Saturday Sellout-Ken Blackwell

Time for you TransGriot peeps to get your learn on about another one of the useful fools in the service of the GOP that wants to oppress me.

Meet John Kenneth Blackwell, senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a vocal conservacritic of President Obama, 1971 graduate of Xavier University, former mayor of Cincinnati from 1979-80 as a Democrat and former HUD undersecretary in George HW Bush's administration in 1989-90.

He left Daddy Bush's administration to run for office in Ohio, later become the Ohio Secretary of State in 1998 and served from 1999-2007. He ran for governor of Ohio in 2006 and got pimp slapped by Democrat Ted Strickland, who beat him by a whopping 24% margin despite Religious Reich support .

Blackwell also ran for RNC chair in 2009 but withdrew after the fifth round of voting in the chairmanship election eventually won by Michael Steele.  

He's also author of the 2010 waste of trees, Blueprint: Obama's Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency,

For you GL folks who can't get married in Ohio, he's the reason you can't because he was the driving force pushing for the 2004 adoption of the state constitutional amendment that bans recognition or the performance of same gender marriage and civil unions..

But besides his conservafool positions, he is most hated by much of the African American community for his controversial role in the 2004 presidential election.   As Ohio Secretary of State he is the chief election officer, and his status as an honorary co-chair for the 2004 Bush campaign in the state combined with some questionable partisan decisions caused people to ask questions about the conflict of interest.  .

It was magnified by the fact that Bush carried Ohio, its 20 electoral votes and subsequently the 2004 election by less than 120,000 votes despite widespread reports of voter irregularities.

Those questionable decisions ranged from approving the use of Diebold electronic machines when concerns  were being raised in 2003 about their accuracy (and owning stock in the company at the time) to multiple Secretary of State rulings later struck down by court rulings that attempted to restrict ballot access and suppress African-American and collegiate voter turnout in the state.   Many African American and collegiate precincts in the state were allocated less voting machines than suburban ones, which caused long lines to vote on election day.

There was chatter that he was considering a run against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) next year for his US senate seat but he has dropped that bid.

So yeah, there's not much love for J. Kenneth Blackwell amongst our peeps in Ohio or elsewhere in the nation for that matter.