This article appears on the Dayton Daily News website
Editorial: Buckwalter right for Greene County court
By the Dayton Daily News | Thursday, September 23, 2010, 04:40 PM
2010 Election
Click here to read a letter of support for each of the candidates.
Greene County is getting a new common pleas judge because Judge Timothy Campbell is retiring.
The fall contest isn’t as lively as the primary, when three lawyers sought the Republican nomination. Mike Buckwalter prevailed in that contest, and now he faces Democrat Joe Graf.
Greene County is overwhelmingly Republican, but, in judgeship races, the candidates’ political party doesn’t appear next to their name on the ballot.
Both candidates have good reputations; either would do well, but a slight nod goes to Mr. Buckwalter.
He’s an experienced lawyer who has handled a variety of cases, civil and criminal. He has been a magistrate, acting judge, arbitrator and law clerk. He clearly has been thinking about things he would like to do as a judge, things that would save time and money.
Mr. Buckwalter, 53, was in line to be a common pleas judge some years ago through appointment by the governor. But a political tussle at the time got in the way.
Now he’s going for the job the hard way: running in what is a low-profile, though still expensive, contest. He loaned his campaign $60,000 in the primary and says he may put still more into his race.
In the past, Mr. Buckwalter has been active in Republican Party politics. If he’s elected, he needs to stay out of the party’s work. As a judge in a small, tight-knit, Republican stronghold, he needs to be sensitive to being impartial and apolitical.
Mr. Graf, 63, was the Greene County public defender until he retired. He has his own law practice and has been an acting judge in Fairborn. He has been involved in a plethora of community activities. Some years ago he ran for juvenile court judge and lost in a primary by fewer than 100 votes, a hard way to lose.
Mr. Graf supports merit selection of judges. (Mr. Buckwalter does not.) He also would like the Greene County prosecutor to start a diversion program, which would divert some non-violent offenders from being charged (and getting a criminal record), provided they did certain things that showed remorse and a willingness to stay out of future trouble.
Both candidates are concerned about jail capacity in Greene County, what with one of the adult detention center’s four pods being mothballed and another being used for a drug and alcohol treatment program.
Mr. Buckwalter and Mr. Graf both could do a good job. This is no-lose election at least for voters. Mr. Buckwalter’s energy and passion give him the edge.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Anderson wins Endorsement!
The following articles appears on www.daytondailynews.com at http://tinyurl.com/2byho37
Editorial: Anderson is better for Greene County
By the Dayton Daily News | Saturday, October 2, 2010, 12:00 AM
2010 Election
Click here to read letters of endorsement for the candidates.
Greene County voters can either re-elect Republican Alan Anderson as one of their three county commissioners. Or they can take a chance on Democrat Steve Key.
They should re-elect Mr. Anderson.
An attorney who has represented local governments — including Beavercreek Twp., Jamestown, Yellow Springs, Clifton and Spring Valley — he was elected four years ago. Judging from his literature, he wants voters to know that he’s not raised taxes and that he opposes “Obamacare and Obama socialism or any form of socialism.”
Pressed about what he’s trying to reassure voters about, he concedes that concerns about socialism don’t often come up in his role as county commissioner.
Mr. Anderson says his interests as a commissioner have been bringing high-speed Internet service to rural areas of the county; improving the capacity of the county’s water department and getting Clark State University to have a physical presence in the county, which it does now have just off I-675.
Mr. Anderson can be overly parochial, witness his reluctance to vote to put up much money for the Dayton Development Coalition. Given just how hard that group advocates for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, that’s hardly an expenditure to be stingy about.
And there’s something unfair about Greene County kicking in a lot of money when the Base Realignment and Closure Commissions are in full swing, but then pulling back after any threats have been repelled.
Protecting Wright-Patterson, after all, lasts beyond the BRAC rounds.
Mr. Anderson has experience that’s relevant to the job, and he can dig into issues that he cares about.
Mr. Key says his employment is a contract to gather local statistical data for the U.S. Department of Commerce. He’s also worked as an organizer for the Kerry and Obama campaigns in rural counties in Ohio and formerly he was a bank trust officer.
His campaign literature quotes Gary Haines, the former Montgomery County sheriff who died in 2000 and has since been succeeded by two different sheriffs. Mr. Haines, Mr. Key says, called him “Mr. Fix It” with regard to a gun buy-back program.
Mr. Key believes county commission meetings should be televised, and he’s critical that the commission has all Republicans on it. Asked what he takes issue with that the county is doing, he had no major criticisms.
