Rainbow coming to Ohio

Guest blogger Margaret McGurk reports:


The Rev. Jesse Jackson plans a Rainbow Coalition/PUSH conference in Ohio in September, aiming to keep voting-booth issues on the front burner in Ohio's gubernatorial race.

In a meeting with the Enquirer editorial board Wednesday, Jackson condemned what he called Republican "voter nullifcation" tactics for keeping Democratic voters -- particularly African-Americans -- from casting ballots in 2000 and 2004.

Ohio's GOP gubernatorial candidate, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, has been accused by Democrats -- most recently by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the pages of "Rolling Stone" of impeding Democratic voters in 2004 to guarantee the state's electoral votes for President George Bush.

Jackson said the September meeting, probably in Columbus, will also beat the drum for raising the minimum wage, as well as more spending on jobs, health care and housing instead of on the war in Iraq.

"Two hundred fifty million dollars a day (in Iraq costs) doesn't leave you with resources to fund No Child Left Behind," he said. Jackson predicted the war will prove to be a central issue in the fall Congressional elections, citing Tuesday's defeat of incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., by anti-war candidate Ned Lamont.