Ken Blackwell speaks at a 2006 rally in Cleveland. Blackwell: Obama plan a partisan ploy

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell said Friday President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan is designed in part to give a political edge to Democrats.

Blackwell, a candidate for chair of the Republican National Committee, blasted Obama in a column for the conservative website Townhall.com, writing that the stimulus package “as currently designed, has serious flaws, some of which convey a partisan advantage.”


Specifically, Blackwell charged that Obama’s plans to create hundreds of thousands of government jobs could be a thinly-veiled effort to swell Democratic voter rolls in Maryland and Virginia.

“Most federal employees, that are not political employees, vote Democrat,” Blackwell argued. “Creating 600,000 new jobs might help cement Virginia in the Democrat column, making it harder for Republicans to retake the White House.”

In addition, Blackwell also suggested that Democrats would pack the stimulus bill with earmarks targeted at voters in the 2010 midterm election. He pointed specifically at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose home state of Nevada may receive federal funding for a controversial – and some say frivolous – museum of organized crime.

“Is that the kind of project that requires emergency federal funding?” Blackwell asked rhetorically. “Is it irrelevant that Mr. Reid is facing a tough reelection next year?”

The former Cincinnati mayor, a favorite target of liberal bloggers due to his role in overseeing Ohio’s 2004 presidential balloting, has distinguished himself in the RNC contest as the most aggressive and sharply ideological conservative in the field.

In early January he received endorsements from a host of conservative movement leaders, including Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, American Conservative Union President David Keene and Virginia RNC Committeeman Morton Blackwell.