Dispatch - Some in GOP look to their left

Democrats invaded Ohio’s GOP stronghold yesterday, meeting with about 50 Republicans in a Warren County golf club after a day of bold talk about how support is flowing their way across party lines.

But Republicans were quick to bash the Democratic foray into five southwestern Ohio counties as mere posturing, saying the reliably GOP area will vote as usual come Nov. 7.

It’s more than just the standard political argument this year. If Democrats can attract substantial GOP support, that bodes well not only for gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland but also for U.S. Senate hopeful Sherrod Brown and Democrats down the statewide ticket. The party has not won a statewide nonjudicial race in 12 years.

Former Mason Mayor Betty Davis, who said she’s been a loyal Republican since speaking out for Richard Nixon as a sixthgrader, organized last night’s gathering of GOP dissidents. She said she sent out 75 invitations; about 50 people showed up at Shaker Run Golf Club to meet with Strickland, Brown and most of the rest of the Democratic statewide ticket on the general election campaign’s first bus tour.

"The last eight years in Ohio have been such a disaster," said Davis, mayor for 21 years until 2000. She said she and others have grown tired of the alienation and polarization espoused by many in their party, a refusal to connect with everyday people on important issues, and the stream of ethics violations in Columbus.

Strickland praised the courage of the group, whose home county has provided an average 74 percent backing for GOP gubernatorial candidates in the past four elections.

Earlier in the day, Strickland said many Ohio Republicans have grown weary of the "incompetence, corruption, and in some cases outright illegality" of GOP leaders in Columbus and Washington.

"Nearly every place I go, large cities and small towns in this state, almost always someone comes up to me and says, ‘I’m a Republican but I am going to support you,’ " Strickland told a cheering, sign-waving crowd of more than 100 in Dayton.

"Something has happened to the Republican Party. There are growing numbers of moderate Republicans saying they can’t tolerate the extreme position of Ken Blackwell and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and that crowd."

Blackwell also campaigned in southwestern Ohio yesterday.

After speaking and answering questions for more than an hour and a half before more than 150 people at a Fayette County farm, Blackwell dismissed suggestions that after 16 years of Republican rule in the governor’s office, some GOP voters are ready for a switch.

"As tired as some of the base might be, once they understand the choice, there is no way in the world they’re going to vote for Ted Strickland," Blackwell said. "That’s going to be the great motivator.

"When it’s all said and done, both sides in this campaign will probably have spent $25 million. We haven’t started to spend that money yet. We’re going to drive home the message, we’re going to drive home the distinction between the two of us and we’re going to give people a real choice."

At least one hesitant Republican became a convert yesterday after hearing Blackwell. Kay Miller of Washington Court House said, "I thought he was very good. I had some reservations about him, and now I’m going to vote for him."

Charlie Winburn agrees that voters will cross party lines this year, but says those voters will be Democrats — especially blacks — supporting Blackwell, who would become the second black governor ever elected in the U.S. Winburn, chairman of Blackwell’s Hamilton County campaign, and about a dozen others dressed in navy blue Blackwell T-shirts worked the crowd at the Midwest Regional Black Family Reunion in a Cincinnati park along the Ohio River.

"I think what African-Americans see here is a chance to make history," Winburn said.

Some Republicans, however, are expressing concern about Blackwell’s campaign. One longtime Ohio GOP campaign consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said many Republicans fear that time is slipping away for Blackwell to make a move.

"I don’t think that team knows what they’re doing," the adviser said. "It’s the gang that can’t shoot straight. … He needs to be out there ripping Strickland every day for talking one way in Washington and another way in Ohio."

The GOP adviser noted that with the combination of Ohio’s new "no excuse" absentee voting that will start in early October and the coming glut of candidate and issue ads, Blackwell will have trouble breaking through the clutter during the final month of the campaign.

John Green, director of the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss School of Applied Politics, is hearing nervousness from party activists about the lack of voter enthusiasm for the top of the GOP ticket.

"I think the great fear on the Republican side is that they will stay home," Green said, acknowledging that a "significant number" might wind up backing Strickland.

"Republicans are kind of disillusioned now," Green said.

drowland@dispatch.com 

jtorry@dispatch.com