I generally ignore emails from the Ohio Democratic Party because they all read the same:
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah MONEY Blah Blah Blah Blah MONEY Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah MONEY Blah MONEY Blah Blah MONEY MONEY MONEY.
I opened an email this morning (actually by mistake, I was moving automatically through my emails) that began:
Dear JEFFREY,
When the Ohio Supreme Court decided this summer that police could convict citizens of speeding with no radar evidence and only visual estimations of speed, Maureen O’Connor wrote the decision. She continues to defend her decision and did so again Wednesday in a debate with Chief Justice Eric Brown.
O’Connor is out of touch with Ohio families. Help us tell O’Connor to slow down.
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah MONEY Blah MONEY Blah Blah Blah MONEY MONEY…
Does the ODP really believe Ohio families are in favor of speeding?
I listened to the debate on WCPN and if I were to vote solely on the what I heard, I’d be casting my vote for Maureen O’Connor. Is the ODP actually so cynical that it wants to tell Ohio voters that it should vote for the candidate who might think — we don’t actually know, Chief Justice Brown didn’t comment — that if police officers observe a car tearing through a 25 mph zone, but they don’t have a radar gun handy, the officers should just through up their hands and exclaim, “Curse you ODP!”
That is so silly as to be almost Jon Stewart worthy.
Radar guns have been around for just a few months more than I have. Chicago, Illinois Patrolman Leonard Baldy first used a radar gun in April 1954. Would the ODP argue that all those speeding tickets issued before that date were invalid?
I’ve tried, without success, to find a transcript from the debate because I’d like to check out O’Connor’s statement that a journalist sat in a police car with a trained officer who visually called off speeds while the journalist checked the speed with a radar gun. According to O’Connor, the officer was within two miles per hour of the speed on the radar gun.
In my mind this is of the same category as people who think it is unfair for the City of Cleveland to use traffic cameras. If you don’t want a speeding ticket, don’t speed. We don’t get to ignore laws when they’re inconvenient.
No, I won’t be voting for O’Connor on the mail-in ballot that arrived this morning, but there are a couple other ODP candidates who should not feel all that safe in my case.
[Full disclosure: I’ve gotten two speeding tickets in my life, the first when I was 18 and driving my mother’s 240 Z — with her in the passenger seat –on I-77 (70 in a 55 mph zone) and the second time when I was 38 and enjoying the slalom curves in the Euclid Creek Metro Park too much (48 in a 30 mph zone). I deserved and paid both tickets, no question.]
