
No use in delaying the announcement any longer – effective November 30th, this site is changing. Kyle and I were brought on to supplement the election coverage for Ohio.com and that period has come and gone. So has our time here.
It has been a tremendous opportunity and one I never took for granted. It was not one I ever sought out, but one that I am glad I decided to do after some initial reluctance. Things worked out far better than I thought they would both for myself and the site. I have had chances to do things, go to events, get access, and meet people that would never have been possible before this website launched.
We found out officially on October 30, the day after the Phillies won the World Series. Talk about a buzz kill. It was my decision to keep it quiet until now. I felt it best that way: continue on through the election and keep doing the best job possible without distraction. This won't be my last post here, but readers deserve to be informed about what is going on. Sorry, that is all I have; I have no idea what they will be doing with the site.
There are a few people I want to thank. She is no longer with Ohio.com, but Linda Lyell was the one who got this thing started. It was her idea and she got it off the ground. Jim Arnold helped get the site launch off the ground and helped us work through some of the early technical stuff. Amanda Reagan was charged with the tough task of selling ads. Dan Kadar has done a lot of behind the scenes work as well – filming many interviews and doing general site maintenance. The site couldn't have run without him. His name was never on anything, but it should have been. When we were having trouble gaining traction early on, many bloggers linked to us or wrote something nice about what was going on here. There are too many to name, but you aren't forgotten. I will always remember the people that stuck up for me when the controversy flared up one week in. It was people on both sides of the blogosphere, friends, family members, high ups at the ABJ, and other random people who were outraged that I might be fired after a week. Thanks to all the politicians who took their valuable time to do interviews with us. Governor Ted Strickland particularly. Others know who you are. In my opinion, that helped put this site above most others. My parents wholsupported my move back into the Akron area, knowing that this was something of a dream job for me. That is not a surprise – they've always been there for both of their children in good times and bad, and I have had a lot of bad. My mom must have given out hundreds of our business cards to people around the area. My dad was always there to bounce my ideas off of. I hope I didn't embarrass you two that much with what I wrote. My grandma would even set her alarm for those early morning radio appearances on WAKR that I would do on about 2 hours sleep. Thank you for your support through it all.
Of course, I was only one of the two people who wrote here. Kyle pushed for me to be the conservative point of view during the planning phase and I am grateful for him looking out for me. We always said if a chance like this ever came along either we would both do it or we wouldn't do it at all. He lived up to it when the opportunity came. When it looked like I would be getting the ax after the early trouble he said he wouldn't go on without me despite my pleas not to let a Summit County GOP Chairman bring him down too. He even offered to give me half his check for three months because I couldn't get paid until after the March primary. That is a friend. There is no one else I would rather have done this with. We had some good times – especially the "strategy sessions" at the Nuthouse to discuss plans for the upcoming week. The privilege was mine.
Lastly I want to thank the readers and especially those who took the comment, call me, or email me with tips, whether it was one time or a hundred times. You are the greatest and have my eternal gratitude, even those of you who savaged me. Things are kind of dull if you don't get any feedback, but that was never a problem. We couldn't have asked for a better core group of commenters that knew their stuff and weren't afraid to argue for their point of view or candidate. This site was an experiment and I think that we proved there is room on the internet for two people with differing perspectives to share the same space. I certainly wish things had gone better for my side on November 4th, but that is the way it goes. John McCain had the misfortune of running in the worst environment possible. Locally a lot of great people, not just great candidates but great people, went down to defeat for the crime of running in the wrong year. This area should be proud to have these outstanding individuals in the community. I met a lot of you and the sacrifices you made to run for public office is something that most of us just talk about. Just because we lost this time doesn't mean the fight is over. Democrats should enjoy their win. Everything is cyclical and you will be out of power again, hopefully sooner rather than later.
I do however have one regret. I was unable to keep my own site up as much as I wanted. Anything I had to say about the big stories went here. I thought I could keep up two sites, but it just wasn't possible. I'll be heading back there and I have some work to do to get the KPR back where it was. I hope you follow me back there. The effort will be what it was here. I'll still be reading all the stuff everyone else is writing.
But until The Point is officially gone, I'll be here.
Oh and if anyone out there is looking to hire, my resume is up to date………

Long time readers may remember that our site was pulled one week after it was launched. I thought that was it and we wouldn't make it another month. But, they stuck with us and I was very happy to have the opportunity to write here. Thank you to Linda, Jim, Dan, Rose, and the others at Ohio.com for helping us along the way so that we could go the distance through the election. The biggest factor in keeping our site viable were our readers. To date, we've had over 5,500 comments and counting. Thank you for taking the time to stop by, read, and share your thoughts.
Ben and I had the opportunity to do a lot of things that we wouldn't normally have gotten to do if we didn't write for Ohio.com. One of our biggest early supporters and arguably the nicest guy in Akron is 1590 WAKR's Ray Horner. He had us on his show for several discussions over the course of the campaign and treated us like professionals. No one has ever enunciated my name so well. He almost made it sound normal. Ed Esposito and Eric Mansfield also helped us along the way and Eric invited us to be on NewsNight Akron. Ray, Eric, and Ed do such a good job covering Akron politics and news. It was a privilege to get to know them. Getting to know people is something Ben and I spent a lot of time doing. As openly partisan people, we were able to build a trust with local campaigns and candidates that helped us do our jobs as bloggers. Even though I can't name names to reveal my sources, you folks know who you are and I appreciate all the emails, phone calls, and meetings to answer my questions.
Ben, what can I say? We sat in Ted Strickland's office and interviewed him. We had campaign staffers calling us late at night with information and accusations hoping we'd post it the next day. We spoke to a variety of groups, sat on panels, and got to throw in our two cents about what we love to follow. We managed to become the first independent bloggers hired by an Ohio newspaper that were able to keep our site going and we made it for a full election year. You definitely carried the load here by posting when there seemed like nothing to write about, commenting on dozens of Ohio blogs so they would check out our site, and keeping up with the comments to keep our threads fresh. I suspect it is because of your well deserved appearance at the Cleveland City Club that in our last week that little BlogNetNews ranking has us as the 6th most influential blog in the state. I have never understood how they come up with that number, but it is nice to go out in the top ten given the quality of our competition. As I've been telling you for a long time, you will someday run for political office and when you do I'll be one of the first there to help.