blogger interrupted

The rumors about Marc Dann have been percolating in the blogosphere for months. That’s not really news; hell, Dann rumors scurried about well before the blogosphere existed. What might be news, to the uninitiated, is the deafening silence coming out of ODP circles in Dann’s defense.

I first met Marc Dann back in the mid 1990’s when I interviewed with him for a staff position on one of Mary Boyle’s countless campaigns of futility for statewide office.  Dann was the campaign manager.  The campaign was a farce.  Coincidence unlikely.

During my interview, which Dann made me wait a half an hour to start, Dann wore a headset, with which he kept answering his phone, in some weird “I’m So In Charge” penis-wagging psychodrama.  I don’t think Dann looked at me more than 10% of the entire interview.  In fact, I don’t think he remembered conducting it 30 seconds after I left the room.  I told my “Marc Dann’s An Asshole” story to everyone I knew, which I guess is why they all told me their Marc Dann, ahem….stories.

This is who Marc Dann is.  This episode is only the most petty of his numerous irritants and past deeds, some of which are so profound I can’t even print them on this blog.  And every upper ecshelon Democrat in Ohio knows ALL about them.

When Dann was cruising to the ODP endorsement for attorney general in 2006, many of us in the blogosphere wondered why such a rush?  Who is this guy?  And more important, why was this guy, who is no more well known than Subodh Chandra, getting the big red carpet? I wondered this too, until I thought about it.

As counterintuitive as this may seem, ODP’s glitterati giving the olay treatment to Marc Dann, whose many “imperfections” were well known to the kingmakers, was a cold, calculated effort to get him out of the way.  No one really thought he’d beat Betty Montgomery.  And everyone expected that before the election in 2006, or at least sometime soon after, the shit would hit the fan, and that’d be one less Democrat in line for statewide offices for the next decade.

It really was a matter of time.  However a corrupt, slimy, cliched, laughable puke Leo Jennings or Anthony Guttierrez might be, anyone who thinks Marc Dann just kinda hangs out with these guys is just a damn fool.  Marc Dann isn’t some babe in the woods who has a couple of roommate buddies who happen to be disgusting pigs – he’s one of them.  The fact that he brought his posse into the office to help him implode is just a rich irony.

And as for Jessica Utovich, let’s just say there’s another short, porky Ohio politico who might know as much about Utovich’s pajamas as Marc Dann does.  Utovich has, shall we say, been around Cleveland Democratic politics for a long time, long enough to know where she can get her bread buttered.  Far be it from me to give Matt Naugle’s version of reality any quarter, but in this case, Naugle proves that even a bling pig finds a nut once in a while.

All of which is why top Ohio Dems will surely stand by and watch this catastrophe unfold, feigning sadness.  No, no….there will be no loud defense of Marc Dann from Ted Strickland, or Lee Fisher, or Chris Redfern.  What you’ll see instead is a knowing silence.  I’d be shocked if there isn’t a successor already lined up – because that’s how TedFern rolls.