Kids may say the darndest things, but politicians say the dumbest things.

Kids may say the darndest things, but politicians say the dumbest things.
As the end of 2006 draws near, I've compiled a list of some actual comments made by politicians in the past 12 months. Many will leave you wondering, "What were they thinking?" or "Were they thinking at all?"
"I'm confident I've got 50." -- U.S. Rep.-elect Charlie Wilson on having the minimum 50 valid signatures on nominating petition to be on the Democratic primary ballot for the 6th Congressional District seat. Wilson said this the same day his campaign discovered he didn't have the needed 50 signatures. The mistake cost Wilson more than 550,000 and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee 600,000 to run a write-in campaign in the primary against two political unknowns. Despite the blunder Wilson not only won the Democratic primary, but was easily elected in November to the seat.
"This weekend, newspapers announced that the Goodyear Tire Company was closing its' [sic] Poland, Ohio, bicycle tire facility with a potential loss of 1,500 employees...The Goodyear Bicycle tire closing is overwhelming." -- Bob Carr, one of Wilson's opponents in the Democratic primary. It certainly would have been "overwhelming" for the Mahoning County community. But the Poland in question is the European country.
"There is nothing that will get me out of the race at this point. I'm in. I've thought a lot about this." -- Betty Montgomery about remaining in the Republican primary for governor. Montgomery later withdrew from that race and unsuccessfully ran for attorney general. One reason cited by Montgomery for getting out of the gubernatorial race was her refusal to go negative. That apparently wasn't a problem for her in the attorney general's race. She went negative and lost.
Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell has "considerably narrowed the gap" with U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland in the gubernatorial race. -- A statement from a Blackwell campaign so desperate that it touted a poll showing him losing by 12 percentage points a month before the election. The gap statement also wasn't accurate when you look at the big picture. The number was an improvement from a poll done a month earlier, but the same poll showed Blackwell closer to Strickland in July than in October. Blackwell ended up losing by more than 23 percentage points.
"I just screwed up." -- Outgoing Gov. Bob Taft in summing up his conviction on four misdemeanor ethics violations.
J.J. Cafaro, father of Capri Cafaro, "passed out a lot of money to the [Democratic] caucus and to individual members. Everyone knows money is the mother's milk of politics." -- Outgoing state Sen. Robert F. Hagan, an Ohio House member-elect about one of Capri Cafaro's advantages to getting appointed to a state Senate seat being vacated by Attorney General-elect Marc Dann.
"Capri was the only candidate for that job that has substantive knowledge of government." -- Dann on Cafaro, appointed to fill the remaining two years on his unexpired state Senate seat. Cafaro's run for Congress twice and lost. The two other candidates for the vacancy were state Rep. Sandra Stabile Harwood, who won her third term to the House last month, and Anthony A. Latell Jr., a longtime elected official who spent eight years in the state Senate.
As an example of Cafaro's superiority over the two others, Dann said the three were asked by a screening committee about Frederick Douglass, a famous mid-19th century black abolitionist, and she was the only one who had heard of him. Stabile Harwood and Latell said they weren't asked about Douglass in the interview, and both admitted later that they'd never heard of him.
"I must have been in la-la-land because I forgot all about it." -- Youngstown Councilman Artis Gillam Sr. about mistakenly voting for a resolution to oppose a plan to legalize slot machines. He supported the failed plan.
"In hindsight, I should have checked to see if it was in the budget...This was a very, very busy, busy election year and the capital bill wasn't on anyone's radar." -- Outgoing state Rep. Sylvester D. Patton Jr. explaining that he didn't submit a written request to include 2 million for the Chevrolet Centre in the state capital budget. Patton said he had the verbal commitment of then-Lt. Gov. Bruce Johnson that the money would be in the budget as part of a plan to provide 5 million over three capital budgets to the center.