Sorry, I can’t resist adapting the headline to this post on Ken Blackwell’s campaign blog (hat tip to Buckeye State Blog). Blackwell, Ohio’s Secretary of State and its Republican nominee for governor, is running against Rep. Ted Strickland (D) in the race to replace the overwhelmingly unpopular Bob Taft (R) as governor.

In an effort to show how out-of-touch Strickland is with Ohio voters, Blackwell Blog cites Strickland’s support for an appropriations bill that at one point included earmarks funding studies on San Francisco’s Asian prostitutes and the sexual habits of pandas in China.

While the Blackwell camp concerns itself with those bits of trivia, two national Democratic leaders are concerned with the obvious conflict of interest posed by Blackwell serving as secretary of state and overseeing Ohio’s election results at the same time he runs for governor. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (chair of the DCCC) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (chair of the DSCC) sent a letter to Blackwell requesting that he step down as secretary of state. Blackwell has no intention of doing so.

Emanuel and Schumer are right to be concerned, as Blackwell oversaw the state’s notorious 2004 election that might have disenfranchised many Ohioans. His capricious rulings and hands-off approach to incompetent and politicized county elections boards are chronicled by Farhad Manjoo here and Andrew Gumbel here.