Mr. Anderson’s local government experience goes beyond the four years he’s been on the commission. That background counts for something. To move out an incumbent, Mr. Key has to make a stronger case than just that Greene County is too cozy.
Editorial: Anderson is better for Greene County
By the Dayton Daily News | Saturday, October 2, 2010, 12:00 AM
2010 Election
Click here to read letters of endorsement for the candidates.
Greene County voters can either re-elect Republican Alan Anderson as one of their three county commissioners. Or they can take a chance on Democrat Steve Key.
They should re-elect Mr. Anderson.
An attorney who has represented local governments — including Beavercreek Twp., Jamestown, Yellow Springs, Clifton and Spring Valley — he was elected four years ago. Judging from his literature, he wants voters to know that he’s not raised taxes and that he opposes “Obamacare and Obama socialism or any form of socialism.”
Pressed about what he’s trying to reassure voters about, he concedes that concerns about socialism don’t often come up in his role as county commissioner.
Mr. Anderson says his interests as a commissioner have been bringing high-speed Internet service to rural areas of the county; improving the capacity of the county’s water department and getting Clark State University to have a physical presence in the county, which it does now have just off I-675.
Mr. Anderson can be overly parochial, witness his reluctance to vote to put up much money for the Dayton Development Coalition. Given just how hard that group advocates for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, that’s hardly an expenditure to be stingy about.
And there’s something unfair about Greene County kicking in a lot of money when the Base Realignment and Closure Commissions are in full swing, but then pulling back after any threats have been repelled.
Protecting Wright-Patterson, after all, lasts beyond the BRAC rounds.
Mr. Anderson has experience that’s relevant to the job, and he can dig into issues that he cares about.
Mr. Key says his employment is a contract to gather local statistical data for the U.S. Department of Commerce. He’s also worked as an organizer for the Kerry and Obama campaigns in rural counties in Ohio and formerly he was a bank trust officer.
His campaign literature quotes Gary Haines, the former Montgomery County sheriff who died in 2000 and has since been succeeded by two different sheriffs. Mr. Haines, Mr. Key says, called him “Mr. Fix It” with regard to a gun buy-back program.
Mr. Key believes county commission meetings should be televised, and he’s critical that the commission has all Republicans on it. Asked what he takes issue with that the county is doing, he had no major criticisms.
Mr. Anderson’s local government experience goes beyond the four years he’s been on the commission. That background counts for something. To move out an incumbent, Mr. Key has to make a stronger case than just that Greene County is too cozy.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Austria wins Endorsement!
The following is an Endorsement by the Dayton Daily News editorial board, published at http://tinyurl.com/23fa37o.
Editorial: Austria better for Republicans in Greene, Clark
By the Dayton Daily News | Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 03:18 PM
2010 Election
It wouldn’t be an election without John Mitchel on the ballot.
The retired Air Force officer from Beavercreek has been running for something almost every two years since his first major bid for office in 1998, when he ran for governor as a Reform Party candidate.
(Remember third- party presidential candidate Ross Perot? That was his party.)
Since then, he has run, as a Republican, for the U.S. Senate, and also against former U.S. Rep. David Hobson — twice. Now this year will be his second run against Congressman Steve Austria, who represents Greene and Clark counties.
Give the guy credit for persistence.
But he’s still the neophyte that he was in 1998, when he had 20,000 copies of his school funding plan printed.
In 2004, when asked what he wanted to do in the Senate, he said:
“My first act if elected to the Senate would be to lobby the president to sign an executive order to declare the unborn innocent ‘persons,’ thus giving them the full protection of the Fifth Amendment.”
Mr. Mitchel, 62, opposes the Obama health care initiative, the Obama stimulus, the bank bailout under former President George W. Bush, and he supports the (unworkable) FairTax plan, which would eliminate the federal income tax, substituting a sales tax.
He also charges that Greene and Clark counties are steeped in cronyism that results in sweetheart deals for Republican insiders.
Congressman Austria is completing his first term in Washington. He was effectively handpicked by Rep. Hobson to replace him when he retired; Rep. Austria’s wife was on the congressman’s staff.
Previously, Rep. Austria served 10 years in the Ohio Senate.
As a freshman in the minority party, Rep. Austria could hardly be expected to make a big impact. In fact, though, he did get national attention for telling the Columbus Dispatch, in a discussion about his opposition to the Obama stimulus, that Franklin Roosevelt caused the Great Depression (which, of course, began way before the president was elected).
In talking about his job, Rep. Austria emphasizes constituent service, which, of course, does come with the position. But it is the most routine part of it.
