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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2008 > September > 04
Thursday, September 4, 2008
“Ohio Republicans for Obama” is launched
Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign wants to steal some of the spotlight from Republican John McCain.
As McCain prepared to formally accept his party’s presidential nomination on Thursday, Sept. 4, Obama’s campaign launched “Ohio Republicans for Obama.” Members of the group were to staff Obama phone banks on McCain’s big night.
Gregory Fess, whose great grandfather was Republican U.S. Sen. Simeon D. Fess of Yellow Springs, is a leader of the Ohio group. Simeon Fess served in the Senate from 1923-1935.
“Before I am a Republican, I am an American,” Gregory Fess said in a press release. “What I care about most is making sure that we have a president who can unite us in combating the major challenges of our time-terrorism, the economy, energy and climate change.”
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Neuhardt nabs Brown endorsement
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Thursday, Sept. 4, formally backed fellow Democrat Sharen Neuhardt, the Yellow Springs attorney who hopes to replace U.S. Rep. David Hobson in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District.
“Congress needs a voice for change like Sharen’s and that is why I am proud to endorse her,” said Brown, D-Ohio. “Dedicated to lowering health care and energy costs for Ohio families, Sharen understands that decades of failed policies in Washington have betrayed the middle class.”
Brown faces state Sen. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek, in November.
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Turner uses convention as a chance to address DHL
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner shared a stage Wednesday, Sept. 3, with the German ambassador while visiting the Twin Cities for the Republican National Convention. And he couldn’t resist pressing the case for preserving jobs at the Wilmington-based air hub for DHL.
DHL and United Parcel Service are working together on a proposal that would allow UPS to handle all of DHL’s domestic air freight.
Turner, R-Centerville, speaking at the Center for German and European Studies at the University of Minnesota, told Ambassador Dr. Klaus Scharioth that the proposal would devastate southwestern Ohio.
Turner also expressed concern about rumors that UPS might acquire Dutch rival TNT, arguing that such a plan could create a global monopoly.
A series of congressional hearings will begin next week looking at the DHL-UPS proposal.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, meanwhile, said he’s been engaged with the White House for the last month or so pressing them to push to preserve the jobs.
But Boehner, R-West Chester, said he worried the jobs would be hard to preserve.
“It’s an uphill fight,” he said, saying he can’t predict what will happen to the Wilmington jobs.
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Boehner: McCain has a tough act to follow
House Minority Leader John Boehner admits Sen. John McCain has a big challenge facing him after his vice-presidential nominee’s well-received speech before the Republican National Convention.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, already in the limelight Wednesday because of revelations about her family life and scrutiny of her record as Alaska governor “did a whale of a job,” Boehner said. “It’s going to be a hard act to follow. I think McCain is up to it, but I’m sure they’ve been thinking about it since last night.”
“There’s some heat on him tonight,” Boehner said. “He’s got to perform.”
McCain is set to accept the Republican nomination for president tonight, Thursday, Sept. 4.
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Boehner on Palin
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, has high hopes that Alaska Gov. and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is the ticket to winning the crucial swing votes in southeast Ohio in November.
“I think that’s probably her strongest quality,” he said. “She will appeal to those middle-class voters in Ohio that we need to win.”
Palin, he said, “speaks like a normal person,” without too much political talk, and will win support among social conservatives in the state.
Voters don’t ordinarily vote for a vice-president, he acknowledged.
But “what she has brought is a level of enthusiasm that we have not seen in this campaign,” he said.
“I’m going to do everything I can to have her in Ohio and the Midwest alot,” he said. “She can be a great asset to our congressional candidates throughout the Midwest.”
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Boehner says Gustav handled gracefully
House Minority Leader John Boehner said those organizing the Republican National Convention this week reacted with relative cool to the threat of a hurricane on the Gulf Coast, ripping up a carefully choreographed schedule with little to no conflict.
“I watched (organizers) be completely flexible about throwingt everything in trashcan and starting over as far as how we were going to proceed,” he said. “There was no disagreement at all about the fact that we couldn’t or didn’t want to proceed on Monday night.”
Boehner, R-West Chester, who is serving as the chair of this convention, said he was surprised by the lack of strife.
“People were surprisingly calm about it,” he said.
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Portman eyes statewide office
Cincinnati Republican Rob Portman on Thursday, Sept. 4, heaped praise on John McCain’s vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying she has electrified delegates in Ohio and elsewhere.
“I think she will wear very well. She’s smart. She’s kind of everybody’s next door neighbor,” said Portman, a former congressman who had been on McCain’s short list for VP.
Portman, who served as U.S. trade representative and White House budget director, said he hasn’t decided whether he’ll run for governor in 2010 against Democrat Ted Strickland. And he added that if U.S. Sen. George Voinovich changes his mind and decides not to run for re-election, Portman would consider a run for Senate.
