every cable news network. Did she say anything earth-shattering? Not, really. I knew she would talk about education and jobs. I figured she would go off on her little spiel on how Obama’s speeches don’t get work done.

But it was the moments in between the scripted speech that caught my interest. Clinton passed a bottle of water to a person to the side of the stage who needed medical attention. Clinton said “Mr. Secret Service man, would you hand that water over there?” as the water made its way through the crowd. She smiled as regained her composure and said “We did get a little hot on the rhetoric.”

The moment only lasted about thirty seconds, but it actually demonstrated a human side to Clinton that we don’t always see.

Partway through her speech, Clinton talked about parents who call her and ask her what to do about insurance for their terminally sick kids. She spoke softly into the mic. The feel of the room became somber. She asked “What am I supposed to tell them?” The mood suddenly became lighter as a man yelled from the floor “Vote for Hillary.” The crowd cheered.

People complain that politicians are too robotic, and maybe that’s true. But sometimes, you need to see a politician in their element to remember they are human.

-Jen Steer