lawrence dennis
October 13th, 2006, 02:35 PM
Meet Ken Blackwell: Black Christian Conservative (http://littlegeneva.com/badlands/?p=1659)
...
Arshinkoff is one of the movers and shakers in the Ohio GOP, and Blackwell was proud to announce (http://www.pos.org/platform/file_retrieve.cfm?ID=1035) that he’d signed on as one of his campaign chairmen:Still, Blackwell appeared to pull off a coup by enlisting influential Summit County GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff as new co-chairman of his campaign. Arshinkoff had been senior policy adviser to Montgomery’s gubernatorial campaign and his county party contributed $400,000 to her campaigns since 1994.
“I am personally pleased with Alex’s endorsement and am looking forward to welcoming many, many other Montgomery for governor supporters to our campaign,” Blackwell said, calling on Petro to “follow suit and drop out to help the party, too.”
Well, we’ve met Ken Blackwell, powerful defender of traditional Christian values and warrior against radical homosexuals. So let’s meet Alex Arshinkoff, the man Blackwell is so proud to have on his team, shall we? Here’s a little glimpse (http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2003-06-11/news/feature_full.html) into the life of Christian culture warrior Ken Blackwell’s campaign co-chairman:It was past 2 a.m. when the kid left the bar and headed for home. Back from college for Christmas, he’d met up with his high school buddies at Annabell’s, a neighborhood watering hole in Akron. Frustrated for reasons that no longer seem important, the 21-year-old Kent State student had been too annoyed to wait for a ride.
It wasn’t long before he wished he had. It had been a white Christmas. The ground was still blanketed, early that morning of December 27, 2002; the air, frigid. Maybe a stranger would give him a lift.
As the kid would later explain in an interview with Scene, he tried to flag down the first car he spotted, a souped-up Mitsubishi, neon underbelly aglow. It didn’t stop. But when the new Audi behind it did, the kid got in.
The driver was a middle-aged white man. Dark hair, well dressed. He asked the kid how he was doing; the kid said OK, then offered a few dollars for gas. The man said not to worry.
The kid told him to take a right at Main Street. But the man didn’t. I’ll get you home, don’t worry about it, the kid remembers him saying. Then the man started rubbing his thigh. Are you gay? he asked. Are you bi? No? Are you sure? [But "we don't recruit," right, fags? --L.D.]
The kid was trying not to freak out. He saw a red light ahead and clicked open his seatbelt, bracing himself for the jump out. But the light flicked to green.
What are you doing? The man asked. Are you nervous?
The kid said no, he was just trying to get comfortable. The man was caressing his thigh, grabbing at his crotch. “I didn’t want to piss him off,” he says. “He could just hit the gas, and I’d be stuck.”
Do you want to make some money? The man asked. The kid laughed weakly and said he had plenty. He was watching the light ahead, willing it to stay red.
The Audi pulled to a stop, and the kid saw his chance. He took off running. The Audi peeled off in a different direction.
Then the kid heard a siren. An Akron patrolman had witnessed his desperate departure, according to the police report. The cop stopped the car and questioned the driver. The man told him he’d picked the kid up, but he was too drunk and had hopped out.
But the kid, fearing trouble, doubled back to the cop car. Gasping for breath, he relayed his version. The man had tried to touch him, he said. He had to run. “You can arrest me for anything you want right now,” he remembers saying.
The cop took the driver’s information and let him go. Then he told the kid to relax, something like “What are you doing getting into a stranger’s car, anyway?” He offered to take the kid home.
Then a second black-and-white pulled up. The officer gestured at the departing Audi with its ARA 1 vanity plate. “Do you know who that was?” the kid heard him ask. “That was Alex Arshinkoff. He’s the chair of the county Republican Party.”
Yes, that’s the man that’s helping Ken Blackwell battle the radical gay agenda. But there’s more. Seems Arshinkoff is a big backer of family values type politicians. Unless getting a liberal Democrat elected will help him stay in the closet, in which case he’s real flexible:Michael Curry believes so. In the summer of 2001, Curry, who works for the Summit County Board of Elections, spotted Arshinkoff at the Leather Stallion, a gay bar on St. Clair. The Democrat made a point of greeting Arshinkoff “just to freak him out,” he says.
