So I’ve read a few left-wing blogs and other news sources covering Romney’s apparent bounce in the polls after the first presidential debate. For example: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/08/gallup-poll-obama_n_1948705.htm...

All of the posts and articles discuss the holding power of Romney’s bounce. Maybe it’s an aberration is the gist of one post. Another speculates that after the weekend, we should see a correction in Obama’s favor, just because that seems about right.

What none of the posts discuss or even seem to remember is that last Friday the unemployment rate dipped under 8%. This is the first time the rate has been that low since 2009. Shouldn’t Obama see some kind of bounce from that? I have a feeling that if things were reversed and it was a Republican who was running for re-election we’d hear it repeated over and over. But apparently, if you’re on the left: you let things like this quietly slip away. I guess you let it slip away, because with an unemployment rate dipping to 7.8% you couldn’t put together a narrative that we’re on the right path. I guess with such a dip the American people wouldn’t care about that. Nope, when you’re on the left you stay fixated on a poor debate performance and let that be the narrative.

Former Ohio Secretary of State (2007-2011) has written a book called Cupcakes and Courage about her experiences in office and in her contentious primary campaign for the U.S. Senate. It's now available at Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/Cupcakes-Courage-Jennifer-Brunner/dp/0988195305/re...

I haven't had a chance to read the book yet, but I'm especially eager to hear her take on how she worked to unravel the mess wrought by her predecessor Ken Blackwell, whose oversight of Ohio's 2004 election made the state an international laughingstock. Some ardent fair elections activists think she didn't do enough or disapproved of some of her actions. I'm curious to know what kind of structural obstacles she might have faced to cause that. Ohio had a lot of work to do to even approach fir elections, and Brunner was in the middle of it. Alas, our current secretary of state seems to be winding the clock backwards.

Her inside take on the 2009-2010 Senate primary should be interesting as well. the book description says she fought "the conventional political establishment," and I'm interested to see how much she has to say about that.

I apologize. My schedule's been tight, and I haven't been keeping up with all the of Josh "the Empty Suit" Mandel scandals. He seems to be trying to see some kind of record for scandal, lying, and devious tactics. I think I am three or four Mandel scandals behind now — and that’s in a single week. I wish he would slow down just a little.

It’s clear why the Plain Dealer called his “one of the nastiest campaigns ever waged’ in Ohio.

For instance, there’s this one from about two weeks ago:

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/24/did_gop_senate_hopeful_bilk_treasury/

“Josh Mandel may have misclassified staff as freelancers to dodge taxes.”

According to Salon.com,

As Mandel ran for state treasurer in 2010, he classified at least nine of his senior staffers as independent contractors instead of full-time employees, according to campaign finance disclosures reviewed by Salon, which allowed him to forgo paying some taxes to the state and the IRS.

These people appeared to be exclusively working for Mandel, which made them full-time employees. And of course they tie in to previous Mandel scandal, the one where he hired cronies for jobs they weren’t qualified for:

Incidentally, many of these same people were later hired by Mandel after he won, despite having questionable qualifications.

Well, I personally would not have used the word “incidentally,” because I don’t think it’s so incidental.

Anyway, it appears that state treasurer Josh Mandel may have been shorting the state treasury. Nice move.

Well, so said Mitt Romney when he appeared back in August at one of Murray Energy's mines in Beallsville, Ohio.

Of course, Mitt Romney doesn't work for Bob Murray. In fact, all Romney does is collect checks from Murray – and apparently from his employees as well.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/108140/coal-miners-donor-mitt-romney...

This article, which appeared this week in the New Republic, offers evidence that Murray leaned on his salaried employees to donate money — often more than they could comfortably afford — to various rightwing candidates his choice. It suggests that while they were assured these contributions weren't required, their promotions and bonuses seemed to hinge on them.

Hmmm ... why does this sound familiar?

http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/quotusing-coal-miners-propsquot-thi...

Yes, all those miners who provided the backdrop for Romney's appearance were told by the supervisors that they had better show up — that "attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend," whatever THAT means. And they lost pay as well because the mine shut down during the event.

So whether you work in the mines or the office, as an employee of Murray Energy, you become a coerced agent of Bob Murray's political leanings.

