It's a miracle I got any blogging done at all in the last few days. It's like non-stop phone calls and e-mails from all these media folks in John Boehner's district wanting to know why we're picking on him, where'd we get the money for the billboards, why is the billboard not inside the district, and how, exactly, do we know he played 119 rounds of golf in 2009. I mean, those calls haven't stopped in 3 days. Everyone has been pretty nice and polite though. And I think they appreciate the transparency with which we handle all the questions, rather than the way the Boehner folks weave and dodge and never seem to manage to give a straight answer to any questions. The big Cincinnati Enquirer website kicked off the fetsivities even before the first of our BeatBoehner billboards went up. The video up top was the report that ran yesterday at News 5, WLWT, the powerhouse NBC affiliate for southwest Ohio.
Boehner's spokesman rushed to point out that they had only held 7 golf events last year. That's very slick. Nobody cares how many golf events he hosted. It's how many times he played, and by all accounts he plays a lot. A whole lot:
Despite all of the problems facing Ohio families, according to Golf Digest Magazine, Congressman Boehner finds time to play about 100 rounds of golf a year – most with special interest lobbyists. He says he pays special attention to the lobbyists he meets on the golf course, bragging “...if someone I’ve gotten to know on the golf course comes into my office with a good argument, I tend to want to listen,”
If there's any confusion as to how many specific times he played, it's because in http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29881.html">this article in the Dayton Daily News about his excessive golfing habits his staff said he had 119 "events." But perhaps they were purposefully under-representing the number of times he was on the course. After all, since the Republicans refuse to do anything at all for the American people, he has even more time these days to gladhand lobbyists and work on his swing. (In fact, he's whining like a teenager because Nancy Pelosi is dragging him off his golf cart during his sacred month long August junket and forcing the congress back to vote to keep teachers in the classrooms and police on the street.)
This page has pictures of all six billboards, where you can donate to this campaign if you've a mind to. The contest is over but we're using it to collect money to spread some more pointed messages designed to give Boehner some heartburn.
