A while ago, when President Bush did a fly-by fundraiser for his lackey and partner-in-crime Dave Reichert in Washington's 8th district, the combined progressive netroots responded by holding a grassroots-powered fundraiser of our own to counterract the $2,000/plate event Bush was throwing for Reichert.
Today, in OH-01 (as a funny side note: the fundraiser will actually be held in Mean Jean Schmidt's district, and even better still, she's not invited ), Bush will be holding a fundraiser for Republican Rep. Steve Chabot in Cincinnatti, AS A REWARD FOR VOTING TO UPHOLD BUSH'S SCHIP VETO
This is an R+0.1 district.
......Yeh, it's pretty stupid to side with Bush on SCHIP when you occupy such a close swing district as this one. But that is steve Chabot in a nutshell - he values undying loyalty to his puppet master George Bush over providing health care to Ohio's poor and middle-class kids.
Chabot faces state Rep. Steve Driehaus, a Democrat from Price Hill. The fundraiser comes a little more than a week after Chabot voted to uphold the president's veto of the children's health insurance program.
It's a detail that didn't escape the attention of the Ohio Democratic Party.
"Apparently, loyalty to Bush beats loyalty to children and Chabot is getting his payoff for dutifully playing Bush's puppet," Chairman Chris Redfern said.
In fact, Driehaus has a rally scheduled for this afternoon to highlight Bush's ties to Chabot - and, with a backdrop of children, highlight Chabot's vote on the children's health insurance program.
So, my question is, why are we not doing a fundraiser for Steve Chabot's opponent, Democratic State Rep. Steve Driehaus?
All of the same ingredients are there: we have a very vulnerable Republican, Bush-clone incumbent (Chabot is actually more vulnerable than Reichert is), a competitive district (again, actually an easier district for a Dem to win than WA-08: John Kerry took 49.46% of the vote in 2004) and a strong Democrat (with a focus on housing issues like forclosure prevention and community development) we can feel good about supporting.
Bush's fundraiser is expected to net about $100,000 for Chabot.