What's really sad is that Murray is one of those guys who, like John Kasich or John Boehner, comes from a background that ought to give him some empathy for working people. He came from three generations of miners and was a miner himself before going to college and rising in the ranks of the industry. But, like Kasich or Boehner, he has developed amnesia and lost his empathy for those he once walked among.

I just opened the latest email to hit my box, and it's from Judge Bill O'Neill of Geauga County, who is running for the third time for the state Supreme Court.

He's just about the only candidate in the country not bombarding followers with requests for money because his campaign slogan is "Money and judges don't mix." (Would that that were true. In real life, most of our state Supreme Court has been purchased by special interests). He's looking for volunteers to pass out literature.

To get a free pack of literature — from 100 to 2,500 — sent to you free to pass out to your friends, in your neighborhood, or at your event, go here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dGRi...

But here's the most important thing you need to do: tell everyone you know to write the names of ALL three Democratic Supreme Court candidates on a piece of paper or their arm (or take the Dem sample ballot with them) and vote for ALL of them — O'Neill, Mike Skindell and Yvette McGee Brown. And emphasize the importance of voting ALL THE WAY down the ballot. Democrats are way worse at doing this than Republicans, which is one reason they win these slots. We cannot leave these races unvoted.

Currently the state Supreme Court includes six Republicans and one Democrat — Brown, who was appointed by Governor Ted Strickland. If she loses, we'll be back to having seven Republicans on the court as we were before her appointment. That's just not acceptable.

As I've said before, I wish the Ohio Democratic Party was more aggressive and coordinated about running their Supreme Court candidates as a slate. I'm STILL going to events and hearing Brown being the only candidate mentioned. THAT is not acceptable either. Remember that judicial candidates do not have a party identification by their names, a silly charade given that they run in partisan primaries. It puts the burden on the vote to know who's who.

Has any group ever been more hilariously (in a sick, sad way) named than "True the Vote"? The Tea Party group is intent on challenging and intimidated as many voters in likely Democratic-voting demographics as possible, while ginning up fears about "voter fraud," which is virtually nonexistent in groups outside of Republican elected officials (see former Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White).

Now Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland wants to know whether what they are doing constitutes "a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights."

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/13833-tea-party-vote...

Good for him. He's pointing right at the Ohio branch of the group, which has been doing things like challenging students for not having their dorm room on their registration. I heard through someone I know that a bunch of Oberlin students were challenged because they registered before receiving a permanent dorm room assignment. Oberlin students would be one group Tea Partyers would walk through hot coals to prevent from voting. Unfortunately for them Oberlin students are also a highly motivated and super intelligent group that will make sure they deal with this correctly. A voter shouldn't have to be a student at a selective college to navagate the process.

Cummings sent a letter of Catjerine Engelbrecht of theOhio True the Vote group saying,

At some point, an effort to challenge voter registrations by the thousands without any legitimate basis may be evidence of illegal voter suppression. If these efforts are intentional, politically motivated and widespread across multiple states, they could amount to a criminal conspiracy to deny legitimate voters their constitutional rights.

While Ohio continues its battle over the shrinkage of in-person early voting opportunities, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has released a study with hard numbers showing who is overwhelmingly disadvantaged by limiting such opportunities. Guess who!

The group, self-described as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar’s leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity,” titles its study “Early Voting Patterns by Race in Cuyahoga County, Ohio: A statistical analysis of the 2008 general election.”

http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/newsroom/publications?id=0029

Here’s their none-too-startling conclusion:

The results ... provide empirical evidence that African Americans have utilized at least one form of early voting at much higher rates than white voters. Specifically, relative to whites, African American voters in Cuyahoga County, Ohio disproportionately voted early in person during the 2008 General election.

They found that although African American voters accounted for 28.6% of the voter in the county in 2008, they were more than three-quarters of the in-person early voters. Black voters disproportionately like to vote early in person — not via mail-in ballot, which is preferred by white voters. There are various theories as to why, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that these are the behavior patterns. To derail one if them is troubling.

The study has a lot of numbers and calculations, charts and footnotes for the statistics-minded. But their main takeaway is this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/05/ohio-early-voting-obama-victory...

Well, this certainly doesn't clear things up, even though it is technically a victory for the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party. They had sued the state of Ohio over its closing of early voting the three days before the election because it allowed military families to vote then, but no one else. They asked to have the period open to everyone.

