A red state goes code blue for GOP
A red state goes code blue for GOP
By Tim Jones
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published October 14, 2006
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In the color-coded, Crayola world of politics, Ohio is a red state.
But if one pays close attention--listening to the grumbles of unhappy voters, reading the poll numbers and catching the hang-dog expressions of Republicans--it's almost as if one can hear the drip-drip-dripping of the dye into the electoral paint can, changing the hue of the great state of Ohio ever closer to blue.
Ohio Democrats, who in recent years have shown all the organizational vigor of Chicago Republicans, have a strut instead of a limp in their step these days, less than a month before the election. And they know they wouldn't be in this position without the timely, bumbling generosity of the Republicans.
"The chickens are coming home to roost," said Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who actually lived in a chicken coop for some weeks as a child and is leading in his bid to become the state's first Democratic chief executive in 16 years.
Once again Ohio, credited with giving President Bush a second term two years ago, is the national battleground in miniature. The war in Iraq has left the veteran Senate incumbent, Mike DeWine, surprisingly vulnerable. Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty to felony corruption charges Friday, but has yet to leave office. And the Rep. Mark Foley congressional page sex scandal has damaged the campaign of the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, Deborah Pryce, who described Foley as a friend in a recent magazine article.
On the defensive
Republicans, who were expecting again to control the campaign debate, are on the defensive.
"They say they're the values party and they're the party that swept this [page scandal] under the rug," said Marianne Lannan, who runs a lampshade shop just north of downtown Columbus. "They knew about this for a while before they were forced to take action.
"I can't see that staying with the status quo would be any benefit to us," Lannan added.
Things have changed a lot in the two years since Bush won Ohio by about 119,000 votes, or 51 percent, over Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Values issues for conservative voters, such as a ban on sanctioning gay marriage, were big concerns in that election. Now, according to various polls, it is the uncertain economy and corruption.
The state's two-term Republican governor, Bob Taft, pleaded no contest last year to ethics charges that he failed to report golf trips and other gifts from lobbyists, and the Bush campaign's northwest Ohio director, Tom Noe, was convicted of losing more than $50 million of state money in a rare coin investment scandal.
Taft, who cannot run for re-election because of term limits, is a pariah in his party. His public approval rating is 12 percent.
"Ohioans are very unhappy overall with the state of their state," said John Green, a political scientist and co-director of the University of Akron poll.
Discontent can be heard up and down High Street, the north-south spine of the capital city, from the flat-topped, limestone state Capitol to the comfy and more Republican-leaning northern suburbs.
"They all ought to be thrown in jail," said Pedro Zamora, an antique-shop owner on the city's north side who describes himself as a Democrat. "I know the Democrats won't be able to do much better for us, but I want to get the Republicans out."
Even among the Republican faithful, like Mike Cress, a jewelry salesman in Worthington, there is mounting concern about the war in Iraq.
"It really is frustrating. I'm a [Vietnam] veteran and I'm seeing the same mistakes made in my war," Cress said, complaining about an inadequate number of troops and sub-par equipment for them. "It's kind of like Barney Fife--we send them out there with one bullet in their pocket and say `take care of it.' .. . We never learn."
Cress also said negative political advertising discourages him. He has pretty much ignored the Foley scandal and is hungry for a serious discussion about health-care cost. He's not optimistic he'll hear one soon.
Since 1994, familiarity with Republicans has bred re-election in Ohio, as the GOP holds every statewide office and both houses of the legislature. Now it appears that familiarity--for reasons that vary--is breeding contempt.
Outside of a church meeting in Worthington, Jerry Fugazzi, a retired drug company representative, said it wouldn't bother him to see Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown defeat DeWine.
He's not a Republican anyway," Fugazzi said of DeWine. "He's much more liberal."
Fugazzi said he will be voting for the rest of the Republican ticket, but he did not hide his disappointment with congressional Republicans and their "inability to get more done," such as shielding the border from illegal immigrants and making tax cuts permanent.
The clearest impact of voter dissatisfaction seems to be in the governor's race, where conservative Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell trails Strickland by double-digit margins, according to recent polls.
Strickland is from rural and economically challenged southern Ohio. The six-term congressman is an ordained minister and psychologist, and represents a break from the Democratic tendency of nominating urban candidates.
But Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, said of Strickland at one campaign stop, "He's high on rhetoric and would put Ohio on a couch ... and then tell us empathetically that `I feel your pain.'"
Strickland, whose campaign seems comfortable enough not to run negative ads, dismissed Blackwell, calling him "irrelevant to Ohio."
Political volatility is not new to Ohio. For most of the past century, partisan control of the governor's office changed every eight years. While the state twice voted for Republican Ronald Reagan for president, it re-elected left-of-center Democrats John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum to the U.S. Senate. And as the state's Republican Party began more than a decade of dominance, the state twice backed Democrat Bill Clinton for president.
Then came the war, the coin scandal, a stumbling economy and the trio of Bob Taft, Bob Ney and Mark Foley.
"It's a perfect storm," said Hugh Quill, the Democratic treasurer of Montgomery County, "but it's a perfect storm of their own making."
