Political tremors rock Ohio
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
CINCINNATI ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
November 8, 2006 A political earthquake struck the Ohio Statehouse Tuesday night, with the election of Ted Strickland as the first Democratic governor in 16 years. And concentric circles of aftershocks will radiate from the old Greek Revival building at the corner of Broad and High and reach, over the months to come, into every city, every county and every institution in the state. Gone will be a Republican establishment that has had a hammer-lock on the state since 1990; and, with the election of Democrat Sherrod Brown over two-term incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine and Democrats taking over the U.S. House, Ohio Democrats will see their influence grow in Washington, too. "There will be a sea change in Ohio, at every level,'' said Nathaniel R. Jones, a retired federal appeals court judge and a Democrat. "The significance of this is almost indescribable." It could change the whole face of politics for the next decade and a half, if the Democrats can hang on to power past 2010, when they can conceivably redraw all congressional and state legislative districts in their favor. It will mean, too, that Republican county party organizations who used to reward faithful servants with judgeships and jobs further down the food chain will see that power shift to the Democrats. "In some ways, it was inevitable,'' Jones said. "Republicans ran roughshod over the well-being of the people of Ohio for too long. People wanted change." In the first returns, it was too early to tell just how deep and wide this Democratic earthquake would reach. Strickland was projected to end up with 62 percent of the vote. His Republican opponent, Cincinnati's Ken Blackwell, conceded before a single vote was counted, based on exit polls. Democrats were leading in three of the four other constitutional executive offices: attorney general (extremely close), secretary of state and treasurer, but trailing in the race for state auditor. But no Republican would tell you that this was a good year to be a Republican in Ohio. In the days to come, as the balance of power in Columbus shifts to the Democrats, it will be no mystery to the Ohio Republican Party officials why the voters spanked them so hard. All they need to do is look to the current Republican governor, Bob Taft, he of the historically low approval ratings and the misdemeanor convictions. He was the boulder tied to the waist of Republican candidates such as Blackwell, who could not cut him loose, no matter how hard they tried. "Ken could not have picked a worse time to run for governor,'' said Phil Burress, an ardent Blackwell supporter and founder of Citizens for Community Values. Blackwell publicly butted heads with Taft over the years, but, in the end, voters didn't notice. EVEN GOP FED UP The Enquirer's exit polling in the governor's race Tuesday made it clear that many Ohio Republican voters were fed up with the leadership of their party. One in every four Republican voters, the exit poll showed, voted for Strickland. The result was the worst drubbing by a Republican gubernatorial candidate since former Gov. James Rhodes' failed comeback attempt in 1986, when he took 39 percent of the vote against incumbent Democrat Richard Celeste. To win his primary election contest against attorney general Jim Petro, Blackwell ran to the far right of the party, courting the evangelical Christians and "values voters," who generally have an enormous impact on Republican primary contests. But, among religious voters in general, Strickland - an ordained United Methodist minister and psychologist - was the winner among both Catholics and Protestants, according to the exit poll. The only subgroup of religious voters who favored Blackwell, the polling showed, were those who said they go to church more than once a week - a description that fits most evangelicals to a tee.
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