Strickland visits are more than just about the money...

Even though I've learned alot about the whole political process and I realize that money is an important factor in most successful campaigns, I think voters should have as many opportunties to meet with candidates without having to pay to do so as possible.

Take yesterday's UT visit, that was not a fundraising event and it gave people the opportunity to hear Ted Strickland in person. Unless you have access to a video tape of the entire speech or it's put online as a transcript being there in person is the only way you will discover what a candidate has to say. Sure, if you attend enough of these events you can hear what is a standard stump type speech but most times candidates focus on different parts of their plan rather than repeat the same one over and over.

One statement Ted Strickland made yesterday that I think should be stressed:

I was talking with Mr. Dan Slane, not too long ago, Dan at that time was the President of Ohio State University Board of Trustees and he said to me in that meeting, "Congressman" he said, "We are getting to the point in Ohio where class matters in the ability to get a College Education". That is intolerable, and unacceptable and it must be changed.

While I don't want this to appear that I am picking on Ted Strickland because this does apply to many other candidates and both political parties reading this from the Toledo Blade article made me think:

Organizers said they were shooting for $20,000 per fund-raiser, which they called a rough minimum figure for getting Mr. Strickland to appear in person.

The article then continues down just a bit:

Still, the money raised was well below the $165,000 that Republican Ken Blackwell received last week during a single South Toledo event.

Are we getting to the point in Ohio were class matters in the ability to personally hear or meet candidates? I can't help thinking of the millions and millions of dollars that will be spent in Ohio alone for this upcoming election. The majority of the money raised will go directly into the pockets of the Media. Rates have almost tripled since the primary especially when it comes to television advertising rates from what I have heard from local candidates. Why has media advertising become so important? That I guess can go directly to us. The majority of us don't go out there and seek information or try to meet these candidates to hear what they have to say. We sit there in front of the television and let our decision on who we are going to vote for be influenced by campaign commercials. Given that, campaigns must concentrate on raising funds to be able to reach voters, which creates the whole series of fundraising events like Ted Strickland attended here yesterday that the Blade article focused on.

When people wonder what blogs bring to the process, I think our greatest contribution is the ability to share with you what we hear directly from these candidates. Being involved in conference calls, getting press releases, going to events and reporting what we saw, what we heard. Money has very little bearing on how we cover candidates, especially for the smaller individual blogs that don't solicit advertising dollars from candidates or political causes.

Back to the Toledo Blade article, I have to disagree with:

Fred Cooper, 21, a political science major and president of the university’s college Republicans, said it was a “typical” speech. “It was full of rhetoric and little on facts,” he said.

He chided the candidate for directing reporters to his Web site for answers to some of their questions.

Ted gave out quite a few facts during his speech, while of course rhetoric is a part of all speeches, even Ken Blackwell's, I wouldn't award yesterday's speech the most rhetorical one I've heard or even close. I also didn't have a problem with the use of Ted's suggestions that the reporters get the information from his website. He had limited time and if that information was there? Makes sense to direct people there so that he could take more questions. Nor do I think anyone would be surprised that the President of the University of Toledo's Young Republican club doesn't appear to be complimentary towards Ted Strickland. If he was? That would be extremely newsworthy. That said I applaud him for clearly identifying himself and for the Blade in making that clear, in other parts of the State people who have commented in articles turned out to have a bit of a more personal bias/connection to a candidate that was later discovered.

I hope there are more events like the one at UT from all of our State candidates, I also wish they would schedule some of the future events at times when a greater number of our residents could attend. However, there will continue to be those of us who blog about it.

:-)