I have to laugh at the quotes from Mark Owens and Jane Mitakides in today’s DDN:
Dems endorse old foe for Turner [1]
Dems endorse old foe for Turner
Jane Mitakides, a Washington Twp. businesswoman, lost the same congressional race in 2004.By Steve Bennish Staff Writer Friday, January 25, 2008
DAYTON — The Montgomery County Democratic Party Thursday night endorsed Washington Twp. businesswoman Jane Mitakides in the March 4 primary election to decide who will face U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, in November.
Democrats believe this is the year the party will unseat Turner and put a Democrat in the Third Congressional District seat.
The three Democrats who will face off on the March 4 ballot are Dayton activist and businessman David Esrati, Mitakides and former Waynesville Mayor Charles W. Sanders. Mitakides ran for the seat in 2004 and lost to Turner 62 percent to 38 percent.
Turner does not have a Republican opponent….
Mitakides on Thursday cited Gov. Ted Strictland‘s taking 56 percent of the Third District vote as a good sign for her run.
“This is the year, this is the state, this is the race,” she said. “It’s a winnable race — don’t think it’s not.”
Mark Owens, chairman of the Montgomery County Democratic Party, said Mitakides has campaign experience.
“She can put together a campaign team and is right on the issues,” he said.
Esrati, who has already posted ads on YouTube, said he deserves the vote because he’ll bring new perspective to the job. “We need new voices and ideas because the old ones aren’t working anymore,” he said.
If Jane is counting on coming up with a win just because Ted Strickland did (Note DDN misspelled his name in a funny way- emphasis mine above) she’d have to be running against Ken Blackwell, to fill a vacant seat after someone had botched it for 2 terms. Locally, people generally think Turner is doing an OK job.
When we get to Montgomery County Democratic Party Chairman Owens comments, you have to wonder if he’s been out drinking with County Commissioner Deborah Lieberman [2] too much lately.
- If she was “right on the issues” why the secret meetings? And, why wouldn’t they endorse her in December? [3]
- If “she can put together a campaign team” is it because she can sell out to special interest groups and PACs like the NRA of whom she was so enamored with in the DDN endorsement meeting?
- Is it because they gave up already, or have a deal with the Republicans so that x-party chairman Liebermans wife, Deborah, wouldn’t have a Republican opponent?
- Considering Ms. Mitakides ran a “well funded” campaign last outing, with much more time to plan and implement, and she got spanked 62 percent to 38 percent by the very same opponent, says to any novice political observer that she can’t run a campaign. Note, Mitakides still doesn’t have a website up [4]as of today.
Many would say that the name Esrati is known better in Montgomery County, and that the brand actually has some meaning to political followers. The DDN in their last screening called me a “Political Maverick”- today, they reminded people that Jane is Turner’s old foe who lost to him.
Beating Turner, a lawyer, in court five times in a row proves I can beat Turner at his own game with strict rules. Too bad the Democratic party still believes secret meetings are still the best way to do things. Turner learned that lesson the hard way.
How many times have you beaten Mike Turner IN AN ELECTION Dave? ‘Beating’ someone in a civil court case is about as relevant as beating someone in scrabble if you are using that as your justification as to why you are a more viable candidate than someone who has only lost to Mike Turner once.
So, I’ve beaten him the exact same number of times she has. Shall we go from here?
Beat her (in the election) and then beat him (in the other election)
First things first….worry about MT later, you only have a little time to beat her (in the election)
BTW, jane08 is a sad page.
There is a lot of spin around Mitakides.
The Democrats preceding and coming after her, Carne and Chema, both got a slightly higher % of the vote than she did, higher by 3%, so her performance is really no better and just slightly worse than other Dems who have run.
Mitakides was not able to solicit the amount of Dem PAC money that Carne was. She received about half of his. So not impressed at all by her fundraising ability as a conventional Dem candidate.
Her personal contribution was not that impressive. Compare this to John Yarmuth in Louisville. He contributed around 30% to his own campaign. Jane contributed 16% to hers.