He’s much less comfortable taking tough positions. He rarely diverges from his party, although he did vote for the administration’s Cash for Clunkers program.
He said he was persuaded by auto dealers that some of them would go out of business without this incentive.
On the other hand, Rep. Austria opposed the $787 billion stimulus program, without which unemployment would be immeasurably higher, and he is critical of the Bush bank bailout (that occurred before Mr. Austria went to Congress).
(Many economists believe that the bank and insurance failures that surely would have ensued without the Bush administration’s intervention could have pushed the country toward a Depression.)
Rep. Austria has refused to support earmarks, even though that was one way former Rep. Hobson made sure that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base got some of the improvements and commitments it needed sooner rather than later.
Rep. Austria was, for a while, reconsidering that position; then all the Republicans in the House said they wanted a moratorium.
It’ll be too bad if important advocacy for the base falls to U.S. Rep. Mike Turner and Ohio’s U.S. senators alone. That would be copping out, for political convenience.
Rep. Austria doesn’t face a serious challenge this year and is unlikely to any time soon unless he really fumbles. He’s cautious, so he’s not a disaster waiting to happen.
For the privilege of that job security, he really does need to seize the important platform he has. He has work to do to grow into an aggressive advocate for the region and for the issues he cares most about.
Editorial: Austria better for Republicans in Greene, Clark
By the Dayton Daily News | Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 03:18 PM
2010 Election
It wouldn’t be an election without John Mitchel on the ballot.
The retired Air Force officer from Beavercreek has been running for something almost every two years since his first major bid for office in 1998, when he ran for governor as a Reform Party candidate.
(Remember third- party presidential candidate Ross Perot? That was his party.)
Since then, he has run, as a Republican, for the U.S. Senate, and also against former U.S. Rep. David Hobson — twice. Now this year will be his second run against Congressman Steve Austria, who represents Greene and Clark counties.
Give the guy credit for persistence.
But he’s still the neophyte that he was in 1998, when he had 20,000 copies of his school funding plan printed.
In 2004, when asked what he wanted to do in the Senate, he said:
“My first act if elected to the Senate would be to lobby the president to sign an executive order to declare the unborn innocent ‘persons,’ thus giving them the full protection of the Fifth Amendment.”
Mr. Mitchel, 62, opposes the Obama health care initiative, the Obama stimulus, the bank bailout under former President George W. Bush, and he supports the (unworkable) FairTax plan, which would eliminate the federal income tax, substituting a sales tax.
He also charges that Greene and Clark counties are steeped in cronyism that results in sweetheart deals for Republican insiders.
Congressman Austria is completing his first term in Washington. He was effectively handpicked by Rep. Hobson to replace him when he retired; Rep. Austria’s wife was on the congressman’s staff.
Previously, Rep. Austria served 10 years in the Ohio Senate.
As a freshman in the minority party, Rep. Austria could hardly be expected to make a big impact. In fact, though, he did get national attention for telling the Columbus Dispatch, in a discussion about his opposition to the Obama stimulus, that Franklin Roosevelt caused the Great Depression (which, of course, began way before the president was elected).
In talking about his job, Rep. Austria emphasizes constituent service, which, of course, does come with the position. But it is the most routine part of it.
He’s much less comfortable taking tough positions. He rarely diverges from his party, although he did vote for the administration’s Cash for Clunkers program.
He said he was persuaded by auto dealers that some of them would go out of business without this incentive.
On the other hand, Rep. Austria opposed the $787 billion stimulus program, without which unemployment would be immeasurably higher, and he is critical of the Bush bank bailout (that occurred before Mr. Austria went to Congress).
(Many economists believe that the bank and insurance failures that surely would have ensued without the Bush administration’s intervention could have pushed the country toward a Depression.)
Rep. Austria has refused to support earmarks, even though that was one way former Rep. Hobson made sure that Wright-Patterson Air Force Base got some of the improvements and commitments it needed sooner rather than later.
Rep. Austria was, for a while, reconsidering that position; then all the Republicans in the House said they wanted a moratorium.
It’ll be too bad if important advocacy for the base falls to U.S. Rep. Mike Turner and Ohio’s U.S. senators alone. That would be copping out, for political convenience.
Rep. Austria doesn’t face a serious challenge this year and is unlikely to any time soon unless he really fumbles. He’s cautious, so he’s not a disaster waiting to happen.
For the privilege of that job security, he really does need to seize the important platform he has. He has work to do to grow into an aggressive advocate for the region and for the issues he cares most about.
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