Rats in Ron Paul's Cellar?

by Jerry DeFoe

Charles Starry is a staunch Ron Paul Supporter from Ohio. As a Veteran issues and Gun Rights advocate, he has been a frequent guest on a number of radio programs. He epitomizes the grassroots effort that surrounds the Ron Paul campaign. When it comes to the ground-pounding work of handing out flyers, knocking on doors, knowledge of issues and that rare, from-the-soul communication of true Liberty and Freedom, Starry has the right stuff and he walks the walk. He’s a real “Gets it Guy” and could possibly turn out to be the Paul Revere super-hero of the Ron Paul Revolution.

This story begins with a feeling Starry had in his gut that something wasn’t quite right concerning the petition drive for Ohio Republican Primary delegate filings that he and his fellow Ron Paul supporters were engaged in. You know, Ohio. The “lynchpin state” when it comes to federal elections. The state that became the “king-maker” of George W. Bush. The state that has been featured in numerous voter-fraud documentaries such as “Hacking Democracy”, “American Blackout” and “Votergate”. The state where two people were convicted of felonies for voter fraud surrounding the 2004 recount as well as numerous other convictions involving campaign finance fraud and voter irregularities. A parody of Ohio Republican political scandals and hypocrisy is available here:

The deadline to deliver the petitions was within days and Starry was finding it difficult and strange that he couldn’t get information from the state campaign coordination network as to the status of the delegate petitions, the number of signers and when they were going to be turned in. People were asking him in the Ron Paul Revolution Radio Chat how things were going in Ohio and some of the chatters said they heard there were some problems there. When he visited and read some posts in the Ron Paul Forums , Daily Paul, and various Ohio Ron Paul Meetup groups about the petition drive status, some things were becoming disconcerting to him to say the least.

With the final deadline of January 4^th quickly approaching, Starry was getting antsy by the hour so he made a phone call to the national Ron Paul campaign headquarters about his concerns. National campaign headquarters informed Starry that a large number of districts were lacking in their number of signatures and two districts had no signatures submitted as of yet. Starry called me and apologized for not being able to join me on my radio program as scheduled because he was about to embark on an important mission concerning the Ron Paul campaign. He couldn’t elaborate and had to scoot.

He then called Maryanne Patrenek, the Ron Paul Campaign’s Ohio Volunteer Coordinator for Ballot Access who informed him that she had been in contact with the national campaign as well and had been putting the pieces together. She was asked by the national campaign to secure the petitions from the state coordinator and deliver them to the proper districts to meet the deadline.

For many months, Patrenek had been keeping spreadsheets for each of the districts and diligently worked on organizing and tracking in preparation for this statewide petition drive. Sometime in October, a man named Doug Joseph was hired by the national campaign to take on the job of Ohio State Coordinator. Joseph’s first order to Patrenek was for her to forward all info (names, addresses, etc.) to him. Around Thanksgiving, she was beginning to worry as she was not getting information back from Joseph and did not have a final slate of delegates necessary to conduct the petition drive.

By mid December, the word was getting around all over the state of Ohio that there were problems afoot. After a discussion sharing concerns with fellow Ron Paul supporter Joe Bozzi, web developer Rick Flowers rose to the occasion to launch a data rich website www.ohio4ronpaul.com on December 20 that acted as an aggregate clearinghouse for the petition drive. Working long hours and all nighters in yet another grassroots effort for the Ron Paul Revolution is what made it happen in record time. The website included each of the district petition sheets that were scanned in by various district coordinators as well as other Ron Paul supporters making available critical contact information for petition gatherers and various downloads for printout so that they could go door knocking. The website also included a link to the database of registered voters in the state of Ohio for cross checking names and addresses. The goal was also to give all of the grassroots petition gatherers the ability to check status of the petitions as they were being reported. Flowers said that shortly after the website was operational, people were calling him daily in a panic concerning the status of the petitions as time was running out and the feedback data was not available on the website. He had to explain to them that the website was not part of the official Ohio campaign, that he unfortunately did not have the status while at the same time not wanting to throw Doug Joseph under the bus for failing to communicate. Flowers informed grassroots supporters on a need-to-know basis as best he could, stating only that that Joseph seemed uninvolved at every angle of the petition drive other than serving as the "official" campaign figurehead. He avoided talk of speculation as to motive or cause that lead to this dire, 11^th hour situation and focused only on getting the mission at hand accomplished.

