DISCUSSION: CAN SCHURING MAKE IGNORANCE PAY OFF?

The STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) has long held that Republican Kirk Schuring of Jackson Township is a glib, charming politician who has no gravitas. He has produced no major legislation in fourteen years in the Ohio General Assembly.

Reflective Stark Countians will note that he has gotten nowhere with his "marquee" project - fixing public school funding in Ohio.

But Schuring's limitations may, in fact, help him find his way to Congress.

Paul Krugman, a columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote on a political strategy that seems to be taking hold nationwide for Republican candidates.

The strategy? Know-nothingism.

Krugman defines "know-nothingism" thusly:

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

At the end of June, Schuring sent his proxies to the Sunoco station on West Tusc. in Canton to pester/goad Schuring's 16th district Congressional opponent Democrat John Boccieri (announcing his own energy policy) into endorsing the Schuring plan for solving the high gasoline prices we are experiencing across the nation.

Drill, drill and drill - right now! That's the Republican and Schuring plan.

Of course, thinking people know that drilling know that it will take (according to the Bush's Department of Energy) at least seven years, if ever, for drilling to have any effect on gasoline prices at the pump.

The Schuring campaign has put Boccieri in a tough spot. If Schuring's simplistic solutions stick with the voters, Boccieri could be a candidate that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

With the wind at his back (i.e. voters looking for Democrats to vote for), Boccieri should be a shoe-in. But is he?

The Report believes that Boccieri's people better figure out how to get 16th district voters to understand it's "snake oil" Schuring is trying palm off on them.

Otherwise, Schuring may pull off one big political upset come November.

Question: Has Schuring come up with an ingenious strategy to knock off Boccieri in November?