NATIONAL AFFAIRS: OHIO BURNING

In a bizarre letter sent to her constituents this past August, Schmidt reinforced her hard-earned reputation as the most stay-the-course of all the stay-the-course Republicans. Written in her inimitable kinder-prose ("On every continent in every corner of the planet you will find people that [sic] know of the United States of America"), the letter describes the situation in Iraq from the vantage point of a Spanish conquistador making a field study of his conquered savages:

"The Iraqi's perception is that we are all powerful," Schmidt wrote. "We watch them from space with technology they cannot even imagine. He has no idea how large the problem is but he knows we can do anything. He was angry. Eventually his air conditioning began running and his anger cooled."

That is the Bush wing of Republicanism in a nutshell -- a candidate who thinks the chaos in Iraq can literally be cooled down with air conditioning!

On the campaign trail again, Schmidt is unrepentant, rolling out a patented Rovian smear job that is almost embarrassing for its mind-numbing repetition. Her latest TV ad accuses her opponent, an ostentatiously nice doctor with an Albert Schweitzer-esque profile as a founder of a relief agency and caregiver to African AIDS orphans, of being a fag hag.

"What will Victoria Wulsin think of next?" the Schmidt ad cheerily asks. An image of two tuxedo-clad men on a wedding cake appears onscreen. "How about gay marriage?"

The ad followed mass mailings of a flier -- based, it appears, on generic campaign materials put out by the national party -- that accuses Wulsin of being soft on illegal immigrants. It also came after Schmidt was caught putting her name to a newspaper editorial about Medicare that turned out to be the text of a national party brochure, used in almost identical form in a press release issued by fellow Ohio Republican Congresswoman Deborah Pryce. The same old bullshit, in other words -- queers, Mexicans, abortions and a by-the-numbers campaign smear kit sent by the pinheads in Washington.

Schmidt apparently did not expect to have to break a sweat in this election. Earlier this fall, when Wulsin went to Schmidt's campaign office to present her with a written challenge to a debate, she found the office closed. A sign taped to the door read GONE TO LUNCH.

Four days later, when Wulsin returned, she found the same sign, along with her written debate challenge, still taped to the door. It was only later, when the poll numbers came out, that Schmidt started campaigning in earnest. She was literally GONE TO LUNCH too long. But there's such a thing as going too far, and 2006 was the year America woke up, rubbed its eyes and found itself lying in bed buck naked with Jean Schmidt. Talk about a bad hangover.