And a panel of three judges from a federal appeals court agreed this them, saying that if "states were permitted to pick and choose among groups of similarly situated voters to dole out special voting privileges," then "partisan state legislatures could give extra early voting time to groups that traditionally support the party in power and impose corresponding burdens on the other party’s core constituents."

And that's exactly what did happen in Ohio. The legislature closed the three-day window because it was predominantly favored by African-American voters, about which more in my next post. While Ohio Republicans insisted virtuously, they only wanted to help make things run smoothly for boards of election, the judges found,

Ohio’s most populous county, Cuyahoga County, asserted that maintaining in-person early voting would actually alleviate some of its burden by spreading out the demand for voting over more days, thus reducing lines and wait times at polling places on Election Day.

The hidden snag, however, is that the court left the final decision to the individual boards of election — and that could put us back to where we were a couple of months ago in the battle over weekend and evening hours.

As I have long predicted, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has followed the Akron Beacon Journal in endorsing Senator Sherrod Brown.

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/10/sherrod_brown_has_ear...

I figured they would have a hard time endorsing a guy who told them it was up to them to figure out if he was telling the truth and whose campaign refused to say where he stood on an issue because he's not in Washington yet voting on it.

And boy, did they have some words for Mandel! Among them:

There's another powerful reason to vote for Brown -- a negative one: Electing his Republican opponent, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, would reward one of the nastiest campaigns ever waged in this state. It would reward a candidate who hasn't moved beyond partisan slogans and careful sound bites. It would reward ambition untethered to substance.

That is a concern of mine too: if Mandel (or Romney) were to be elected, it would demonstrate that a campaign of lies fueled by unaccountable billionaire money actually works — and that would pretty much be the end of democracy in America. We have to show that it DOESN'T work.

The paper mostly praised Sherrod highly, while noting that in 2006, it endorsed his (much less dishonest, corrupt, and underqualified than Mandel but who isn't) opponent, Mike DeWine. It said he's a "tireless worker and cheerleader for Ohio, its people and its interests" and "good listener and creative lawmaker."

Like most conservative newspapers forced to admit the Democrat is WAY more qualified, it calls him "overly partisan" and "to the left of most voters in this middle-of-the-road state."

Betty Sutton has released her first campaign commercial and it's pretty good. Unlike her negative grumpy opponent Jim Renacci, Betty Sutton offers a positive message from a representative that's actually done something for her constituents and the country.

I guess you know who this post is going to be about — AGAIN.

Salon.com has a story up today detailing just how dedicated to his job as state treasurer Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel is — NOT.

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/03/ohio_senate_race_gops_josh_mandel_serial...

We all know about the Board of Deposits meetings which Mandel missed for 14 straight months — including one where he was instead at a fundraiser for his Senate campaign. Now it's come out that Mandel has never attended a SINGLE meeting of a bunch of other state boards and commissions. While several barely exist, Mandel lists them all among his litany of alleged accomplishments as state treasurer. It's clear that office has been run by others since Day One — the day Mandel decided his only interest in it was using it as a springboard to the U.S. Senate. Mandel likes to boast and pad his resume; he just doesn't like to do any actual work.

The whole sad story is detailed in the Salon article which among other things mentions this self-inflated excuse Mandel used to explain why he never attended any Board of Deposit meetings until he got extensive negative publicity:

Mandel said at the time that he sent representatives instead of attending personally because he learned in the Marines the importance of empowering staff.

Yeah, riiiiiiight. Mandel's a one-trick pony whose only trick is to constantly exploit his military service as a campaign device. I've had many people who have served in the military tell me how unseemly that is and say that a true hero doesn't brag constantly about his service like Mandel does. If Mandel actually had an accomplishments, they would speak for themselves. But he has to beef up his bio by listing inactive boards and commissions whose meetings he never attends. How can anyone think he would be an asset to the Senate?

Betty Sutton (right) with Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (Oh-09) at Voting Rally in Cleveland last Friday

I just got an interesting press release (I erroneously attributed it initially to Congresswoman Betty Sutton's campaign but it was actually sent out by an independent group called Friends of Democracy).

"Friends of Democracy Targets Rep. Renacci as One of 8 'Foes of Democracy' in National Anti-Corruption Campaign."

Well, that's certainly an accurate label for Renacci.

