Sen. George Voinovich, who elected not to run for re-election due to a terminal case of Rinoitus Senatitus, gave an interview to the newspaper in Columbus, Ohio and said some positively loopy things. Among them, when asked what ails the Republican Party, this is what Georgie the V came up with:
“We got too many Jim DeMints (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburns (R-Ok.). It’s the southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?’ ”
Wow. Let's unpack that mess. First, to The Dispatch, the "S" is capitalized in Southerners. You got it wrong three times. As for the Senator's statement, I know many Ohioans and find them to be a generally likable sort. I think it's extremely disrespectful for their Senator to characterize them as a bunch of bigoted degenerates who make political decisions based on bias towards the accent of another region of the United States. Senator Voinovich owes his Ohio brethren an apology for making them sound like a bunch of knuckle-dragging idiots. Or, maybe by "people" he meant New Yorkers, New Englanders, New Jersey ex-pats, and the like. In which case...
And, finally Senator, the correct grammar is, "We have too many" and "what in the hell". I'll let it slide though since you're gettin' kinda slow in your dotage. In any event, you can't swing a Louisville Slugger around the South without hitting somebody who has moved here from the North. We run into folks almost every day who've fled Ohio. (Check that-- EVERY day.) In fact, they all seem to have left Ohio in the years that George was either Governor or Senator.
Hmmmmmm.......
