Had enough? Taft's office blasts Blackwell

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Jon Allison, Gov. Bob Taft's chief of staff, is tired of watching Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell -- not to mention every Democrat in Ohio -- use his boss as a personal piñata.

On Thursday, he backhanded Blackwell in a letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal. Allison's letter was in response to an Oct. 19 column by WSJ editorial writer Jason L. Riley headlined, "Ohio's Fall Guy." Riley's column said Blackwell is a far superior candidate to Democrat Rep. Ted Strickland, but that Blackwell has the misfortune of having to run against "Ohio's disastrous GOP governor, Bob Taft, and a state party establishment that has self-destructed."

Allison fired back, challenging what he perceived as Riley's assertion that Blackwell "holds no responsibility for the assumed loss" of the Nov. 7 election.

"There can be no doubt that the current political climate in Ohio is poisonous for Republicans," Allison wrote. "Mistakes have been made, and the 2004 presidential race brought a multi-million-dollar political campaign that screamed at Ohioans that our economy is awful, and only Republicans are to blame. But to suggest that Ken Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, is a helpless victim, burdened only by the sins of his brothers and sisters, is absurd. The same Ken Blackwell who (with Mr. Riley's assistance) blasts the rate of state government spending from 1994 to 2004 currently presides over a state office whose budget has grown on Mr. Blackwell's watch by about 73%. How did he afford the growth? Mr. Blackwell hiked 72 different business-filing fees. I cannot recall the last time your newspaper so ardently embraced such taxing and spending."

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