Thirty minutes later, Arshinkoff came over and asked him to stay quiet about seeing him there, Curry says. Curry replied that it wasn’t his style to out people. “It’s just not my belief system,” he says.
Arshinkoff seemed relieved. “If there’s anything I can do for you, I’d be happy to do it,” he said, according to Curry.
Joking, Curry seized the gambit. He named two friends, both Democratic judges. “I want to see that the two of them never have any opponents,” he said.
“I can do that,” Arshinkoff responded.
“I was shocked at the transference of power,” Curry says. He’d been joking, after all. But when he ran into Arshinkoff several months later, at a gay dance club called The Grid, Arshinkoff waved him over. “He said he’d live up to his end of the bargain,” Curry recalls.
And there’s still more. Lots more. A man accused Arshinkoff of sexual harassment, and a former GOP colleague says that everyone knows Arshinkoff is a sick pervert:The pyre is growing. The newest memo circulating among the anti-Arshinkoff crowd is a complaint phoned in to the board of elections. In the conversation, a former Municipal Court employee claims Arshinkoff sexually harassed him.
It’s public record, duly noted by a deputy clerk. Coupled with the police report, it’s led to talk of an overthrow.
But Democrats aren’t sure how to play it. “We’re a party that supports gay rights,” says county Chairman Russ Pry. “We don’t believe in outing people. But we don’t believe in being hypocrites, either. We don’t believe in condemning someone’s lifestyle — and then secretly living it.”
Adds McCarthy, “If this was an elected official who had picked up a young girl, I think people would have been all over that. And if Alex is a cruiser, if that’s his M.O. . . . I’m sure there are people within his party that would be upset.”
Chris Bleuenstein, who recently quit the Republican central and executive committees, says he thinks the gay issue may be the straw that finally breaks Arshinkoff’s back. “Most people are aware of it,” he says. “Stupid him — he just keeps getting caught.”
That’s the man that “conservative black Christian” Ken Blackwell chose to head up his gubernatorial campaign. Because Blackwell is so strongly opposed to the gay agenda, don’tcha know.
...
Arshinkoff is one of the movers and shakers in the Ohio GOP, and Blackwell was proud to announce (http://www.pos.org/platform/file_retrieve.cfm?ID=1035) that he’d signed on as one of his campaign chairmen:Still, Blackwell appeared to pull off a coup by enlisting influential Summit County GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff as new co-chairman of his campaign. Arshinkoff had been senior policy adviser to Montgomery’s gubernatorial campaign and his county party contributed $400,000 to her campaigns since 1994.
“I am personally pleased with Alex’s endorsement and am looking forward to welcoming many, many other Montgomery for governor supporters to our campaign,” Blackwell said, calling on Petro to “follow suit and drop out to help the party, too.”
Well, we’ve met Ken Blackwell, powerful defender of traditional Christian values and warrior against radical homosexuals. So let’s meet Alex Arshinkoff, the man Blackwell is so proud to have on his team, shall we? Here’s a little glimpse (http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2003-06-11/news/feature_full.html) into the life of Christian culture warrior Ken Blackwell’s campaign co-chairman:It was past 2 a.m. when the kid left the bar and headed for home. Back from college for Christmas, he’d met up with his high school buddies at Annabell’s, a neighborhood watering hole in Akron. Frustrated for reasons that no longer seem important, the 21-year-old Kent State student had been too annoyed to wait for a ride.
It wasn’t long before he wished he had. It had been a white Christmas. The ground was still blanketed, early that morning of December 27, 2002; the air, frigid. Maybe a stranger would give him a lift.
As the kid would later explain in an interview with Scene, he tried to flag down the first car he spotted, a souped-up Mitsubishi, neon underbelly aglow. It didn’t stop. But when the new Audi behind it did, the kid got in.
The driver was a middle-aged white man. Dark hair, well dressed. He asked the kid how he was doing; the kid said OK, then offered a few dollars for gas. The man said not to worry.
