BOB GIBBS EQUATES HIS BEING AN ELECTED POLITICIAN TO KEN HARBAUGH'S "RISK OF LIFE" MILITARY SERVICE AND SAYS HE WAS "SORT OF" JOKING!

UPDATED:  07:00 AM (CLEVELAND.COM READERS/7TH DISTRICT VOTERS REACT

SEE APPENDIX TO THIS BLOG

Last evening The Stark County Political Report received a "breaking news" press release from the Ken Harbaugh campaign.

Normally, journalists file them away as self-serving political propaganda never to see the light of day.

But this press release was different.

"An actual transcript" provided by Cleveland.com's Seth Richardson that speaks for itself and picked up on by the Harbaugh campaign.

(See appendix in this blog for Cleveland.com readers/commenters)

"It [comparing "at risk of life and limb" to political/elective office service] was kind of a joke," said incumbent Republican congressman Bob Gibbs 

• (7th Congressional District which includes most of Stark County, the county with the highest number of registered voters in the district) 

when in a recent Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial board interview he tried to compare his service as a partisan politically elected legislator to Democratic Party candidate for the 7th Ken Harbaugh who served in the U.S. Navy as a pilot from 1995 through 2005 including risking his life in Operation Enduring Freedom.

This blogger served in Korea (1963/1964) and knows what it feels like to know that at any moment one might be hand-to-hand combat.

Such is not a joking matter.

In other blogs the SCPR has provided e-mails to/from the Gibbs campaign wherein the deny the SCPR access to a public event in Shelby, Ohio claiming it was "for constituents only."

Now how's that for his oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the First Amendment's Freedom of the Press?

And that is not the only contrast between the two.

Harbaugh's campaign has a theme of "Country Over Party."

The SCPR's take on the Gibbs campaign:  "Party over Country."

He seems to be joined at the hip with the Republican Congressional Caucus and the "let me divide Americans" along political party lines president of the United States of America Donald J. Trump.

Of course, campaign slogans are not the equivalent of  a "once-in-office" elected candidate producing actual work/examples evidencing that "Country Over Party" is anything other than mere political rhetoric.

One of the reasons that most Americans have such a low estimate of the U.S. Congress is exactly that sort of thing.  Once in office, elected politicians seem to forget what they said during a campaign and the promises they made.

Ken Harbaugh might be one of those.  Right now The Report thinks not.

But he can be sure that if elected the SCPR will be watching his every move.

Regular readers of The Stark County Political Report know that there absolutely no elected official is sacrosanct to this blogger.

Not long ago pre-meeting of a regular Board of Stark County Commissioners meeting, this blogger had a brief conversation with Sheriff George T. Maier.

The most poignant part of the conversation was:  "You know, Martin, that you have a lot of enemies in Stark County." 

Obviously, he was talking about elected officials, political party operatives, the likes of the Professional Football Hall of Fame officialdom all of whom has put under the SCPR evaluative microscope.

A number of years ago another Stark County law enforcement official would occasionally say:  "Martin, you need to watch your back.  If you ever need any help, call me."

Like Harbaugh, this blogger (a resident of the 16th Congressional District) believes America can only be the very best it can be on the shoulders of those who are willing to risk life and limb to serve freedom.

While the SCPR does not endorse political candidates, it is hard to see why Stark Countians would not turn out big for Ken Harbaugh come November 6th.

Again, though, Ken Harbaugh would be making a tremendous mistake to think that once elected that the SCPR will not be watching to see whether or not in actual political/elective office he models "Country Over Party!"

APPENDIX