On New Years Eve, Charles Starry loaded up a van full of people from his local Meetup group and steamed off toward Toledo on their quest across the state. They pounded on over 300 doors late New Years day to obtain as many signatures as they could muster. On January 2^nd, they gathered up the petitions and headed across the entire state of Ohio to Columbus.

It has been confirmed that Doug Joseph resigned as the Ohio Campaign Coordinator for the Ron Paul Campaign. Calls to him by me to ask about his reasons for resigning have not been returned. According to numerous websites, he is a graduate of Liberty University (the University founded by the late Jerry Falwell) with degrees in Political Science and Economics. He currently serves as a member of the Liberty University Board of Regents and is on the Licking County Republican Party Central Committee, holding both positions since 2004. According to the City of Reynoldsburg website, Mr. Joseph was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Reynoldsburg City Council seat and the website states “As President of Liberty Strategies, Doug Joseph has consulted for numerous clients including political candidates, public officeholders, non-profit issue advocacy associations and other political organizations.” His bio is also available on his own campaign website, www.dougjoseph.com, in his current run for Licking County Commissioner.

Further research shows he has a propensity for supporting controversial Christian Conservative candidates espousing morality driven positions. One such candidate Doug Joseph supported was Mike Rothfelds campaign for US Congress that mailed a controversial piece of literature during the race leading up to the Republican primary. This mail piece was an expose’ on the perversions of homosexuality.

On the dougjoseph.com website, he proclaims his position concerning “common-sense growth” policy:

ZONING & URBAN SPRAWL
• Doug Joseph SUPPORTS a common-sense growth policy and protecting the Licking County municipalities and townships from out-of-control, run-away urban sprawl and reckless, new housing developments.

• As a Councilman, Doug Joseph worked to improve zoning laws to ensure that new housing developments (as well as established neighborhoods when possible) provide for ample green space, adequate lighting, safe sidewalks and open recreational areas.

ANNEXATION
• Doug Joseph SUPPORTS managed municipal growth and working with local business leaders, school officials, community organizations and homeowners in developing strategies for controlled growth.

Those of us having been long-time Liberty and Freedom activists recognize this language as the policies that are a direct assault on our property rights. From the United Nations, through the Federal Government and on into local governments, controlled growth policy templates are being used to strip property owners from their right to use and develop their own land as well as abusing eminent domain to remove people of their property by force for the “betterment of the community”.

Back to Starry and his rapid response team trekking across the state of Ohio in blizzard conditions and after suffering the blowout of a tire, on January 2^nd they arrived in Columbus. They were later met by Patrenek who earlier that day took off from her home near Cleveland on a four hour drive from her home to secure the petition sheets from the District 9 coordinator near Toledo and then diagonally back across the other end of the state to Columbus to meet up with Starry and the team. Anyone who has traveled in a panic through a blizzard for so many miles and hours deserves a medal and these volunteers of the Ron Paul Revolution did it out of pure love for their country.

Their quest took them to the doorstep of Ohio Campaign Coordinator Doug Joseph’s home to take possession of the signed petitions to get Ron Paul on the Ohio Primary ballot. The situation was an uncomfortable one to say the least. Starry, Patrenek, and fellow Ron Paul supporter Tim Dauten, are welcome only so far as to huddle in the doorway foyer of Mr. Joseph's suburban home which also serves as his personal campaign office. No, they weren’t invited in for some hot cocoa after the day they just had taking care of these vital responsibilities. Our heroes of this vital task were accompanied by an ironing board disarrayed with stacks of Ron Paul petitions. Dauten, asked Joseph “What if some of these signatures are disallowed?” He was assured by Joseph that the signatures were all vetted and not to worry.