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tmjones@tribune.com
By Tim Jones
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
Published October 14, 2006
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In the color-coded, Crayola world of politics, Ohio is a red state.
But if one pays close attention--listening to the grumbles of unhappy voters, reading the poll numbers and catching the hang-dog expressions of Republicans--it's almost as if one can hear the drip-drip-dripping of the dye into the electoral paint can, changing the hue of the great state of Ohio ever closer to blue.
Ohio Democrats, who in recent years have shown all the organizational vigor of Chicago Republicans, have a strut instead of a limp in their step these days, less than a month before the election. And they know they wouldn't be in this position without the timely, bumbling generosity of the Republicans.
"The chickens are coming home to roost," said Rep. Ted Strickland, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate who actually lived in a chicken coop for some weeks as a child and is leading in his bid to become the state's first Democratic chief executive in 16 years.
Once again Ohio, credited with giving President Bush a second term two years ago, is the national battleground in miniature. The war in Iraq has left the veteran Senate incumbent, Mike DeWine, surprisingly vulnerable. Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty to felony corruption charges Friday, but has yet to leave office. And the Rep. Mark Foley congressional page sex scandal has damaged the campaign of the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, Deborah Pryce, who described Foley as a friend in a recent magazine article.
On the defensive
Republicans, who were expecting again to control the campaign debate, are on the defensive.
"They say they're the values party and they're the party that swept this [page scandal] under the rug," said Marianne Lannan, who runs a lampshade shop just north of downtown Columbus. "They knew about this for a while before they were forced to take action.
"I can't see that staying with the status quo would be any benefit to us," Lannan added.
Things have changed a lot in the two years since Bush won Ohio by about 119,000 votes, or 51 percent, over Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Values issues for conservative voters, such as a ban on sanctioning gay marriage, were big concerns in that election. Now, according to various polls, it is the uncertain economy and corruption.
The state's two-term Republican governor, Bob Taft, pleaded no contest last year to ethics charges that he failed to report golf trips and other gifts from lobbyists, and the Bush campaign's northwest Ohio director, Tom Noe, was convicted of losing more than $50 million of state money in a rare coin investment scandal.
Taft, who cannot run for re-election because of term limits, is a pariah in his party. His public approval rating is 12 percent.
"Ohioans are very unhappy overall with the state of their state," said John Green, a political scientist and co-director of the University of Akron poll.
Discontent can be heard up and down High Street, the north-south spine of the capital city, from the flat-topped, limestone state Capitol to the comfy and more Republican-leaning northern suburbs.
"They all ought to be thrown in jail," said Pedro Zamora, an antique-shop owner on the city's north side who describes himself as a Democrat. "I know the Democrats won't be able to do much better for us, but I want to get the Republicans out."
Even among the Republican faithful, like Mike Cress, a jewelry salesman in Worthington, there is mounting concern about the war in Iraq.
"It really is frustrating. I'm a [Vietnam] veteran and I'm seeing the same mistakes made in my war," Cress said, complaining about an inadequate number of troops and sub-par equipment for them. "It's kind of like Barney Fife--we send them out there with one bullet in their pocket and say `take care of it.' .. . We never learn."
Cress also said negative political advertising discourages him. He has pretty much ignored the Foley scandal and is hungry for a serious discussion about health-care cost. He's not optimistic he'll hear one soon.
Since 1994, familiarity with Republicans has bred re-election in Ohio, as the GOP holds every statewide office and both houses of the legislature. Now it appears that familiarity--for reasons that vary--is breeding contempt.
Outside of a church meeting in Worthington, Jerry Fugazzi, a retired drug company representative, said it wouldn't bother him to see Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown defeat DeWine.
He's not a Republican anyway," Fugazzi said of DeWine. "He's much more liberal."
Fugazzi said he will be voting for the rest of the Republican ticket, but he did not hide his disappointment with congressional Republicans and their "inability to get more done," such as shielding the border from illegal immigrants and making tax cuts permanent.
The clearest impact of voter dissatisfaction seems to be in the governor's race, where conservative Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell trails Strickland by double-digit margins, according to recent polls.
Strickland is from rural and economically challenged southern Ohio. The six-term congressman is an ordained minister and psychologist, and represents a break from the Democratic tendency of nominating urban candidates.
But Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, said of Strickland at one campaign stop, "He's high on rhetoric and would put Ohio on a couch ... and then tell us empathetically that `I feel your pain.'"
Strickland, whose campaign seems comfortable enough not to run negative ads, dismissed Blackwell, calling him "irrelevant to Ohio."
Political volatility is not new to Ohio. For most of the past century, partisan control of the governor's office changed every eight years. While the state twice voted for Republican Ronald Reagan for president, it re-elected left-of-center Democrats John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum to the U.S. Senate. And as the state's Republican Party began more than a decade of dominance, the state twice backed Democrat Bill Clinton for president.
Then came the war, the coin scandal, a stumbling economy and the trio of Bob Taft, Bob Ney and Mark Foley.
"It's a perfect storm," said Hugh Quill, the Democratic treasurer of Montgomery County, "but it's a perfect storm of their own making."
----------
tmjones@tribune.com
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 9:15 AM
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