The Professor's Amazing Time Travel Machine (or, 1912 or 2011?)

The Professor is inviting me to travel back to 1912 and help him fix the Ohio Constitution!

But I've got another idea. I want to jump ahead to 2011 instead.

My favorite anonymous blogger's had a great time lately over at Political Science 216, trying to start a movement to recall Jimmy Dimora. He created a mesmerizing pop-art logo for it, like Shepard Fairey's Obama poster. He founded a "Recall Dimora" Facebook group that now has 109 members, including Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett.

He even called the Board of Elections to find out how to get a recall petition started. (I hope he was going to use his real name and address, not "Peter Boyd" and Progressive Field.)

That's when he learned a shocking truth (one I didn't know either) -- we can't recall county officials.

You can read the Professor's entertaining law lecture here. But basically, the Progressive-era reforms in Ohio's 1912 constitution were not quite Progressive enough. We can't recall state officials either.

The Professor blames Dimora: "Using technology from MMPI, and flush with cash from Dick Jacobs, Sam Miller and the Ratner Family, Jimmy Dimora traveled back in time in a large time machine and bribed the drafters of Ohio Constitution..."

To fix this, the Professor's hatched a plan worthy of a Hollywood sci-fi caper flick. It involves him, me, blogger Tim Ferris and Plain Dealer columnist Thomas Suddes (surely included in the mission for his vast knowledge of Ohio political arcana: which Ohio counties voted for FDR, which were founded by Connecticut settlers, etc.) traveling back in time like in Quantum Leap to foil Dimora's dastardly plot.

Well, I never knew blogging could be this fun. If anyone's got a time machine, I'll jump in.

But like I said, I've got another idea. It involves 2011, not 1912. I'll post about it tomorrow.

(photo by Adam Lautenbach, from Flickr)