Cincinnati Bank Charging $8 Fee To Cash Democratic Party Pollworker Paychecks: Fifth Third Accused Of Gouging

Bank Fees Anger Dems

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The executive director of the Hamilton County Democratic Party says poll workers are being forced to pony up 8%.  The  checks are written on an account Democrats have at Fifth Third Bank.  Caleb Faux compared the check cashing fee to legalized larceny:  "It's basically the bank stealing money.''  So far, the local Democratic Party in Cincinnati has written 200 checks on its account, each for $100.  Faux said poll workers who go to Fifth Third branches and don't have accounts at Fifth Third are being given $92 on a $100 check.  He said the party has its money in that bank.

"What entitles Fifth Third to take 8% out of their money off the top?  This is outrageous.  The poll workers worked about twelve and a half hours Tuesday standing out in the cold.  They earned the money.  They participated in the process.  They are good citizens.  Some of them are poor people.  They need every penny.  The check should be a piece of paper that entitles them to walk into Fifth Third and walk out with a hundred bucks.  That's what they got paid.  I think we'll have to move our accounts.  We're not a big account, but there are a lot of Democrats.  The bank's fee is just not fair.  It's arrogant to impose a fee on a check drawn at the bank."

Fifth Third took $3.4 billion in federal government bailout funds from TARP, which was passed in the waning months of President George W. Bush's administration.  The Cincinnati-based banking company says it hopes to have a plan in place later this year to repay the bailout money. 

Hamilton County Democratic Sample Ballot Election 2010: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland Leads The Ticket

Click It and Print It

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Here's the Democratic Party line-up that is on the ballot Tuesday Nov. 2, 2010 in Hamilton County, Ohio.  Gov. Ted Strickland heads the list, Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper is there on the card, and U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus. D-01, is the in the middle.  Scan down a bit and you will spot the names of Dusty Rhodes, who is running for reelection as County Auditor, and Jim Tarbell, who is seeking a seat on the Hamilton County Commission.  State Rep. Connie Pillich is after another two-year term in the Ohio House of Representatives.  Her opponent, Mike Wilson, is a founder of the Cincinnati Tea Party.

And don't forget to vote in the the judicial races, including Bill Mallory, Nadine Allen, Jody Luebbers and Steve Black.  You can print out this official Hamilton County sample ballot and take it to the polls operated by the Hamilton County Board of Elections.  The sample ballot is nice and blue.



Cincinnati Dems: Schedule Ohio's First Democratic Straw Poll For September

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The presidential campaign season in political bellwether Ohio has not yet kicked into high gear like Iowa with its early caucuses and New Hampshire and South Carolina, with their early in the nation primaries. But the state is going to get a huge of amount of attention next month because the Hamilton County Democratic Party is sponsoring a presidential straw poll. It could offer some strong signals into which top tier contender is really up in this critical state -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama or former Sen. John Edwards.

Is it possible there could be a dark horse somewhere within the rest of the field? Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich?

The Hamilton County Dems are calling their Tuesday, Sept. 11 beauty contest the first Presidential Straw Poll sponsored in Ohio by an arm of the Demcratic Party. Balloting take place at the 20th Century, an old movie theater on the city's east side. The theater is in the Oakley neighborhood. Dems are also going to hear from ODP executive director Doug Kelly, and there is going to be a presentation on how to become a convention delegate.

But the big show, no doubt, will be the straw poll. Expect a standing room crowd.

Bottomline: No top tier candidate can afford to take a drubbing because the next-day headlines would be brutal. And might even be fatal. Who wants to be known as a loser in Ohio, the bellwether state, the center of the political universe when it comes to presidential elections?

[UPDATE: 6:50 PM edt -- Just dug into the Bellwether archives and saw that SW Ohioans can be pretty prescient straw pollers. In February, when the national pundits were saying John McCain was the GOP front runner, Hamilton County Republicans picked Rudy Giuliani as their favorite. They gave him a big win during an annual pancake breakfast where a poll is conducted during election years. McCain was crushed in the voting, and the loss now looks like a portent the Arizona senator's presidential campaign was not generating sparks.]

[UPDATE: 8:12 AM edt -- The Plain Dealer's Washington Bureau Chief Steve Koff picked up on the straw poll item and credits the The Bellwether. Ripples are starting spread. Watch to see if the political beauty contest in Cincy becomes one of the more important campaign agenda items in September. No doubt that FOX and CNN and MSNBC will all decide to give it coverage, probably live.]

Dem's Hamco Auditor Dusty Rhodes: Socialists Want Progressive Radio

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Don't touch that dial, says a politician with 45 years of radio broadcasting experience in Ohio under his belt. Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes pans the push for progressive talk radio by some members of the Democratic Party -- his party -- as the classic socialist response that demands new levels of government intervention and regulation.
As deejays used to say in the 1960s, when Dusty perfected his patter for the mics, talk radio just finished an on-air round of make-it-or-break-it. The format was smashed like a dud 45-rpm acrylic single because nobody could dance to its tune.

Rhodes' segue into the conversation appears this morning on the Op-Ed page of the morning metropolitan daily in Cincinnati. He contends the reason progressive talk radio flopped was simple: Nobody tuned in and listened. He says Jerry Springer's show should have been a hit in Cincinnati of all places, but that it tanked despite a huge advertising and promotional campaign in Springer's adopted hometown.

Dusty has never been a member of the Dems most liberal wing -- he's a throwback to the era of working class, neighborhood, centrist party leaders who weren't afraid to speak their minds and say whoa! to ultra-left orthodoxy.