Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:<\/p>\n
* Former Rep. Bob McEwen (R-Ohio), who left Congress in 1993 in the wake of the House banking scandal, will announce today that he’s taking on<\/a> Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) in a Republican primary this year. McEwen faced off against Schmidt in a similar primary last year as part of the special election in Ohio’s 2nd district, but came up short. That was, of course, before Schmidt became a joke<\/a>.<\/p>\n * Speaking of Jean Schmidt, her staffers are trying to spin her notoriety. A recent poll showed that the freshman lawmaker has “achieved a name identification and awareness level extremely high for a freshman member of Congress<\/a>,” according to a Schmidt campaign statement. What the statement neglected to mention is being lampooned by the national media tends to boost a person’s name recognition — just not in a good way.<\/p>\n * Ohio Senate candidate Paul Hackett (D) raised eyebrows<\/a> this week by saying publicly, * Sen. Bill Nelson’s (D-Fla.) re-election campaign will get a helpful boost this year from the League of Conservation Voters. The LCV announced its endorsement<\/a> of Nelson yesterday and said it would run an independent expenditure campaign in Florida on Nelson’s behalf. Nelson’s most likely opponent is Rep. Katherine Harris (R), whose campaign has struggled of late.<\/p>\n
\n“The Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren\u2019t a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world.” Rejecting calls for an apology, Hackett added yesterday, “I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it.”<\/p>\n