(Updated 4:15 p.m. EST, Tuesday, Nov. 6)
COLUMBUS, Ohio – After 16 years in which the Republican Party had Ohio on a string, Democrats are resurgent in this politically crucial state, led by a Democratic governor who’s flying high.
Gov. Ted Strickland, a once-obscure congressman from Appalachia, cruised to victory in a Democratic sweep of Ohio in 2006. With Republicans tarnished by a statehouse financial scandal known as “Coingate,” the Democrats won every statewide office except for state auditor and supreme court justice, including the U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Mike DeWine (R).
Today, with his first legislative session under his belt, Strickland is riding high in popularity and poised to be an asset in a state destined to be pivotal – again – in the presidential race.
 |  Louis Jacobson is the editor of CongressNow, an online publication launched in 2007 that covers legislation and policy in Congress and is affiliated with Roll Call newspaper in Washington, D.C. Jacobson originated the “Out There” column in 2004 as a feature for Roll Call, where he served as deputy editor. Earlier, Jacobson spent 11 years with National Journal covering lobbying, politics and policy, and served as a contributing writer for two of its affiliates, CongressDaily and Government Executive. He also was a contributing writer to The Almanac of American Politics and has done political handicapping of state legislatures for both The Rothenberg Political Report and The Cook Political Report. |
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Facing a GOP-controlled Legislature, Strickland won nearly unanimous passage of a two-year, $52.3 billion package in what many called the smoothest budget process in years. It ended with a spontaneous hug between the governor and Republican Speaker Jon Husted.
Despite a few hiccups – such as some poorly safeguarded personal data in his administration and his comment that Iraqi refugees weren’t welcome in his state – Strickland chalked up a 58 percent approval rating in a September Quinnipiac University poll. And even Ohio Republicans love the job he’s doing: They approved of him, 54 percent to 19 percent.
“The halo effect with this guy is unbelievable,” said Joseph Savarise, an Ohio-based vice president for the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, a national pro-business group.
Strickland’s halo is giving the state Democratic Party a major boost, psychological and practical, for both state and national races in 2008.
The simple fact that Democrats control the governorship and other key statewide positions dramatically improves the party’s fund-raising potential. Party officials say this money will be parlayed into such efforts as “microtargeting” voters potentially open to the Democratic message. It is one of the tactics the GOP used to great effect in recent years, when Ohio’s political infrastructure became the linchpin of both presidential victories by George W. Bush.
The presidential election is a key focus for the governor, he said in an interview. “I, as governor, and the Democratic Party have a responsibility to help make sure a Democrat is elected president,” said Strickland, who has remained neutral for the primaries. (See excerpts from the interview.)
State Democratic chairman Chris Redfern is leveraging his party’s newfound financial resources and brimming morale into an “88-county strategy” that seeks to establish the party even in deeply red regions.
And there are lots of those. Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 carried a mere 16 of 88 Ohio counties. In 2006, Strickland won 72, while victorious 2006 U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown (D) triumphed in 44.
Such success, unthinkable to Democrats as recently as two years ago, has kicked the party’s candidate recruitment efforts into gear. “The Democrats are developing a bench,” said Paul Kostyu, the Columbus bureau chief for the GateHouse newspaper chain. “It’s just remarkable the quality of candidates they’ve come up with” for 2008.
GOP strategist Mark Weaver concedes: “We used to be the Harlem Globetrotters and they (Ohio Democrats) were the Washington Generals. Now it is much more even.”
Strickland’s approach to governing — moderate in ideology and amiable in personality — may be smart for Democrats as they go into the presidential election year. It could also aid a takeover attempt of the state House in 2008, for which they need only four seats.
This past year, Republicans found themselves hard-pressed to oppose legislation from Strickland that contained ideas they had long championed. Strickland’s budget increased spending on elementary and secondary education, proposed freezing college tuitions for one year while boosting student grant money, and cut property taxes for elderly and disabled homeowners. The budget also played against Democratic stereotypes by keeping taxes in check. (In the final bill, the Legislature and the governor agreed to a two-year college tuition freeze).
Strickland describes what he sees as “an unbreakable link between educational achievement and economic growth. Our budget reflected that belief.”
Dave Johnson, the GOP chairman in Columbiana County in Strickland’s southeastern Ohio home region, views the governor as more liberal than he’s letting on. “He is biding his time, focusing on accommodation and good-sounding platitudes,” Johnson said. “The public sees this as ‘sound’ and ‘responsible.’”
Bill Binning, a Youngstown State political scientist and former GOP county chairman, said Ohio’s term limits, which cap service at eight years, make it tough for GOP legislators to outmaneuver the governor.
“You’re in the Republican leadership for two terms, maybe speaker for one, and then you’re out,” Binning said. “You don’t have the capacity to take on a skillful governor. He’s been able to run all over these people.”
Given Ohio’s swing-state status, pundits have speculated that Strickland could wind up on a list of potential running mates for the Democratic presidential nominee. “Maybe a Democratic governor would be the final piece of the puzzle for making Ohio blue,” said GOP consultant Michael Gaynor. Strickland, though, offered “Out There” a Shermanesque dismissal of any such rumors.
In an early-October Quinnipiac poll of Ohio voters, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) led the top Republican hopefuls by six- to 17-point margins; U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) also led top GOP contenders.
