COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) - CityBeat Magazine, Cincinnati's free news and entertainment weekly, did the unthinkable Wednesday by endorsing the Socialist candidate on the fall ballot, whose odds of beating either of the two majority party candidates whose campaigns have spent millions on their behalf as each hopes to succeed Ohio's retiring two-term senior Senator, Republican George V. Voinovich, are probably worse than winning the Ohio Lottery.

But damming the odds, the spunky and funky tabloid that covers Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky featured an article written by its editor, John Fox, that paddled the Tea Party for its "crazy contradictions" and for falling short of becoming a "true populist movement."

Beyond saying the emergence of the Tea Party movement is what will be remembered most about the 2010 elections, the article included the "CityBeat Ticket," a list of ten races and candidates the publication recommended its "intelligent, educated, thoughtful, dynamic adults" vote for no later than next Tuesday.

Included in the list of ten races - 2 local, 4 Ohio statewide, 4 federal - was the open seat for Ohio's U.S Senator. For nine seats on its list, CityBeat recommended eight Democrats and one Charterite.

But when it came to the open Ohio Senate seat, CityBeat showed both its hometown colors and its rye sense of humor when it through its journalistic clout to Dan La Botz, a 65-year old local candidate who teaches Spanish at an elementary school and who proudly flew his Socialist flag while the other candidates waved the Star and Stripes at every opportunity.

In serious mode, Fox and company said of La Botz, who has authored a book for the campaign laying out his views on the issues, "He sees the answers to our national problems and international conflicts coming not from the Democratic or Republican parties but from powerful labor and social movements he hopes to foster."

But in a devilish mode beftting of Halloween, and adding a dose of quirky humor to its already out-there endorsement of La Botz, CityBeat said of electing La Botz, "The heads of those on the Far Right who consider Obama a socialist would explode, and that could be fun to watch."

For La Botz, a Chicago-born activist and organizer, his recently completed book - "Vision from the Heartland: Socialism for the 21st Century" - says solving the nation's many problems, from the economy to the environment to foreign wars, will come from creating a socialist society.

For those who actually know what socialism is, La Botz' definition should come as no surprise. His definition centers on America's workers who will "collectively own and democratically plan and manage the major industries and enterprises."

Making heads explode in Ohio is easy, especially if you call for the abolition of corporations and of capitalism in order to create a society of plenty for all, as La Botz unabashedly does. "I believe that such a society can only be created by building a powerful movement for democracy and for working class power," he says in the book's preface.

For these reasons and more, La Botz will still be teaching Spanish to youngsters when Ohio's elections conclude, and Rob Portman, another Cincinnatian and Republican who polls put far ahead of Fisher in the waning days of the campaign season, will likely start his six-year term in Washington in the world's greatest deliberative body.

Click 'Subscribe' above to have the next Columbus Government Examiner column delivered to you via email. Read more stories on people, politics and government in Ohio here, or on Facebook or Twitter. Send news or tips to ohionewsbureau@gmail.com