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March 13, 2002      

At mid-March, our campaign is gaining steam and still progressing forward to reach our goal of 5,000 signatures by May. We have mailed out letters to over 250 Ohio high school government teachers asking our colleagues to assist us in gaining those signatures. We are just beginning to receive the first responses, and it is uplifting to see so many young people eager to support our cause. It makes a bold statement for the future of this state. In the meantime, we are working on scheduling some dates in April for public appearances throughout the state for people to come out and sign our petition.

The competition has been up to their old-school politics. Democratic candidate, Tim Hagan, has scheduled several fund-raisers for his campaign. Anybody interested in paying $56 to go to his 56th birthday party? How about paying $1,000 to attend a party in California? Without these funds, Hagan claims his campaign is “dead in the water.” There are other ways to campaign. Tom Clark and I plan on attending summer festivals throughout the state to gain support for our campaign as well as give us the opportunity to connect with the people of Ohio. One of our campaign promises is for both of us to visit each of Ohio’s 88 counties at least once a year.

When is the last time Bob Taft made an appearance in your county? I’m not sure people would even recognize who he is if it wasn’t for his cameo appearance which was added to the So Much to Discover commercial at a cost to taxpayers of $148,000 (as reported on 3-11-2002 by The Columbus Dispatch). It seems to me that Ohioans deserve a complete explanation for why our tax dollars were spent on what can only be construed as a political advertisement for Bob Taft. It is just another piece of the puzzle scattered about to confuse the public about what is really going on in our state government. Perhaps, he thinks we have forgotten about the elusive “Team Ohio” which covertly funds so many Republican campaigns. I encourage all Ohioans to do their own research. (check out this website: http://enquirer.com/editions/2000/04/16/loc_tactics_of_gop.html ) Perhaps, you will draw the same conclusions as I , that it is totally unethical and smells of corruption.

While we candidates sling mud back and forth at one another, the State Board of Education continues is efforts to retard our youth by re-writing the science curriculum standards to include the “intelligent design” theory and change the evolutionary theory to “change over time.” This is catching major flack from the science community, including a response by 1980 Nobel Prize winner, Paul Berg. According to a Dayton Daily News article titled Fauna, fossils fuel origin-theory furor, Berg and Tom Egelhoff (Case Western Reserve University professor) had this to say about "intelligent design", “It is not a scientific theory but a matter of faith and it does not belong in a science curriculum....If the Ohio State Board of Education opens the door of our science classrooms to theology, the uproar will only get louder and louder, damaging Ohio’s reputation, its economy and most of all, its children.”

Ohio has fallen asleep at the wheel! Who is in control of this state? How can our government be more concerned about creation versus evolution, or worse yet, debating whether our state fish should be the Lake Erie walleye or the smallmouth bass when our schools are in such distress? It all boils down to misguided leadership. Wake up Ohio, and let’s get our state back on track.

Paid for by the Committee to elect Whitman and Clark.  

Treasurer, Lana Whitman, 3716 Co. Rd. 31 South, Bellefontaine, OH 43311