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Cincinnati Enquirer...
Blackwell on Senate:
‘I can do this’
5/31/11
The Ohio Republican Party establishment may not like it, but, today,
their front-running candidate for next year’s U.S. Senate campaign is
Cincinnati Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell.
All the polling says so, despite the drubbing Blackwell, a former
Cincinnati mayor and Ohio Secretary of State, took in 2006, when he
lost the governor’s office the GOP had held for 16 years to Democrat
Ted Strickland; and by a nearly 24-point margin.
“None of that matters now,’’ Blackwell told the Enquirer Tuesday. “I
can do this.”
His competition now is State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who won in the GOP
landslide last fall, and a former state senator, Kevin Coughlin of
Cuyahoga Falls.
Others may join the fray.
But the polling so far shows that, if Ohio GOP voters went to the polls
today, Blackwell would be their overwhelming choice.
What apparently has some Ohio Republican Party leaders concerned is
whether or not Blackwell could win in a general election against Brown.
Last month, Ohio Republican Party chairman Kevin DeWine told the
Columbus Dispatch that he is not quite sure Blackwell could overcome
the shellacking he took at the hands of Strickland, who lost his bid
for a second term to Republican John Kasich last fall.
“This will be a tough election cycle, and he needs to show how 2012
will not be 2006,’’ DeWine told the Dispatch.
Tuesday, Ohio GOP spokesman Chris Maloney put out a statement saying
that DeWine has no preference among the candidates and is focused on
beating Brown.
Blackwell said Tuesday he doesn’t care whether he has the party
leadership’s support or not.
“I really don’t need them,’’ Blackwell said. “I can raise the money
nationally. The state party didn’t do much for me the last time.”
If Blackwell runs, and he says he will decide in June, he will no doubt
target the thousands of tea party activists and voters who share his
philosophy of smaller, less intrusive government. “They know I was
pushing a tea party agenda before the tea party even existed,’’
Blackwell said.
Blackwell is out with a new book touting his philosophy, “Resurgent:
How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America.” The 432-page book
was co-written with conservative lawyer Ken Klukowski.
Cincinnati Tea Party president Chris Littleton, who heads the Ohio
Liberty Council, an umbrella group for tea party organizations around
the state, said he doesn’t think tea party voters are focused yet on
2012.
Littleton said he and Cincinnati Tea Party founder Mike Wilson recently
signed an open letter urging Mandel to run for the Senate, but said
that Blackwell would probably be acceptable to many tea party voters,
“because he’s a generally pretty conservative guy.”
Ohio Democrats are already parsing quotes from Blackwell’s new book to
make the case that he is too far right for Ohio.
“This is a person who doesn’t believe in the right to collectively
bargain, wants to end Medicare, thinks moderates on the Supreme Court
are a ‘mistake,’ and wants to see the Republican Party become far more
conservative,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Justin Barasky.
Blackwell is clearly the front-runner among the field of GOP candidates
who make a run for Brown’s seat next year. But electability in a
head-to-head race with Brown is a big question mark, given Blackwell’s
weak performance as a gubernatorial candidate in 2006.
A Public Policy Polling poll released that week surveyed 400 “usual’
GOP primary voters between May 19 and May 22. Blackwell was the choice
of 40 percent. The closest to him was the category of “Someone else/not
sure,” with 28 percent. Only U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, was in
double digits, with 12 percent support.
But Blackwell does not fare so well when matched up head-to-head with
Brown.
A Quinnipiac University Poll of 1,379 registered Ohio voters conducted
May 10-16 showed Brown with a nine percentage point lead over Blackwell.
It was a better showing, however, than two other potential GOP
challengers - Mandel by 14 percent point and Coughlin by 16 percentage
points.
The “Crystal Ball” analysis of 2012 Senate race by Larry J. Sabato,
director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, rates the
Ohio Senate race as “leans Democratic.”
That, Sabato said, is based on polling and what Sabato considers a weak
Republican field.
“In a lot of ways, Sherrod Brown has lucked out,’’ Sabato said. “If
it’s Blackwell, he’s running against a candidate who had an absolutely
dismal showing when he ran for governor in 2006.’’
Five years ago, Blackwell, then Ohio’s secretary of state, mustered
only 36.7 percent of the vote in his run for governor against Democrat
Ted Strickland, who had 60.5 percent.
Ohio voters, Sabato said, “sent Ken Blackwell a message in 2006.
Apparently he didn’t get the message.”
Brown’s re-election, Sabato said, will hinge mainly one thing that is
out of his control - the fate of President Obama in Ohio.
Ohio went for Obama in 2008 after two straight elections where the
Republican presidential candidate, George W. Bush won. Obama needs to
keep Ohio in his column in order to win a second term.
“Brown may be able to survive if Obama loses Ohio by a small margin,’’
Sabato said. “But if Obama is wiped out in Ohio, Brown may go down with
him. And that would be a key pick-up in the Senate for the Republicans.”
Read it at the Cincinnati Enquirer
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