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Governor’s race goes ‘Mean’
On the side
Early in-person voting: If you want to vote early in-person for this primary, time is running out.
County boards of elections are open today from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The only weekend voting hours for this primary are not for those who like to sleep in. If you want to vote in person, elections board offices are open from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday with no Sunday hours.
It is hard to gauge the number of people who will show up Saturday to vote. I don’t know how many people will drive to board offices by noon — if you are in line by that time, you can vote despite how long it may take — and this election hasn’t attracted much interest from voters.
Also, turnout will be low for this primary so it’s quite likely people going to their polling locations on Tuesday — when the voting hours are 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. — will not have much of a wait, if any, voting the traditional way.
The campaign of Ed FitzGerald, a Democrat running for governor, received some attention for his criticism of Gov. John Kasich’s heroin-addiction program earlier this week, saying it would impact other mental-health services.
But it was a few tweets on FitzGerald’s Twitter feed Thursday about a 10-year-old movie that drew a stronger reaction.
Like most of the civilized world, I’m an unapologetic fan of the movie “Mean Girls.” It’s a teen comedy about high school cliques filled with great lines that I’ve been known to use in the office, at home, on social media, and just about anywhere.
It’s a film that I enjoy watching and quoting with my daughters. My oldest, Spencer, is 20 and attends the University of Akron so my 17-year-old, Logan, and I — along with one of her friends — watched the movie late Wednesday night to conclude our celebration of the 10-year anniversary of its release.
It was so fetch and of course, since it was Wednesday, we wore pink. (Yeah, you need some knowledge of the movie to understand the references. If you don’t understand, watch the film!)
So what does this have to do with politics?
Henry J. Gomez — the politics writer for The Plain Dealer, oh, sorry, the Northeast Ohio Media Group — tweeted as a joke (I think)why no one was celebrating the 10-year anniversary of “The Butterfly Effect,” which is no “Mean Girls.”
I tweeted that “The Butterfly Effect” was lame. He asked about another movie I haven’t seen, and I tweeted I was watching “Mean Girls.” It ended quickly.
But apparently something clicked at the FitzGerald campaign though it took a while. On Thursday, the day after the 10-year anniversary of the movie, the campaign tweeted at me and Henry: “‘Butterfly Effect’ memes aren’t nearly as fun #OhioMeanGirls,” and included a picture of Kasich with a line based on one from “Mean Girls” that took a shot at the Republican governor.
FitzGerald’s campaign also tweeted two other lines from the film it turned into criticism of Kasich with photos and the OhioMeanGirls hashtag.
Gomez asked: “Just making sure I’ve got this right: You’re calling the governor a girl?” No response came.
But plenty of Democrats retweeted the three posts with Republicans going after FitzGerald.
One Republican tweeted: “Is this really what a statewide candidate for governor has devolved to? What a damn joke.”
Another wrote: “Did someone hack your account?”
Using a classic line from the film, Chris Schrimpf, Ohio Republican Party spokesman, tweeted to FitzGerald: “Stop trying to make fetch happen.”
In response, the Ohio AFL-CIO tweeted: “Fetch may not happen, but SB5 did.”
Yeah, the primary election is Tuesday, and there are some key local issues — Mahoning County sales tax, fracking ban charter amendment in Youngstown and yet another school bond issue in Austintown — and a few contested Democratic primaries — the most compelling being for county probate court judge.
Also, FitzGerald is in the only contested primary on the statewide ballot even though he’s not concerned about it and rightfully so as his opponent doesn’t have a prayer of even being competitive.