As the midterm election campaign gets going after today's 9/11 observances, we refer gentle readers to the Wall Street Journal's excellent and (rarely offered by the Dow Jones Company) free page indexing the latest polls state by state.
In the race in which we find ourselves most interested, the news is for us most heartening. Ken Blackwell, per the latest Zogby poll, has pulled to 42%, trailing Ted Strickland's 48% by less than the margin of error and a little over half of the undecided remainder.
Having viewed the first spate of ads for the candidate, we think that Blackwell will make additional gains. His ads manage to put forth positive messages on appealing proposals as well as sticking the high-tax label on Strickland. Specifically, Blackwell's ads offer decent exposition on his proposals to earmark a maximum percentage of school funds that can go for administration and to legislate health-care coverage for all Ohioans, a la Mitch Romney's Massachusetts plan.
Strickland by contrast is trying to present himself as a tax cutter, a difficult task for any D, all the more so when he has no announced plans to cut taxes. Even harder to make stick is his claim that Blackwell's health insurance plan will cost Ohioans about $5k per year per family. Once the media gets on the details of the Blackwell proposal, the appeal of moving the health care burden from employers to actual people, with means-tested state subsidies for those less able to afford coverage, will get further traction, and Strickland will lose a talking point.
There's more here to hearten the Blackwell campaign. As it becomes clearer that Ken Blackwell, not some generic Republican operative, is running, the throw-the-bums-out impulse will lessen. As Blackwell's story becomes better known, he will erode key parts of the Democrat coalition. Blackwell probably has more money that Strickland, which will prove big in late October. Rs have also done better getting their voters to the Ohio polls in the last few election cycles. And if Strickland abandons the Thomas Dewey campaign mode (assuming the inevitability of his election and so taking no stands on anything) in favor of specific policy proposals, he will either risk alienating his organized labor constituency, the keystone of his get-out-the-vote efforts, or will appear to be offering more of the failed policies that got Ohio at the back of the economic pack.
Blackwell faces dangers. He needs to keep the more radical elements of his Christian conservative base in the deep background. We also hope that he has no skeletons in his closet that could haunt him around Halloween. His campaign needs to stay sharp.
But if you were running for governor of Ohio, would you rather have the lead and nothing left to show or the momentum with lots of cards to play?
8 comments:
Actually, Strickland has been leading in fundraising the entire time. He currently has over $2 Million on hand more than Blackwell, who's campaign fundraising has signficantly declined.
Strickland and Blackwell have very similar health care proposals, and Blackwell released his a few weeks after Stricklands. The biggest difference is that Blackwell mandates all Ohioans to buy insurance while Strickland's is a more scaled down approach that focuses mainly on the uninsured.
Blackwell has his own problems explaining how he's going to pay for his programs. The press can't report on "the true" costs his health care insurance mandate will cost Ohio families because he's provided no such information. The Ohio Election Commission reported in a unanimous, bipartisan vote that Strickland's claim that Blackwell's plan will cost Ohio's families more than $4,000 was neither false nor misleading.
Zogby's polling methodology is highly controversal and was completely unreliable for state races in 2004. Not even Ken Blackwell's own campaign poll shows the race as tight as Zogby has been showing.
Also, if you knew anything about polling trends, you'd know that the kind of "movement" you claim in Zogby's poll from the last one is statistically insignficant as the movement is within the margin of error. It's just as possible that there's been no real movement, or worse, Blackwell has fallen a few points behind.
Eventually, Ken Blackwell is also going to have to explain how he's going to pay for his additional spending while cutting taxes. For example, he doesn't explain where the money is going to come from to pay for his massive additional spending in education.
The fact that you didn't even know that Blackwell's fundraising has been lagging (a fact that has been reported and is a matter of available public record through the Secretary of State's office) indicates just how much you don't understand this race
"Modern Esquire" is welcome to these pages any time, of course. But his own blog (http://modern-esquire.blogspot.com/) and his referral to us (a blogsearch for "Ted Strickland" at about 6 p.m. EDT this evening) suggests that he is commenting and running. Such careful reflection and sober dialogue is the lifeblood of politics in our republic.
We wish Mr. Esquire well in his endeavor to land a job in the Strickland administration and urge him in the meantime to hedge his bets by holding onto his current associate's position in whatever law firm employs him.
Well, I don't know about everyone else, bu this changes everything for me now. I'm definately changing my vote to Strickland...
Sometimes I wonder where the line between incessant sarcasm and chronic lying is. Any thoughts SWNID?
If I'm not mistaken, Modern Esquire works for the distinguished law firm of Hittem and Run. They specialize in drive-by shootings.
I'm sick of both these candidates doing nothing more than slinging mud at each other (and it sticking pretty good too).
Screw 'em, I'm voting for Bill Peirce.
Bryan D: I think the line between incessant sarcasm and chronic lying is crossed at the point where one expects one's remarks to be believed at face value. Hence, it is the line crossed by political professionals.
JB in CA: five stars for that one.
"Anonymous": at least Strickland's operatives don't post anonymously. And you sling mud pretty well, hitting two candidates at once. Too bad that you're wasting your time pretending to be involved in politics when all you and those who vote with you are really doing is wasting taxpayers' money counting a few votes for a completely unserious candidate. Michael Medved was right when he dubbed your party the "Losertarians."
Voting for an alternative candidaie is neither a waste of time or money. It serves notice to the status qou political parties that we are disastified with their self serving interests.
If we use SWNID's "logic" we could assume that he is pretending to be interested in Christianity because he is a Protestant. I would never make such ridiculous assumption.
Perhaps Mr. Medved's comment explains why so few stations carry him. Cinti radio is certainly better off without him.
I am voting for Blackwell in spite of SWNID's endorsement. He is clearly the better candidate
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