Maryanne Petrenek was also given the same answer when she contacted Maggie Thurber earlier. Thurber is a former Lucas County Commissioner and she is now listed as a Delegate pledged to Ron Paul on the district 9 filing. When Thurber was asked about the petitions, she told Petrenek not to worry and all was under control. A testy discussion ensued concerning the goal of 150 signatures and Thurber informed Patrenek about her extensive knowledge and experience of campaigns she had and wasn’t going to be told by Petrenek what to do. Fifty were all that was necessary and Thurber assured Patrenek that all had been checked and verified.

Anyone who has ever been involved in petitioning knows that you need to gather many more signatures than the bare minimum and the official goal from the national campaign headquarters of 150 was right on. Using slight errors and omissions is the excuse used for striking many names and even entire sheets of signed petitions. It is a cliché that across the country as this strategy has been used numerous times to remove candidates from the ballots that oppose the establishment. Only time will tell what happens next.

Maggie Thurber does have extensive political campaign experience. One such experience is that she was one of four people found guilty for violating state ethics laws related to the infamous Tom Noe case.

Noe was accused of illegally funneling money to George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, using people “conduits” to make illegal campaign contributions at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in Columbus. Conduits named in a federal affidavit included Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber. On September 12, 2006, Noe was sentenced to 27 months in a federal prison for funneling money into the re-election campaign of President Bush illegally. According to the Toledo Blade, $40,000 from Noe went towards running ads to support Thurber’s 2002 race for Commissioner.

As recent as January 2, 2008 Thurber refuses to discuss her transgressions with a local ABC news channel telling them that her political career is “on hold”. Really?

Heard enough? It gets more interesting.

On each of the district delegate petition filings, an alternate candidate’s name appears. The candidate named as an alternate to Ron Paul for President of the United States in the event Ron Paul cannot continue his run on Election Day of the Ohio Primary, is a man named David R. Langdon. Research indicates that Langdon is a prominent attorney in Ohio who has, in recent years, represented a number of Christian Conservative special interest groups such as Citizen’s for Community Values

As early as 2006, Langdon was the attorney for none other than former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. For those of you who are well aware of Blackwell you are probably freaking out about now. For those that are not so aware, a simple google search of Kenneth Blackwell will lead you to a plethora of articles and blogs where you can read all about the voting controversies surrounding Blackwell during the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. The State that by hook or crook put George W. Bush into the Whitehouse.

On October 21, 2004, U.S. District Court Judge James G. Carr issued an order rejecting Blackwell's policies, indicating that "Blackwell apparently seeks to accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000."

So my questions are simple here. Who chose and authorized Attorney David R. Langdon to serve as Ron Paul’s alternate candidate for President of the United States on the Ohio filings and why? As it appears to have been placed on the pages by Doug Joseph, what is his relationship to Langdon? Have Joseph and Langdon recently had simultaneous libertarian leaning, philosophical epiphanies leading them to support Dr. Ron Paul? Perhaps or perhaps not. But the point is simply this: with such a “lynch-pin” state as Ohio at stake, Ron Paul cannot risk having such individuals in critical positions regarding his campaign.

It is quite possible that a plan was thwarted to keep Ron Paul’s name off of the Ohio Primary Ballot. Or it was simply just gross incompetence on the part of a hired political campaign consultant. Who knows, but nevertheless it is quite interesting how the Ron Paul campaign, in the pivotal state of Ohio, seems to have been infested by characters so close to the fraudulent and controversial 2004 Presidential campaign actors. Only time will tell what happens next. With Ron Paul’s name appearing on the ballot having already come so close to disaster, the day just may been saved by a small band of grassroots heroes of the Ron Paul Revolution.