DHL

Gov. Ted Strickland has canceled his scheduled testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee to oppose the DHL-UPS merger.

Instead, Strickland will tour wind damaged areas throughout the state today. Strickland declared a state of emergency yesterday in response to storms that knocked out electricity for about 2 million Ohioans in 80 of 88 counties. 

Strickland's office said he will be in Hamilton County at noon, then will be in Montgomery County and finaly Franklin County this evening. Local media availabilities are scheduled at each stop.

John McCain's presidential campaign is hitting back against Barack Obama and Democrats' attacks about McCain and DHL's impending job cuts in Ohio -- the full back-and-forth of which you can read here.

The campaign is also referring reporters and all interested to a FactCheck.org page sorting out the rivaling DHL claims from both sides, which they believe McCain comes out on top of.

Earlier today Obama's campaign launched its own DHL television advertisement. 

Barack Obama's presidential campaign is on TV with an ad attacking John McCain for campaign manager Rick Davis' invovlement with DHL -- which is planning to cut about 8,000 jobs from the Wilmington air park after its merger with UPS.

Davis was a lobbyist for DHL's parent company in 2005, but not since then. Davis and the McCain campaign claim that he helped bring DHL to Ohio, creating thousands of jobs, and that Obama is politicizing the issue while McCain has met with Wilmington locals. Meanwhile, McCain has called on the Department of Justice to investigate potential anti-trust violations with the DHL-UPS merger.

The mailer against McCain: AFL-CIOThe AFL-CIO has joined the Ohio Democratic Party and Barack Obama's presidential campaign in hammering John McCain over the impending job losses in Wilmington from the UPS-DHL merger.

The AFL-CIO is mailing 100,000 "union swing voters" in Ohio a pamplet that attacks McCain for turning his back on workers. McCain is taking heat because his campaign manager, Rick Davis, who worked for the DHL parent company Deutche Poste in 2005.

The federation wants members to call and e-mail McCain's Ohio offices and ask the campaign to fire Davis.

Interestingly this AFL-CIO mailing is less than half the size of the mailing to "Meet Barack Obama," which the union made in Ohio last month to 250,000 members. 

The Ohio Democratic Party is up with a new Web ad on YouTube that features presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) campaign manager, Rick Davis, on Fox News Sunday.

The ad focuses on Davis' connection to the DHL hub in Wilmington, Ohio.

A pending deal between DHL parent company Deustche Poste World Net and UPS threatens to shut down DHL's Wilmington hub. The closing of the hub could cost Ohio upwards of 8,000 jobs.

The full Fox News Sunday interview is available on Yahoo video here.

A Cleveland Plain Dealer story last Wednesday revealed that Davis is the former lobbyist for Deustche Poste. The story also revealed that both McCain and Davis helped secure the original DHL deal that brought the company to Ohio.

The woman who put Wilmington on the national political map wants Barack Obama's campaign to pull the radio ad it's airing today blaming John McCain for 8,000 potential layoffs in the city as a result of the UPS-DHL merger.

On a conference call with reporters hosted by the McCain campaign, Mary Houghtaling denounced the ad and Obama for painting Wilmington residents as victims of McCain and campaign manager Rick Davis, who was a lobbyist for DHL's German owner three years ago.

"It's shameful, horrible thing for him to do to use us to promote him," Houghtaling said.

Presumptive presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is slated to begin airing a radio ad in Ohio that hits opponent Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on his connection to the DHL air cargo hub in Wilmington.

A pending deal between DHL parent company Deustche Poste World Net and UPS threatens to shut down DHL's Wilmington hub. The closing of the hub could cost Ohio upwards of 8,000 jobs.

A Cleveland Plain Dealer story Wednesday revealed that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis is the former lobbyist for Deustche Poste. The story also revealed that both McCain and Davis helped secure the original DHL deal that brought the company to Ohio.

McCain met with Wilmington residents Thursday to discuss what he could do to help spare the city from the impending deal. The Associated Press reported that McCain called on the Justice Department to begin an antitrust investigation into DHL's plans to put its packages aboard the planes of a rival, United Parcel Service, before delivering them in DHL trucks.

John McCain is keeping quiet about a deal he pushed through back in 2003, with his support and the lobbying efforts of his current campaign manager Rick Davis, that allowed foreign owned DHL to buy Airborne Express for $1.05 billion.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Lorain County) called on presumptive presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to use his contacts with express shipper DHL to save 8,000 Ohio jobs in Wilmington during a conference call Wednesday morning.

A pending deal between DHL parent company Deustche Poste World Net and UPS threatens to shut down DHL's Wilmington hub.

A Cleveland Plain Dealer story Wednesday revealed that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis is the former lobbyist for Deustche Poste. The story also revealed that both McCain and Davis helped secure the original DHL deal that brought the company to Ohio. DHL received more than $400 million in state funds for new roads and facility upgrades.

"Rick Davis earned hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for DHL," Brown said. "Now it's time to see if he and John McCain will use their considerable clout to lobby for Ohio families."

Gov. Strickland speaking in WilmingtonWILMINGTON -- Gov. Ted Strickland (D-Lisbon) spoke at the Clinton County Democratic Dinner in Wilmington Thursday night, and talked about the energy problem and the community being hit by the news that express-shipper DHL might be closing a facility hub in Wilmington that could cost the area 6,000 to 8,200 jobs.

"What's happening in this community is a crisis," Strickland said. "You can't take a community like this and pull eighty-two to eighty-five hundred living-wage jobs out of it, and it not be an economic crisis."

Strickland said the impact on the community was cataclysmic. Strickland said that in a one-week period, he got the news about DHL, news about the closing of a General Motors plant and news that Continental Airlines would be rolling back services in Ohio.

"My friends, in a one-week period of time I heard about the potential job loss of about 12,000 living-wage jobs - good benefits, union jobs - all of them related to fuel costs and energy costs," he said. "We're facing a difficult time in this community, and we are working as hard as we can."