Don't call her Schmidt

Rep. Jean Schmidt came to the Enquirer editorial board Wednesday afternoon apparently determined to add a little drama to the occasion.

After about an hour of listening to her and two of her three opponents in the May 2 primary - former congressman Bob McEwen and Deborah Kraus, a political rookie from Batavia Township - Schmidt pulled out a one-page document she called a "a clean campaign pledge.'' Schmidt said she hoped her rivals would sign the pledge and refrain from "negative advertising and attacks.''

Kraus signed happily; after all, she noted, she has no campaign money for advertising anyway.

But when the "pledge'' was passed down the table to McEwen, he sniffed dismissively and pushed it away, saying he wasn't going to sign anything that would prevent him from talking about Schmidt's record.

Sure enough, the pledge had nothing to do with attack ads; what it said was that the candidates would promise to have "no advertising, phones, mail or web activity mentioning the other candidate's name.''

Apparently, Schmidt believes that mentioning her by name is a "negative attack.''

It's easy to see how this might hamstring a challenger like McEwen. What's he supposed to call her? That woman with the scrunchie?

Schmidt's flair for the dramatic took another odd turn the night before, at a meeting of the Blue Ash Republican Club.

Over 100 Blue Ash Republicans gathered in the basement of the rec center and heard first from McEwen; then a string of other candidates and candidates' surrogate before Schmidt swept into the room about 40 minutes into the forum.

She was called to the front to speak and announced that she had just been at a funeral home in Milford, attending the visitation for a young Marine killed last week in Iraq.

"Before I begin, I would really like to have us all hold hands and say a prayer for the Taylor family,'' Schmidt told the group seated around a few dozen folding tables.

They did as she asked (most of them, anyway), and she led the group in the Lord's Prayer.