Still, even with the sagging national Republican brand, as well as anxiety about the sluggish economy, the Ohio GOP has its strengths. Besides the Legislature, the GOP holds a solid majority of county positions, which provide a stellar farm team. In addition, the state party has developed a highly organized grassroots operation, though its mediocre performance in 2006 undercut the aura of invincibility that it cultivated after securing Bush a second term in 2004.
In his own polling, Brett Sciotto, president of the GOP consulting firm American Strategies, is finding even solid Republicans willing to consider voting for a Democrat.He said there’s “a real shift to independents, caused by a cocktail of federal and state issues. It makes the state even more up for grabs.”
Beyond 2008, Strickland will face pressure to make an aggressive mark in his next and final budget, which is due in the run-up to his re-election bid in 2010, when former GOP U.S. Reps. John Kasich or Rob Portman may run against him. Strickland will need to show a tangible reversal in the state’s economic fortunes, analysts say. “We have an old, industrial economy and have not built enough infrastructure for the new economy,” said Binning, the former Republican official. “That will be the test for Strickland, and he has not showed yet that he can pass it.”
Editor's Note: The column was corrected to clarify that Strickland's budget proposed freezing college tuition for one year, rather than two, although he and the Legislature ultimately agreed on a two-year freeze.
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By Johnny Springfield on Oct 26, 2007 8:03:14 PM
Strickland has indeed won the hearts and minds of most Ohioans during his first 10 months as governor. During this time, he has flummoxed Republican lawmakers like term-limited House Speaker Jon Husted (who will jump to the Senate) and future Ohio GOP leader, Rep. Kevin DeWine (yep, defeated U.S. Senator Mike DeWine's cousin) by skewering the former's long-standing pet policy project -- the growth of charter schools -- and taking the wind from the latter's sails -- reducing property taxes for Ohioans 65 of age and older.
Ted the Good needs to produce sufficient job growth metrics that can withstand the inevitable onslaught of allegations from future Republican opponents like Kasich, Portman or Mike DeWine that the mild-mannered minister from Duck Run didn't turn around Ohio fast enough. But doing that will be difficult. Strickland is sailing into a 16-year legacy of misguided Republican policies, which have left the state's demographics older and poorer, and with fewer funds to make the kind of long-term investments that will payoff, but long after Strickland leaves office.
Like the captain of an ocean-going supertanker who must wait for miles for his vessel to slow down sufficiently to actually make a change in direction, the negative momentum Strickland inherited will inhibit his ability to quickly reverse the fortunes of a stalled economy. Suffering from job loss, rising home foreclosures, rising oil prices and the prospect of rising state energy prices and an essentially flat-lined state revenue picture made worse by next year's reduction in income taxes, Strickland's task is indeed daunting. Whether its an omen or just bad luck, the Cleveland Indians, now playing in the nation's 4th poorest city, got shellacked by perennial American League losers, The Boston Red Sox.
According to Policy Matters Ohio, an non-partisan, independent economic research group, Ohio still remains one of only three states that has fewer jobs today than it did six years ago, when the last recession ended.
After 16 years of total Republican control, Ohio Democrats have much to be happy about; and if a Democrat can win the Whit House by winning Ohio, happy days will indeed be here again.
Some say Strickland has made all the right moves so far, with the exception of two: when he had a chance, he should have vetoed a very misguided bill pushed through the Republican-led legislature that is designed to shut down the state's adult entertainment industry, which contributes over $250 in revenue to state coffers. Instead, he allowed it to become law without his signature. Now, with the failure of a state-wide referendum on it that would have given Ohioans a chance to reverse the drift of their state into an "Ohiostan" where standards of morality are set by an small minority of right-wing, Evangelical neocons, who have been emboldened by their successful attempt in 2004 amend the constitution, thereby making Ohio less tolerant to diversity and alternate life-styles, the Buckeye State is becoming less attractive as a place to locate a business.
Strickland showed his backbone on his first day in office by vetoing a bill rushed through by Republicans in the waning days of their power that immunizes lead-paint manufacturers from civil lawsuits and capped non-economic damages. While the Ohio Supreme Court eventually ruled that Strickland's veto was illegal, his moxy and resolve to take on big business, their powerful lobby and the state lawmakers they once owned, won respect from his political opponents and outright admiration from his supporters. He is a common man in a fight to protect common people.
Ted the Good's second shortcoming, which may be more rooted in the soil of faith than in the calculus to make Ohio a destination state for leisure activities, was his recent made dash to outlaw faux slot machines. Joined in his "get thee behind me Satan" campaign to squash grandmas gambling on low-paying slot-lite machines was new Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann, Ohio's very own raging bull. The duo took Republican lawmakers by storm, forcing them to beat feet to pass a bill codifying Strickland's executive order into law, lest they been seen as turncoats to a sin they have long tried to stamp out.
Having back tracked from the nation's third largest economy to the seventh, turning around Ohio will take a long time, more time than Strickland has before he has to go up against his competition, which from his first day in office has been dogging his every move. But should Ohio go as blue as some hope it will in 2008, Ted the Good's fortunes will be made easier with a legislature balanced between the two major political parties. Democrats are already savoring re-taking the House. The Ohio Senate, where Republicans dominate 22-11, remains a long shot. Strickland's job will be made easier with a more sympathetic and compliant legislature, notwithstanding recent hugs from opposing party leaders.
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