Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Photo courtesy of here.

UPDATE: 9/19, 5:30 am:  Last night I was contacted by the Driehaus campaign, and I was told that not getting back to me was an oversight by the campaign, and that their response will be forthcoming today.  If true, I apologize for the miscommunication!

At committee this week, Councilmembers United Against the Health Department (CUAHD), led by former Fiscal Fascist Fiver Jeff Berding, continuously tried to pin the oversight failure related to the recently publicized nursing home raids onto the City’s Health Department.  There is only one problem with this attempt:  the State of Ohio inspected, and passed, the nursing home on March 6th—which, if you’ve been following the story and watching the dates, would be after the police first noticed the allegedly deplorable conditions, yet prior to the police raid.  All of this came out yesterday in Committee.  So if the City’s Health Department can’t do its job, neither can the State of Ohio.  Or, is something else going on here?  Does this relate to a backroom deal that Democrats might have engaged, perhaps for the benefit of an agency like Closing the Health Gap?

With City Council saying that Dwight Tillery’s Closing the Health Gap offers services that would be duplicated by an Office of Minority Health, one must wonder what Tillery’s high-paying non-profit gig does—since it does not appear to employ doctors, and since all they do is hold a few seminars yearly.  That’s why Cincinnati NAACP president Christopher Smitherman got involved, even getting Republican Congressman Steve Chabot to send letters inquiring about how the City was posed to lose free grant money for improving minority health.

With rumors flying that the Democrats are playing cronies with party insiders like Dwight Tillery and his high-paying non-profit, we wondered how Steve Driehaus would respond to inquiries directly focused on this issue.  After all, with the Chabot-Driehaus race likely a close one, and with a likely high turnout in the Black community on election day, courting the Black vote could be a key to success in the 1st Congressional District.  Chabot siding with the NAACP puts him into position to siphon voters who may otherwise be inclined to vote for a Democrat.

After several attempts to contact the Driehaus campaign, and despite a number of promises by his campaign spokesman that a response would be forthcoming, Team Driehaus has failed to respond to multiple requests.  This raises questions about why Democrat Driehaus cannot stand behind the local NAACP, which is looking out for the interests of dying babies.  After all, the Office of Minority Health would address the infant mortality rate which disproportionately affects Black babies.  Democrat Dwight Tillery’s outfit spends big money putting fat kids on billboards, encouraging people not to overfeed kids.  That might be an important issue, but dying babies trumps fat kids with onion rings any day.

So why is Dreihaus silent, while his opponent advocates for the NAACP?  Could it relate to the apparent Democrat-based backroom dealings at play here?  Does Tillery’s funding relate in some way to the funding of the Cincinnati Health Department?  Why are Democrats trying so hard to go after the Health Department?  Remember, CUAHD leader Jeff Berding went after the Health Department a few years ago when workers in clinics made photocopies urging council not to slash their budget—a slashing also supported by people like Berding.

It looks like Chabot continues to make inroads into the Black community, while the silence from Driehaus will likely cost him thousands of votes on election day.

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