Ohio's hog voters did the damn thing!
Ohio's hog voters did the damn thing!
A bipartisan coalition entombed the Holy Roller Caucus in the bottom of Lake Erie next to the corpse of Osama bin Laden.
It’s been three hours since Election Desk called Ohio’s Issue 1 and Issue 2 in favor of the good guys, and I still can’t believe what I just witnessed.
Don’t get me wrong. I told non-political friends all week that Issue 1 and Issue 2 were “money in the bank.” I wrote as much a couple of weeks back.
But it’s wise to prepare for the worst in Ohio. Or that’s what the gerrymandered state legislature has led me to believe for the past 12 years.
That was until last night’s fever dream.
Please note that these maps, courtesy of The New York Times, only show 92 percent of the vote as of this writing. But you get the idea of what a broad coalition came together to pass both Issue 1 and Issue 2 by double digits:
The Holly Rollers, led by lobbyist groups like Ohio Right to Life and the Center for Christian Virtue, had successfully enacted a six-week abortion ban with no carveouts for rape or incest. The legislation, signed by Governor Grandpa Sleepy Tea, was the apotheosis of their movement to date.
Please believe they would have pushed for a total abortion ban if Ohio voters hadn’t gotten in their way.
It’s hard to overstate what a masterclass abortion rights groups orchestrated in last night’s result. They beat the weight of the government twice in elections in which the most powerful politicians in the state spewed whatever putrid lie their reactionary minds could conjure to further their political agenda.
Groups like Ohioans for Reproductive Freedom and Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights outraised and outexecuted the other side every step of the way. Last night’s results belong to them.
But they also belong to the everyday people who came together in all types of weather conditions and working environments to get the initiative on the ballot in the first place.
I’m elated for all the Ohioans who undertook political action for the first time in their lives and were rewarded with one of the most seismic electoral wins in state history.
Everyday people coming together to a corrupted state government that had overplayed its hand on a wildly popular issue is the definition of democracy.
Unfortunately, the other side will have a hard time accepting that the general public is perturbed by their deeply weird, cultish views.
Here’s a preview of what that looks like from former Pennsylvania Holy Roller Senator Rick Santorum, a natural-born loser who got swept out of office for being an unlikable holier-than-thou wet sock:
Issue 1 (and Issue 2) showcased how deeply addicted the Holy Rollers got to their racket in the gerrymandered Ohio Legislature.
Look at all these tweets over the years from Center for Christian Virtue president Aaron Baer, in which he conflates the will of the corrupt legislature with the will of their constituents:
With all of that work on the verge of being unwound, here is the number of people that the almighty CCV could get to attend its “victory party” at its downtown Columbus headquarters that doesn’t even bear their organization’s name on the front of the old Dispatch building on Broad Street that the organization bought through the kindness of what it described as an “affiliated entity.”
Even after being handed a brutal defeat in the polls by women throughout the state, Baer and a room full of shoddily dressed stumblebums still claimed to speak for the group whose bodily autonomy they attempted strip:
Somebody also may need to check on failed Ohio Statehouse candidate Mehek Cooke. She either saw a terrifying ghost haunting the old Dispatch building or has access to military drugs that most of us have never heard about, let alone had the chance to buy:
I spoke to a Republican State Representative two weeks before the election. He had voted for every anti-abortion measure that Ohio Right to Life had put in front of him because that’s the kind of power that lobby has on their side.
He said that he almost hoped Issue 1 would pass because then the Republican Caucus could “focus on real issues” affecting people. I said, brother, you don’t know the Holy Rollers if you think they’ll ever stop fucking those fetuses.
And wouldn’t you know, both State Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) and Speaker of the House Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) were quick to let their voters know that they will be fucking those fetuses the first chance they get.
Huffman’s tears are particularly delicious because he’s a domestic terrorist who would overturn the Constitutional Amendment and marijuana legalization if he had the ability.
But unfortunately for that droopy old man from Lima, there are still some rules that he hasn’t found a way to break yet.
Beyond that, who will fund the signature-gathering efforts and the campaign? Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights spent more money in the Cleveland market than the Holy Rollers spent in their entire anti-abortion campaign.
The other side tried its best to shriek about “abortions up until birth” and “parental rights.” They wheeled that sleepy-eyed grandpa Mike DeWine around the state to gaslight us about the State Legislature’s sudden willingness to negotiate on abortion if only voters threw this historic chance in the trash.
Instead, we threw him in the trash where he belongs. And now, after a decades-long career, he will have to go to his God in the coming years as the man who oversaw Ohio enshrining abortion rights in the State Consitution and legalizing the Devil’s Lettuce on a single ballot.
Frankly, it’s the exact kind of Hell that drug war dinosaur deserves. If the other side wants us to repeat this lesson — with the status quo bias on our side — then that won’t be a problem, either.
Because it’s like we tried to tell them when Roe got overturned: We ain’t going backward. If their arrogance had allowed them to listen in that moment, they might have saved themselves from national embarrassment.
Instead, our good friend Secretary of State Frank LaRose chose to make his nascent Senate campaign the face of two statewide ballot issues that lost by double digits!
That’s hard times right there.
LaRose looking like a proper chode in his interview with Norah O'Donnell last night.
Great night for sane Ohioans.