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Browns vs. Lions live …
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Seven players added to Tribe’s 40-man roster
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Kent State blown out in second half, loses to Temple 47-13
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Gameblog: Cavs vs. Philadelphia 76ers
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OSU – Michigan college football rivals meet in Baghdad
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Will Health Care Reform Pass?
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Health Care Financing Reform: (69) The Brookings Institute Study on "Bending the Curve" – Four General Strategies
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Silverdome Potentially SOLD!
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Steely Dan Plays "The Royal Scam" at E.J. Thomas Hall
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A Random Rant on Testing
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Nintendo's Mario endures even as games come and go
Brunner, Voinovich losing some support
By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal Columbus Bureau
Published on Sunday, Dec 14, 2008
COLUMBUS: Polling is an addictive drug for political junkies.
The 2008 election is barely a month old and a new survey by Quinnipiac University has everyone in Columbus speculating about 2010.
Then again, realistically, Election Day is the demarcation line when one campaign ends and the next one begins for any politician seeking to retain (or rise to) a higher office.
Gov. Ted Strickland has been running for re-election since 2006. His campaign continues to raise money. His decisions are at least influenced by, if not dependent on, the potential impact on his winning a second term.
The Quinnipiac Poll finds our governor in good stead in his home state despite a vacuity of accomplishments and a looming budget crisis that is equal parts bad economy and misguided tax policy.
Ohio voters, for the moment, continue to approve of the job Strickland is doing at a 54 percent rate, although his numbers are down from previous measures. He has been able to attract moderate Republicans for support, but the polling indicates a fracture in that demographic, which provides an opportunity for anyone looking to limit the incumbent Democrat to one term.
The polling uncovered an equally distressing problem for Republicans: They have no one to run against Strickland.
Democrats had similar problems in 1994 and 2002, and the results were catastrophic for the party down-ticket.
Republicans must find someone who can raise the necessary money to run an effective campaign against Strickland or the party will have problems in other key races in 2010 for the U.S. Senate and the secretary of state's office.
There is former U.S. Sen. Michael DeWine, who is the most well-known among the so-called A-listers of the GOP fold.
DeWine, a former lieutenant governor, has solid name recognition in the state. The poll found that 43 percent of the voters viewed him in a favorable light compared to 24 percent unfavorable.
Don't invest in any DeWine for governor stock, however. He was the incumbent U.S. senator and lost. The fact that Republicans continue to boost his potential candidacy only underlines how desperate the party is for viable contenders.
The Quinnipiac folks also took the state's pulse on John Kasich, a former U.S. House member and Fox News opiner, and on Rob Portman, also a former congressman, who was budget and management director in President George W. Bush's administration.
Kasich, despite being on television, is not a household name in Ohio. He has favorability ratings of only 18 percent, and 73 percent haven't heard enough about him.
In a year when the governor's seat is open, maybe, but Kasich is unknown and
untested statewide, and grossly overrated as a candidate.
Portman's favorability ratings are even less than Kasich's, at 12 percent, with 4-of-5 voters in essence asking, ''Who?''
Republicans love to float his name. They get all misty-eyed when they think about Portman officially announcing a candidacy, but his only shot would be if Ohioans suddenly turned hostile toward Strickland, somehow blocked out the fact this guy was Bush's budget director and were looking for a new face.
Still, Republicans do not need the governor's race in two years to feel victorious.
They can take control of the hyper-political panel that redraws state legislative districts with Mary Taylor's re-election to auditor and by ousting incumbent Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.
Brunner is vulnerable, based on the Quinnipiac results. Her overall favorability rating is 26 percent, only 2 points higher than her unfavorable numbers.
More important, independents disapprove of her at a higher rate, 26 percent, than approve at 22 percent.
In a partisan position like hers, Democrats are going to support Brunner and Republicans will oppose her, so the independent vote is everything.
Brunner and her predecessor, Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell, have been two of the more controversial figures in state government since 1999.
Despite promising to remove partisanship from the office responsible for overseeing and refereeing Ohio's elections, Brunner has been attacked for many of her decisions. Those assaults clearly have resonated with voters.
The secretary of state is one of the five public officials who sit on the state's gerrymandering board, known officially as the State Apportionment Board.
Meanwhile, good fortune might be running out for perhaps the luckiest politician ever to run for office.
U.S. Sen. George Voinovich is wearing thin with Ohioans.
The two-term senator, who was governor for eight years and Cleveland mayor for a decade, has the support of only 44 percent of those polled for a third term in Washington, D.C.
Perhaps voters are pondering how the state got into the financial mess we're in, the continuing unconstitutionality of the school funding system, the uncontested slippage in national ranking after national ranking, and they remember it was Voinovich who has had a loose hand on the helm in one way or another since 1991.
Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.
COLUMBUS: Polling is an addictive drug for political junkies.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Akron, OH
Posted 08:02 AM, 12/14/2008
Teddyboy's popularity ratin' is only due to the stoopidity of the demoncritter voters. All they want is a body in office with a D after their name. It matters little to them iff'n that politician does a single thing while there.
Point in fact, Teddyboy ran on a platform that he had a plan to fix school fundin' for the state. 2 years later ,we've yet to hear what that plan is.
Posted 02:53 PM, 12/14/2008
Beta, your grammar is a prime example that our school system is broken. I suppose we were better off with Taft?
Strickland will win re-election because the republicans have no one to run against him and the general mood right now favors democrats. This is why Voinovich is vulnerable and could lead to 60 seat majority for democrats in 2010.
Posted 10:47 PM, 12/14/2008
After 16 years of Republican rule in Ohio and nearly eight years under George Bush in Washington, when Strickland came in, promising what everyone wanted him to do, namely, turnaround Ohio from where Republicans and their policies have led us, he was faced with catching a falling knife. We are in deep weeds, for sure, and Ohio will be bleeding for years to come. Republicans have essentially no platform worth a hoot to run on, and if some southern senators have their way and don't bailout Detroit, then they will have sealed their fate as the party that first drove us into a ditch, then over a cliff. And if the GOP allows itself to be lead by Ken Blackwell and Sarah Palin, a marriage of convenience made in right-wing heaven, then Republicans will lose more races in Ohio and the nation. If their platform harkens back to small government, tax breaks (for the rich), deregulation, free market dynamics, anti-union, social intolerance and everyone for themselves, they will have dug their own graves. And Strickland won't ever have to pick up a shovel to dig it. They'll do it themselves.
