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The biggest story in this year’s gubernatorial election should not be that the FBI is investigating James Petro, but Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell’s relationship with the far right Council on National Policy.

The CNP is a highly secretive reactionary group with fascistic tendencies and ties to racists and homophobes. The article that I wrote for the freepress.org website with senior editor Harvey Wasserman captures the shadowy world of the CNP. Ken Blackwell is perhaps the most unfit candidate ever to run for the governorship in Ohio history.

His ties to Rev. Rod Parsley and the so-called Patriot Pastors put the majority of Ohioans at risk from a small religious minority that practices bigotry. While Ken Blackwell runs commercials attacking Jim Petro for contract-steering, Ohio newspapers have documented that Blackwell does the same. Blackwell believes that President Bush is above the law and should have the right to spy on American citizens without warrant, wage an illegal war in Iraq and torture in the name of our country.

If you wonder where Blackwell, who suppressed the Democratic votes in the major urban centers in Ohio, by making it difficult to register to vote — remember his requirement that no one could register unless it was on 80 bond white unwaxed paper — gets his ideas, just google the Council on National Policy. The real story in this election is the attempt by these right-wing zealots to hijack our state. What we really need is universal health care, a living wage, less tax breaks for millionaires, more money for our schools and to keep the Ohio National Guard in Ohio instead of fighting an illegal an unjust war ordered by the worst president in U.S. history.

For more, read my article, Why Did J. Kenneth Blackwell seek, then hide, his association with super-rich extremists and e-voting magnates?