A printed copy of the Voters' Guide is available in the October 18 issue of The Dayton City Paper, or by contacting the Dayton LWV.

The Dayton League of Women Voters has published its annual voters’ guide. The guide is 24 pages in length and includes information on issues and races in Montgomery and Greene Counties. The League has made available a PDF electronic version that can be downloaded here.

As I reported, after 40 years of doing so, this guide is not being published in The Dayton Daily News because, for the first time, the DDN demanded the right to print paid political advertisements in the guide.  See: Dayton League Of Women Voters Dumps DDN — Refuses To Compromise Non-Partisan Principles

The guide includes the ballot language for each of the three state issues along with an analysis of pros and cons for supporting or rejecting each issue and gives links to pro and con web-sites. In this “off year” election, in addition to deciding the three state issues, citizens will elect:

• Mayors
• Members of City and Village councils
• Members of Village Board of Trustees of Public Affairs
• Other City and Village officers
• Judges and Clerks of Municipal Courts
• Members of Boards of Education
• Township Trustees and Fiscal Officers

The results of a poll at Cleveland.com. I think the last choice -- an at-large election -- sounds interesting.

We can tear up the Ohio congressional redistricting map designed by Ohio Republicans and recently signed into law.

The Ohio Supreme Court has approved a referendum to be placed on the 2012 ballot to allow voters to abolish this map. Waiting for a 2012 referendum would cause such chaos, it seems likely that this Court decision will force Republican and Democratic leaders to allow a new map to be constructed via compromise. The process to determine how a new map will be drawn is being worked out this week in a high stakes drama now unfolding in Columbus.

To respond to the Supreme Court action, it appears that the first choice of Republicans is to pass “emergency legislation” that, according to the Ohio Constitution, would not be subject to referendum. Such legislation requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate. In the House, 59 of the 99 members are Republicans, so, only seven Democratic votes are  needed for a new map to be approved by the necessary two-thirds majority. Republicans already have a two-thirds majority in the Senate.

It appears the first Republican strategy is to get votes from black Democrats in the House — by making a deal to arrange the map so that at least one more district could elect a black. Rep. Sandra Williams, a Cleveland Democrat who heads the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus says she has been contacted. “If the members of the caucus were interested, I would definitely entertain it,” she said. Williams said a black caucus meeting is scheduled for Wednesday where the topic is likely to come up for discussion.

It would seem unlikely that the black caucus would antagonize the Ohio Democratic Party by making a separate agreement with the Republicans. But, if a new map could gain the support of the black caucus, then this might push the Democratic leadership towards making a broader based deal.

The most likely outcome, it appears, is that the House Democrats will stick together and demand the formation of a bipartisan commission to work out a new map. A bipartisan commission is the first choice of those polled at cleveland.com. (See chart at left.)

It looks like the primary, now scheduled for March, will need to be moved to May or June. If a redistricting deal can’t be reached and the process for a referendum begins, the deadline for gathering signatures will be after the current December 7 deadline, so, if the process for a referendum is set in place, it appears certain that the primary will scheduled for a later date. And if a compromise process is agreed to, it appears the primary, also, will be set later, in order give candidates additional time in the new districts.

The map recently signed into law by Gov. Kasich makes 12 of Ohio's 16 congressional districts to be safely Republican -- although Ohio usually is about evenly divided in Republican and Democratic votes

Mitt Romney’s recent speech at the military school, The Citadel, revealed that “American Exceptionalism” likely would be a major theme of a Romney candidacy, with a campaign built around a slogan, “Believe In America.”

A “white paper” — AN AMERICAN CENTURY — A Strategy to Secure America’s Enduring Interests and Ideals — released in connection with the speech, makes clear that a big part of the campaign effort will be to belittle President Obama as an apologizer for America. It says,

“The sins President Obama has repented in our collective name are American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally, for acting without regard for others; for treating other countries as mere proxies, for unjustly interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, for committing torture, for fueling anti-Islamic sentiments, for dragging our feet in combating global warming, and for selectively promoting democracy. …A President who is so troubled by America’s past cannot lead us into the future.”

In contrast to Obama’s supposed apologies, in his Citadel speech, Romney declared, “I will not surrender America’s role in the world. This is very simple: If you do not want America to be the strongest nation on Earth, I am not your President. You have that President today.”

The white paper and the Citadel speech emphasized again and again that this century should be “An American Century,” using the same term that defined those advisers of George W. Bush, the designers of the preemptive Iraq War doctrine, known as “Neoconservatives.” As it turns out, Romney has recruited some of the same “American Exceptionalism” cheerleaders to work for his campaign.

If the Citadel speech is any indication, it is clear that a Romney candidacy will preach fear, fear, fear — and will attempt to make the case why a “USA. USA. USA” must acquire an even bigger military. “The American Conservative” calls itself, “The magazine for thinking conservatives,” and in response to the Citadel speech, Rod Dreher writes in “Romney’s Project For A New American Century” that the speech boils down to: “USA is No. 1! God commands us to be, for we are a chosen people, and if the rest of the world doesn’t like it, tough, we’ll do what we want to do to advance our mission of spreading our values universally.”

Dreher writes, “So it goes with Mitt Romney’s project for a new American century. It’s as if the Iraq War never happened, that there were no lessons to be learned from it. It’s as if Romney hadn’t noticed the dire fiscal straits our nation is in. Nothing here but stale old thinking (tip-off: using Cold War phrasing with “the free world”), rhetorical bombast, and implacable faith in the imperial project. None of this is surprising. It is all depressing.”

There are a lot of the interesting comments in response to Dreher’s post. I had to chuckle at the first one:

• This isn’t foreign policy. This is a speech delivered by a man on a balcony…
• It’s long been Mormon doctrine that the Constitution is “divinely inspired.” With this comes a heaping helping of American exceptionalism.
• No candidate, in either party, who fundamentally disagrees with this American exceptionalism has any chance at a major-party nomination.
• This speech doesn’t bother me in the least. Just more Romney pandering to get the red-state rednecks to vote for a guy from Massachusetts.
• The neo-cons believe there remains a committed core of Republican activists who bought into the American Century project and believe it is only the defeatist, un-American Democrats that never have loved this country, who undermine morale, and keep us from the greatness that God intends us to have. This cadre may have been demoralized by the latter Bush years, but they remain the key to the nomination. They can be courted, and with the right words, convinced to believe once again.
• I am astonished that the neo con perspective has not been utterly discredited. Their hubris, naiveté, ignorance and arrogance has cost this country plenty and I suspect those costs will play themselves out for a long time. Yet here we have their ideas being resurrected again. So discouraging.

Lawrence S. Wittner in “Romney’s Neocon Foreign Policy Plan”, writes, “One wonders what citizens and statesmen of other nations think of this potential world leader who argues that his country is confronted everywhere by malignant enemies, must forever be militarily supreme, is exempt from following international law, can do no wrong, has been created by God, and must dominate the planet for the rest of this century.”