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Fitzgerald exploits his son to deflect questions about his scandal. UPDATED.

This morning, Ed Fitzgerald reached a new low.

For days, he has been hiding out and avoiding questions and discrepancies about his drivers license scandal and the facts surrounding his 4:30AM incident in a car with a woman who isn’t his wife.

Now, all of a sudden, he wants to talk about his son’s cancer 4 years ago. He sent out an email, posted in full at the bottom of this post, titled “Our family’s challenge” saying that his son’s recent screening came back OK.

We’re not looking for sympathy; lots of families have gone through the same or worse. But it’s helped us learn a lesson: that whatever is thrown at the FitzGerald family — personal, political, medical, whatever — we’re going to survive and just get stronger as a family unit. Nothing — nothing — will ever change that, whether we have support from millions of Ohioans, or whether we’re on our own.

We’re not looking for sympathy? That is quite possibly the biggest lie Ed Fitzgerald has told since his campaign for governor began.

I was not aware of his son’s medical problems. I certainly pray that his recovery stays positive and that he lives a healthy life.

But the timing of this message can only be described in negative terms.

Calculated. Exploitative. Offensive.

Fitzgerald has refused to answer the media’s questions surrounding his character for days, and the next public communication he issues in his own words is “Hey, who wants to talk about my son’s cancer four years ago?!”

Even fellow Democrats are shocked, according to NEOMG’s Andrew Tobias.

“I don’t go around talking about [the fact that] I’m a cancer survivor. I don’t give public reports about my state,” Austin said. “To bring that into the campaign at this point, when he is basically imploding, as a way of saying to people that ‘I’m a family man, this is a family issue’ and all of that, that’s offensive.”

Fellow contributor Rachel wrote on PFOL:

Reminding voters that your child is a cancer survivor in the midst of breaking scandals is not how you attract people. It is how you offend them.

Anyone with a basic grasp of social skills would realize how offensive this is to the average person. You don’t have to even be a parent to realize this is appalling. You simply need a brain and a heart.

Ed Fitzgerald is facing a crisis of his own making. Instead of coming forward and answering the questions forthrightly, today he decided to hide behind his son. This is another revealing look into Ed’s true character. It’s not a good one.

UPDATE: Check out some of the harsh words the Plain Dealer editorial writers had.

Has he no shame? I am going to guess not. FitzGerald refused to fully explain why he was in a car at 4:30 a.m. in the morning two years ago with a woman who is not his wife. He refused to explain why he didn’t get a driver’s license for years and then he writes a pathetic letter using his son’s health issues — he is just fine, thanks — as a way to deflect from FitzGerald’s own catastrophic political blunders. Quit already, Ed.

But the email FitzGerald sent out Thursday to elicit the pity vote by mining his son’s cancer (which is in remission) was an obscenity. He needs to apologize to his family, to his son and to the voters — all of whom he betrayed for personal gain.

Instead, he soldiers on, now holding a metaphoric picture of his cancer-free son ahead of him to deflect, as he seems to believe, the next volley of criticism. Sad.


Friend —

This week, our family dealt with an ongoing challenge, but it’s not the one you probably heard about. It wasn’t about personal attacks, or personal mistakes, or gutter politics.

While the political world, as usual, was focused on that kind of thing, we were focused on our oldest son, Jack. As some of you know, four years ago, Jack was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. After going through chemotherapy during his senior year in high school, Jack was declared cancer-free, and we began the “waiting game” that so many families experience — hoping that there would be no recurrence of the cancer.

He recently had some symptoms that had us concerned, so yesterday we had one of our periodic checkups, and so far everything seems fine. We’re lucky that we’ve had such excellent, compassionate medical care. And in a way, we’re lucky that this has helped our family put the political games of the last week in perspective. While the rest of the political establishment was talking about drivers’ licenses, our focus was right where it belonged — on our family.

We’re not looking for sympathy; lots of families have gone through the same or worse. But it’s helped us learn a lesson: that whatever is thrown at the FitzGerald family — personal, political, medical, whatever — we’re going to survive and just get stronger as a family unit. Nothing — nothing — will ever change that, whether we have support from millions of Ohioans, or whether we’re on our own.

This campaign was launched for all the right reasons. As much as we care about our family, we know that you care about yours just as much. We want a state government that reflects those values — quality education, good paying jobs, excellent medical care, and support for struggling families. But we won’t get there if we don’t focus on what really matters, and that’s what we’ll be focusing on again, beginning tomorrow. (Today we have a family birthday celebration, so we are taking a day off from campaigning.)

Thank you to all of you who have offered support, friendship, and prayers. Our family is strong, and getting stronger. We hope yours is too.

Ed and Shannon FitzGerald



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Third Base Politics is an Ohio-centric conservative blog that has been featured at Hot Air, National Review, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and others.

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