The press release says,

Friends of Democracy today announced an escalated push against Representative Jim Renacci today, naming him one of eight “Foes of Democracy” nationwide. Following a limited direct mail test in August, the scaled up program will include $200,000 to run a micro-targeted direct mail, phone contact and online advertising to unseat Rep. Renacci and elevate solutions to campaign finance corruption. ... Friends of Democracy will target persuadable voters in Ohio’s 16th Congressional District who are responsive on the issue of political corruption with consistent and comprehensive in-district advertising. Based on a successful pilot project in August, the effort will reach enough voters in the district to potentially shift the final vote tally.

Great to hear. Congresswoman Betty Sutton, a fantastic progressive leader, is running against Renacci since the Republicans doing the redistricting eliminated her district and she could use the help against Renacci's big money.

He's in the company of such swill as Florida congressman David Rivera who is in a whole heap of trouble for allegedly financing the campaign of a fake candidate in the Democratic primary to try to defeat the more formidable Joe Garcia, who won.

Not only did Mitt Romney get a ton of bad press after employees of Murray Energy called into a talk radio show to reveal that they had been forced to attend a Romney event in Beallsville, Ohio, but that they had to lose pay to do so. (Laughably, a Murray executive said that "attendance at the Romney event was mandatory, but no one was forced to attend," whatever THAT means.)

Now the Obama campaign has used this exploitive event in a campaign ad.

To think that Mitt Romney relates in any way to coal miners is laughable. At the event, Romney told the miners, "You've got a great boss." Sure, if your definition of a "great boss" is pulling out all the stops and writing big checks to try to block every worker safety regulation that's suggested. Someone send Romney down to work in a mine for an hour and see how he gets along.

That's what state senator Nina Turner called those who work to prevent people from voting. And to make sure more people knew about their opportunity to vote early, Nina and her husband Jeff, along with about ten other people, spent the night last night in tents on the sidewalk in front of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections near downtown Cleveland.

www.flickr.com/photos/53705203@N02/8049142905/" title="DSC_0202 by anastasjoy, on Flickr">

NIna & Jeff Turner in front of their tent

Early on — at the 7 p.m. start o the sleepover, only a handful of people showed up, including county councilwoman Yvonne Conwell, shown her marching toward the campsite.

But the crowd eventually swelled to nearly a hundred people. A couple of young students performed variations on top 40 tunes. Here they are performed, and here's Nina enjoying their performance.

A tent was set up to provide food and drinks, and dozens of pizzas appeared.

http://www.facebook.com/events/122782497869838/

I missed this one because I'm not on his mailing list, apparently. But tonight at Nina Turner;s sleepout at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, she mentioned that the idea for doing this came from state senator Eric Kearney of CIncinnati, who first did it in 2008. His Facebook page provided a list of locations, which in addition to the ones I mentioned in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties, include Mahoning and Lucas.

At all those locations, they'll be up at 8 a.m. ready to march into their board of election and vote.

Here's video of Kearney explaining the concept:

Nina Turner starts her sleepover at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (E. 30th and Euclid) in about an hour. I hope she dresses warmly! I'm heading down to take pictures.

She and her group will march in to vote when the doors open at 8 a.m.

For those who are not such early risers, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge will ppear at the Cuyahoga County BoE at 10:30 a.m. to talk about early voting and what the rules are for voting this year. Then at 1 p.m., after a short program at the Urban League office at 2930 Prospect, she'll return to the BoE. to vote with a group of people including state senator Shirley Smith, other elected, civic and religious leaders, and members of the Northern Ohio chapter of the Ohio Young Black Democrats.

***

Montgomery County! Guess who is going to lead voters into the board of elections there? It's Dennis Lieberman and Rom Ritchie, the former Democratic members of that board, who were fired by secretary of state Jon Husted last month for daring to vote in favor of extended weekend in-person early voting hours. Thy'll be coming back to haunt the when they show up at 8 a.m. to vote and to draw people's attention to the voting opportunities that Husted deigned to leave in place. The BoE is on the lower level of the County Administration Building,, 451 W. Third Street, in Dayton.

And listen: we really need you people in Dayton/Montgomery County to get out and vote. Your turnout track record hasn't been the greatest. But we need you to help President Obama and Sherrod Brown carry Ohio, and also to help Sharen Neuhardt oust the useless Mike "Who?" Latta.

Thank you.

