The Canton Repository’s Paul Kostyu brings up an issue which I’ve been thinking about for the past few days:

The days leading up to the resignation of Marc Dann as Ohio’s attorney general were a feeding frenzy for the reporters from around the state.

On the day of his resignation last week, Dann’s campaign spokesman, Jason Stanford, sent notices Dann would resign at noon. Stanford, though armed with a 330 area code number, actually handled things from his office in Texas.

Media outlets, including television crews from as far away as Cleveland, crowded into the lobby of the attorney general’s office on the 17th floor of the Rhodes Tower. They blocked the entrance, making it difficult for employees to come and go for lunch.

When Dann was spotted briefly, cameras swung up to try to get a picture. Inspector General Thomas Charles was seen through the agency’s glass doors.

After about an hour of nothing, Dann’s two Columbus-based spokesmen faced the cameras, microphones and voice recorders stuck in front of them. There was no press conference, they said; Dann was not resigning; he had gone to lunch; they weren’t expecting an announcement of any kind. Of course, they had not talked to Dann for at least 24 hours and only in passing, so they might not have really known what was going on.

“This is so silly,” a print reporter from the Statehouse press corps said of the media display.

Eventually, cameras, lights and recorders were put away and the press dissipated.

Three hours later they congregated again in the governor’s Cabinet room across the street in the Statehouse, where Dann resigned.

At the time, I was interested in attending the press conference. I don’t think a press release was ever sent out about that mystery 12 noon press conference, but it was reported first by The Columbus Dispatch. And the Dispatch later reported that Dann’s press team, including the Texas-based firm that was hired by Dann, insisted that no press conference was ever scheduled:

Dann’s Texas-based political spokesman, Jason Stanford, said early this morning that Dann was planning to make an important announcement at noon. After the hour came and went, an office spokesman, Jim Gravelle, said Dann had no public statements planned for today. Stanford didn’t return calls later in the day, but later claimed he hadn’t told The Dispatch about the press conference.

Dann, who remained in the center of swirl of rumors about his political future today, said nothing except that reports of a noon press conference were “false.”

Stanford is a political veteran and it is difficult to believe that he would schedule a press conference which wasn’t actually going to happen.

But isn’t it alittle too convenient that the press was there at noon, exactly as the police was carrying out computers for the investigation?

I am no conspiracy theorist, but I think this mystery press conference was coordinated between Gov. Strickland’s office and atleast one person in The Columbus Dispatch. I think Strickland and the Ohio Democrats wanted to show how quickly they were moving to clean up corruption in Ohio, and wanted to make sure reporters and photographers were there to document what was going on while the Attorney General’s office was being locked down. The theatrics and perfect timing, combined with a professional spokesman not being prepared for the arrival of the entire State House press corps, makes me think this was all coordinated and on purpose. It could be described as Gov. Strickland’s “shock and awe” approach of purging his political party of damaged goods.

In the overall scope of the Marc Dann story, this issue is insignificant. But it is disappointing to think The Dispatch would play politics like that, and then have their innocent reporters falsely report on the story the Dispatch may have secretly helped create.