The kid told him to take a right at Main Street. But the man didn’t. I’ll get you home, don’t worry about it, the kid remembers him saying. Then the man started rubbing his thigh. Are you gay? he asked. Are you bi? No? Are you sure? [But "we don't recruit," right, fags? --L.D.]
The kid was trying not to freak out. He saw a red light ahead and clicked open his seatbelt, bracing himself for the jump out. But the light flicked to green.
What are you doing? The man asked. Are you nervous?
The kid said no, he was just trying to get comfortable. The man was caressing his thigh, grabbing at his crotch. “I didn’t want to piss him off,” he says. “He could just hit the gas, and I’d be stuck.”
Do you want to make some money? The man asked. The kid laughed weakly and said he had plenty. He was watching the light ahead, willing it to stay red.
The Audi pulled to a stop, and the kid saw his chance. He took off running. The Audi peeled off in a different direction.
Then the kid heard a siren. An Akron patrolman had witnessed his desperate departure, according to the police report. The cop stopped the car and questioned the driver. The man told him he’d picked the kid up, but he was too drunk and had hopped out.
But the kid, fearing trouble, doubled back to the cop car. Gasping for breath, he relayed his version. The man had tried to touch him, he said. He had to run. “You can arrest me for anything you want right now,” he remembers saying.
The cop took the driver’s information and let him go. Then he told the kid to relax, something like “What are you doing getting into a stranger’s car, anyway?” He offered to take the kid home.
Then a second black-and-white pulled up. The officer gestured at the departing Audi with its ARA 1 vanity plate. “Do you know who that was?” the kid heard him ask. “That was Alex Arshinkoff. He’s the chair of the county Republican Party.”
Yes, that’s the man that’s helping Ken Blackwell battle the radical gay agenda. But there’s more. Seems Arshinkoff is a big backer of family values type politicians. Unless getting a liberal Democrat elected will help him stay in the closet, in which case he’s real flexible:Michael Curry believes so. In the summer of 2001, Curry, who works for the Summit County Board of Elections, spotted Arshinkoff at the Leather Stallion, a gay bar on St. Clair. The Democrat made a point of greeting Arshinkoff “just to freak him out,” he says.
Thirty minutes later, Arshinkoff came over and asked him to stay quiet about seeing him there, Curry says. Curry replied that it wasn’t his style to out people. “It’s just not my belief system,” he says.
Arshinkoff seemed relieved. “If there’s anything I can do for you, I’d be happy to do it,” he said, according to Curry.
Joking, Curry seized the gambit. He named two friends, both Democratic judges. “I want to see that the two of them never have any opponents,” he said.
“I can do that,” Arshinkoff responded.
“I was shocked at the transference of power,” Curry says. He’d been joking, after all. But when he ran into Arshinkoff several months later, at a gay dance club called The Grid, Arshinkoff waved him over. “He said he’d live up to his end of the bargain,” Curry recalls.
And there’s still more. Lots more. A man accused Arshinkoff of sexual harassment, and a former GOP colleague says that everyone knows Arshinkoff is a sick pervert:The pyre is growing. The newest memo circulating among the anti-Arshinkoff crowd is a complaint phoned in to the board of elections. In the conversation, a former Municipal Court employee claims Arshinkoff sexually harassed him.
It’s public record, duly noted by a deputy clerk. Coupled with the police report, it’s led to talk of an overthrow.
But Democrats aren’t sure how to play it. “We’re a party that supports gay rights,” says county Chairman Russ Pry. “We don’t believe in outing people. But we don’t believe in being hypocrites, either. We don’t believe in condemning someone’s lifestyle — and then secretly living it.”
Adds McCarthy, “If this was an elected official who had picked up a young girl, I think people would have been all over that. And if Alex is a cruiser, if that’s his M.O. . . . I’m sure there are people within his party that would be upset.”
Chris Bleuenstein, who recently quit the Republican central and executive committees, says he thinks the gay issue may be the straw that finally breaks Arshinkoff’s back. “Most people are aware of it,” he says. “Stupid him — he just keeps getting caught.”
That’s the man that “conservative black Christian” Ken Blackwell chose to head up his gubernatorial campaign. Because Blackwell is so strongly opposed to the gay agenda, don’tcha know.