RUNNING ON EMPTY

JEAN SCHMIDT


Please forgive me while I indulge in this lame little story. It is lame because, ultimately it will have no bearing on who actually wins this particular election; it's just one of those election season stories that comes out that makes a big splash and is just this side of patently absurd. See, this is the story of "Mean" Jean Schmidt and a little something I like to call Marathon-gate!
Yahoo's got the story.

Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt is fast, capable of running a marathon in 3 hours,
19 minutes, 6 seconds.
At least that's what a photo on the Ohio congresswoman's Web site shows.
No way, says a rival who contends that the picture from the 1993 Columbus Marathon is doctored and complained to state election officials. A four-member commission panel ruled Thursday that there was enough evidence to look into the complaint.
The photo shows Schmidt near the finish line at the marathon with a time clock showing 3:19:06, which would have made her one of the top finishers. But a newspaper list of the top runners does not include Schmidt....

Honestly, isn't there something mildly more important for the Ohio Election Commission to be dealing with than this stupidity, especially in a state like Ohio, where, and I'll be diplomatic here, there appears to be some issues when it comes to voting? Like not enough voting machines in districts with high numbers of minorities? Like voting machines that have been proven to be easily tampered with? Like a shady Secretary of State (and GOP gubernatorial candidate) who owns stock in the company that makes these questionable voting machines?
I guess my whole point it, what does this story really mean in the grand scheme of things? As they say, I don't trust Mean Jean as far as I could throw her (though she does seem to be a fairly small lady, so I suppose I'd be willing to give her a toss if called upon to do so), especially in light of the fact that she recently received a public reprimand from the Ohio Elections Commission for claiming on her Web site that she had two college degrees when she had only one. So, for a moment, let's assume that she lied about this marathon. So what? Is she going to lose the vital "marathon runners" voting bloc? Will voters in her heavily Republican district finally come to their senses of not vote for the old bat? Or is this just another useless election cycle story that at the end of the day will mean nothing when voters enter their booths on Election Day and have their ballots not count anyway?