Citizens share concerns about council candidate Julie Love

The voters of Cleveland Heights tend to be an educated bunch. We like to move beyond political slogans and yard signs, dig deeper, and find out what a candidate really stands for. Over the past week, the blog of city council hopeful Julie Love was circulated widely over social media. Residents were initially taken aback by both its provocative name, "Redneck Rants: A country girl with two children shares her views on life in the inner-city," and its equally provocative domain address: redneckmominthehood.blogspot.com.

Voters, hoping to move past Ms. Love’s broadly appealing message of lower taxes, decided to see for themselves who this woman really is and what she stands for. As more and more residents visited her site and then expressed their shock and concern on Facebook and Twitter, Ms. Love began slowly removing her most controversial posts, hiding her words from the public instead of owning up to them.

Fortunately, for the concerned voter, those words are still available on www.eaglerising.com/author/jlove, a Tea Party-sponsored site, and on http://lastresistance.com, billed as “Liberalism’s worst nightmare.”

One eye-opening example is Ms. Love’s take on Muslims: “This enemy hates bacon. Seriously. It makes me sad just thinking about it. Muslim cab drivers won't pick up American riders if they have just been shopping and have pork products in their bags. This enemy hates dogs. The most beloved American pet, most of us consider our dogs part of the family. In Muslim countries, you can get 70 lashes for having a dog. This enemy hates America and all of our freedoms. And, they are coming for us, you and me."

In other posts, she refers to public education as a “socialist think tank,” to AR-15s (cousin to the AK-47) as “popular sports rifles,” and to President Obama as “an idiot” and “a Fascist kingpin.”

We encourage every voter in this city to take the time to read through Ms. Love’s articles and decide for yourselves if this is the type of person you want representing you and your community. If your views align, then by all means vote for her. But if some of her opinions make you feel uncomfortable, think twice. Look beyond the simple messaging. Decide whether these fringe views—for they are indeed fringe no matter where you stand on a simple issue like tax increases—truly represent Cleveland Heights and what we hope is its future.