***

Tuesday, October 2, is the big day in Ohio. It's the first day you can head down to your local Board of Elections and cast your vote for the November election. You can be among the first to experience the pleasure of helping to re-elect President Obama, to vote for Sherrod Brown and put the kibbosh on Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel's political ambitions, and to vote for Mike Skindell, Bill O'Neill and Yvette McGee Brown for Ohio Supreme Court to create to balanced court for the first time in many people's memories. It's also the first day you can vote YES on Issue 2 to take away the redistricting power from politicians and put it in the hands of a nonpartisan citizens panel.

Around the state, Democratic groups are planning events to draw public attention to the fact that voting is open.

In Cuyahoga County, Cleveland state senator Nina Turner is making one of the boldest moves (no one ever accused her of being a shrinking violet). She's planning a sleepover Monday night through Tuesday morning at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections at E. 30th and Euclid Avenue. She'll be joined by political, community and religious leaders, who will undoubtedly have some choice words for those who are trying to limit opportunities to vote. They'll be there at 7 p.m. Monday night and when the BoE opens for voting at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, they'll be in line.

Down in Columbus, students are planning a similar camp-out at the Franklin County early voting location at 1700 Morse Road. Since that's not exactly a central location, Organizing for America is organizing for getting people there from the OSU Student Union starting at 9:30 p.m. Monday. They are looking or sleeping bags, tents, and rides.

http://www.athensnews.com/ohio/article-37915-sen-brown-superior-on-both-...

Heh heh. I'll bet his birthday isn't going so well for The Empty Suit. He's probably on the phone to education tax dollar thief David Brennan of the mostly failing for-profit White Hat Charter Schools,waiting, "David, I don't understand what's going on here. Don't they know I'm going to be president one day? I know you've been showering me with big bucks since I ran for the state House in one of the best funded campaigns ever run for the legislature — I don't understand why it's not enough."

The Athens News becomes just the latest paper to explain why it's not enough, excoriating Mandel for his cronyism, his propensity for lying, his general lack of demonstrated competence ("yet to prove he can be anything more than a callow political operative pretending to be a public official*) and something else that's not brought out a lot — that the handful of position statements he's been willing to make publicly are all of the radical, obstructionist Tea Party variety. Often those groups are the only ones he's willing to speak to about issues, and he has eagerly embraced their sort of counterproductive craziness.

This hasn't gotten too much attention because of Mandel's ducking on major policy issues, just sending out a little signal here and there. But to these groups, he has on occasion indicated that he will be their willing water carrier. And of course he will owe the big money boys who've spent nearly $20 million in secret money, plus all the millions they've given to him directly. (David Brennan is addicted to giving money to Josh Mandel.)

The Athens News is one of the few to point out

It's Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel's birthday today — and he turns 35! That means he's legally old enough to run for President, which I'm sure he plans to start doing the day after he's elected to the U.S. Senate. Only we're going to make sure he's not elected to the U.S. Senate, right?

Joshie doesn't need OUR birthday wishes because I'll bet all his secret-money friends like Charles and David Koch, Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess and David Brennan gave him a nice big birthday gift: the promise to fund a mega superPAC to jumpstart his presidential campaign.

The rest of us who can afford to do so — even though we have far less than the above named folks — should celebrate Senator Sherrod Brown's his 60th birthday a little early (it's November 9) and send him a little something to help make sure that Joshie doesn't steal OUR Senate seat for the benefit of his wealthy friends. And then we can all be celebrating together on November 6.

http://www.sherrodbrown.com

President Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of over 6,600 students and community members in the MAC Center at Kent State University at 5:00pm on Wednesday, September 26th.

The president gave a stirring stump speech through breaks for raucous cheers and applause from Kent students.

Students were lining up starting at 10:00pm the night before and waited through pouring rain, cold, and lightning to get a good spot to see the president speak.

Tim Ryan gave a powerful speech, as well, with topics ranging from education to the economy and the 2011 effort by We Are Ohio to stop John Kasich's attack on union rights. Tim Ryan was extremely well received by the crowd in attendance.

“This is not just a choice between two candidates and two political parties,” Obama said. “This is a choice between two fundamentally different visions.”

President Obama focused much of his speech on policy and his accomplishment and also made an effort to compare his record with that of Governor Mitt Romney's- including industrial job outsourcing and the comments Mitt Romney made at a fundraiser about "the 47%".

