It's Over: Blackwell Next Ohio Governor

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman is no longer a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Ohio governor. He cites the usual personal reasons, but his wife's recent arrest and guilty plea for DUI didn't help.

So Ken Blackwell is Ohio's next governor. Why? SWNID solemnly notes that ...

• Blackwell has strong backing from the conservative base of the GOP, so barring major scandal, he will be the party's nominee.
• Blackwell has been elected twice statewide as secretary of state.
• Blackwell has run a massively successful PR campaign and is now certainly the best known secretary of state in state history.
• Blackwell has burnished his credentials by weathering the storm of unwarranted criticism about his conduct of the 2004 election in Ohio, and Ohio voters noted this by defeating Propositions 2-5 by huge margins this month.
• Ted Strickland, the only declared D candidate, is (a) liberal; (b) white; (c) never before elected at the statewide level.
• Blackwell, who is African-American, will cut deeply into the D base.
• Coleman, who is also African-American, was the Ds' only hope for stopping the Blackwell demographic juggernaut.

SWNID will predict that Blackwell will win between 55% and 65% of the vote in November 2006. There just aren't enough white union households in the world, let alone in Ohio, to elect Ted Strickland.