From an email:

So far religion is not proving to be a clear-cut positive in the 2008 presidential campaign. The candidates viewed by voters as the least religious among the leading contenders are the current frontrunners for the Democratic and Republican nominations — Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, respectively. On the other hand, the candidate seen as far and away the most religious — Mitt Romney — is handicapped by this perception because of voter concerns about Mormonism…

Pew Research Center: Religion in Campaign ‘08

To better reflect reality.

word of mouth » Dear City Council…

And well Bruce Akers should be. It isn’t any blog, it’s Jill’s:

I read this article and emailed my mayor and all of city council (except for one councilperson who doesn’t appear to have email) to express my distress over the idea of more office buildings in an already congested area of town.

In return, I received a call from my mayor who sought to clarify a few points. One of those points involved his concern that so long as I was publishing my letter on my blog and “many” people would be reading it, I should get the points correct.

I then had to follow up by stating three times that my email was to the mayor and the councilpeople, that if I was going to post it, I would have told them and that, again, even if I was going to post it, barely 200 people read my blog daily, and then, only 40-50 are repeat visitors. (No, I didn’t and haven’t and had no intention of posting the letter.)

Still - imagine my surprise that the mayor, who has been in local and regional politics for decades, was concerned about this blog. I will never get used to how people imagine things to be so unlike how they actually are…

Writes Like She Talks: Remains of the Day, 9-1-07

Everyone loves Plusquellic:

I’m not sure calling today’s Akron Press Club event a debate is honest. Sure, both Mayor Don Plusquellic and challenger Joe Finley were in the same room, on the same dais, and answering the same questions, but the discourse wasn’t exactly debate like…

Glad to have the ‘billies as part of the MTB network of blogs.

Psychobilly Democrat: Mayoral…Debate? [Video Update]

Mark writes:

The GOP in Cuyahoga missed a great opportunity to stand up for the principle of no taxation without a direct vote. Instead the ballot measure was left up to the Greens, Libertarians, and a few elected Democrats and Republicans.

Very few indeed.

Paindealer: Cuyahoga Petition Fails

He promises more, which I’m looking forward to:

All the persons who worked on the campaign were unpaid volunteers . Since my experinece with REI several years ago at Case I haven’t been involved with such a intellectually stimulating group. I am intriqued to learn what motivates such a group to put their hearts and soles and wallets into a public interest effort – that public interest in this case was seeing that a 20 year, million dollar per week, county tax hike was put on the ballot and voted up or down by the Cuyahoga County Voters.

My friends and acquaintances collected 10s of thousands of signatures through the County, but we failed to garner the necessary amount to guarantee that when the signatures where vetted by the Board of Elections that there would be the 45,000 good registered voter’s signatures to guarantee that the sales and use tax increase would be forced onto the spring general county ballot.

So the dominant feeling was that we should not turn the signatures into the auditor and waste the county taxpayers money going through them only to determine that they were insufficient.

Did we FAIL? Yes and No. We failed with the math, but we succeeded with the organizational experience, we succeeded in bolstering the democratic process, we succeeded in achieving organizational experience which will allow the further democratization of the citizens of Cuyahoga County…

Which begs the question, what’s next? How do the citizens of Cuyahoga County stay engaged between election cycles? My cynical side thinks politicians are glad there’s time for efforts like this to cool off.

PUT IT ON THE BALLOT.COM FAILS TO GARNER 10% OF REG. VOTERS IN 30 DAYS | REALNEO for all

Wouldn’t it be great to have this sort of engagement in the political realm?

My old zen teacher, John, this week summed up his commentary on the motivation behind the ineffective actions and inactions of political “leaders.” He suggests that politicians think citizens are stupid, explaining why they would propose and pass the most insane strategies and why they would see authentic civic engagement as unnecessary.

This leads me to an idea for a policy that would require politicians to publish - yes of course, on their required blog - exactly what they think citizens know and understand about whatever positions they take…

After two years of Meet.The.Blogger*, we still have a long way to go.

jack/zen » Blog Archive » Inside politics