The most recent polls show that the Barack Obama is leading in Ohio by a 10-point spread (53,43), according to The New York Times.

Erik J. Clarke
Reporting from Kent State University

No wonder politics has become so cynical and corrupt. Thanks to people like Ohio's most unqualified candidate ever, Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel, and his deep pockets friends, spending big money to engage in a campaign of baseless personal destruction of Sherrod Brown, good people are getting turned off campaigns while those driven by hatred, fear and bigotry get worked into a lather.

Josh Mandel has nothing to offer. Sherrod Brown has done good for so many people.

Watch this ad to learn about just one small thing among many:

Congresswoman Marcia Fudge gathered a whole bunch of civil rights and voting-rights minded leader outside the Cuyahoga County board of elections today. They came not just from the black community but from the Asian and Latino communities as well to speak about the importance of voting on National Voter Registration Day.

Here the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., one of the deans of Cleveland's religious community, invokes the names of civil rights leaders and martyrs including Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Viola Liuzzo, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner — all icons in the black community for their work in fighting to make the ballot accessible to all

"Anyone who tries to stop people from voting doesn't believe in democracy," he said. Congresswoman Fudge added that as far as she's concerned such people aren't Christians, and issued a threat: "Those who don't want people to vote, we will see you in November."

They drew a sizable crowd who demonstrated a deep, passionate commitment to voting rights for all, even, as the congresswoman said, if they don't vote the same way you do.

"Seriously, Republicans — you thought we were going to sit out the election because President Obama didn't give us all ponies? The laugh is on you!"

Monday on the 24th of September thousands of Kent State University students lined up to receive tickets to the upcoming President Barack Obama rally on Wednesday, the 26th.

According to Organizing For America, there were more tickets given out at the City of Kent Obama office and the office in Akron.

This is the first time a president has visited the university since President Taft did in 1912.

The event is set for the MACC at Kent State University with doors opening at 3:30pm and the president expected to speak around 5:30pm.

You have until October 9 to register in Ohio, but voter registration groups across the country are issuing a reminder tomorrow. Get your butt in gear and make sure you are on the rolls!

Register online!

https://register.rockthevote.com/registrants/new?partner=20377

Or you can go down to your board of elections. If you go between October 2 and October 9, you can vote there at the same time. I'm not quite sure why the Republicans in Columbus didn't ban that so-called "Golden Period" because they sure did complain about it enough.

And if you think you're registered but have any reason at all to not be sure, double check with your board of elections.

Tomorrow outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections at East 30th and Euclid Avenue, 11th District Congresswoman Marcia Fudge will be hosting a voter protection event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. with labor and civic leaders, elected officials and clergy.

Here are the scheduled speakers, who will speak in two groups:

11:40 a.m. speaking program: Congresswoman Fudge, State Senator Nina Turner, Reverend Larry Harris Sr., Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church; Reverend Timothy Eppinger, God's Tabernacle of Faith Church; Reverend Rodney S. Thomas, Imani Temple Ministries; Khalid Samad, co-founder Peace In the Hood; City Councilwoman Ruby Nelson, Warrensville Heights; Judith Vankleef, senior voter; Erika Forde Anthony, Oriana House; Deborah Wang, Asia Services in Action.

12:30 p.m. speaking program: Congresswoman Fudge, Ohio House Minority Leader Armond Budish, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Warrensville Heights Mayor Brad Sellers, South Euclid Mayor Georgine Welo, Harriet Applegate, Executive Secretary North Shore AFL-CIO.

Ohio Senator Rob Portman is prepping Mitt Romney for the upcoming debates, playing the role or President Obama (ha - now there's an incongruent thought!). And while faint-hearted Democrats are wringing their hands and imagining that Romney can turn the debates into a major rally for him by appearing coherent, likable, warm and consistent agains a president who, they claim, hasn't debated in a while, Portman doesn't think so.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/09/portman-obama-will-...

He told Politico,

Barack Obama is a very effective debater. He’s articulate, he’s smart. He did a great job in 2008, during that campaign as a debater. ... So this notion that somehow Barack Obama as president hasn’t had time to really get up to speed – he’s up to speed everyday, because he deals with all these issues, federal issues everyday.

Portman dismisses the idea that Romney will be more seasoned because of the endless stream of GOP primary debates, saying,

I am really not worried. Why are you?