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Moe stunned by mention in Palin’s speech
Lancaster Republican delegate Tom Moe was crammed into a seat with Sen. Mike DeWine Wednesday night, listening to Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin on the floor of the Republican National Convention when he suddenly heard his name come out of her mouth.
“I said, what did she just say?” he said to Ohio Republicans at a delegation breakfast Thursday, Sept. 4. “I certainly don’t seek out this kind of attention.”
Moe has received limelight that has surprised him during this convention. He was recently interviewed by NPR, and was shocked when a caller lambasted McCain as not being a hero.
The show ended before Moe could reply, but he thought about the caller later, and realized McCain would’ve agreed with the caller. The real heroes, Moe said, had never come home from Vietnam.
“This story is not about me as an individual,” he said of the attention he’s gotten. “It’s about acts - acts of service that anyone in this room could do.”
He said the praise he got from Palin “goes through me, or through my friend John McCain to our brothers and sisters who didn’t return.”
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Lieberman gushes over Palin at Ohio GOP breakfast
Independent Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrats’ 2000 vice-presidential nominee, was clearly impressed with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech Wednesday night before the Republican National Convention.
“Last night was one of the most spectacular political speeches I have ever seen,” he told Ohio Republican delegates at their daily delegation breakfast. “But all the more so because Gov. Palin came from way out there to here. She’s never been near a stage like this. She is not just genuine. She has a gift. She’s a natural.”
Lieberman, who spoke before the convention Tuesday night, said Palin “opened a big door in Washington and let some fresh Alaska air in.”
He acknowledged that the mood in the country “is more Democratic than Republican,” but said he hoped that the race for the White House came down to the characteristics of the delegates themselves.
And he said Ohio, once again, would be a key state.
“It’s going come down to Ohio again,” he said. “And it’s going to be close…dear friends future of America and of the free world is on your shoulders.”
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Ohio delegates delayed by protesters
A bus load of Ohio delegates returning from the Republican National Convention early Thursday, Sept. 4, were diverted from their hotel by protesters and tear gas at 12:15 a.m. The Ohio delegates were staying in the Radisson Plaza Minnesota in downtown Minneapolis.
Police on motorcycles and foot in riot gear were deployed around downtown.
The bus driver moved the bus a few blocks away from the trouble spots and allowed reporters and others who insisted on getting off the bus to leave at their own risk.
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We’re in for hand-to-hand combat
ST. PAUL — In 24 hours, John McCain will deliver his acceptance speech and then hit the campaign trail anew in his quest to become the 44th president of the United States.
So, how does he win? The road to victory winds through Ohio.
No Republican since Abraham Lincoln has captured the presidency without winning the Buckeye State. For that matter, no Democrat since Kennedy has landed in the White House without Ohio, either.
In the last two elections, George W. Bush won narrowly in Ohio, but in 2006, Democrats swept Republicans from statewide offices, won the governor’s seat and toppled an incumbent Republican, Mike DeWine, for the U.S. Senate.
The latest CNN/Time magazine poll shows McCain and Barack Obama in a dead heat in Ohio (Obama 47 percent; McCain 45 percent - within the margin of error).
Clearly, the state is in play.
I spoke to several Republican officeholders this week at the Republican National Convention asking their views on the strategy McCain should employ to win. (I asked similar questions of Democrats on behalf of Obama last week in Denver at the Democratic National Convention.)
They all agree that it will be a close race. “It’s going to be hand-to-hand combat,” said Sen. George Voinovich.
Everyone with whom I spoke also concurred that the key issues are energy and the economy. In the past seven years, Ohio has lost more than 200,000 non-farm jobs, according to Labor Department reports, and the state ranks among the highest in home foreclosures.
“Ohio wants somebody who is going to come in and fight for us,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Turner.
“One of the benefits that John McCain has is that people know him, they have a relationship with him. So it’s not an introduction that he’s making when he comes and talks about who he is. We know him and we already like him. But this isn’t a referendum on John McCain. It’s a job interview. And he has to come in and tell us what he’s going to do for the future.”
Noting that McCain already has an “acknowledged strength” in the area of national security, Turner said, “the area where he has to come in and tell us his story is on economic security.”
DeWine, while acknowledging that “it will be close” believes that McCain is “going to do well in southeast Ohio. He’s going to do well in socially conservative areas.”
Geographically, DeWine said, “McCain’s got to win small counties by big margins and he’s got to win the suburbs.”
That was the Bush campaign strategy in 2004, where he narrowly defeated Sen. John Kerry, whose campaign efforts were concentrated in the cities.
“Ohio will be another battleground state,” said Ohio Rep. Steve Austria, who is running to fill the seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Dave Hobson. “The ground war will be key.”
That is understood by the Democrats, too. Every one of Ohio’s 88 counties will be fought for, members of both parties said. Republicans will try to duplicate their successes in 2000 and 2004 with strong grassroots efforts. Democrats will go to school on the Republican successes taking no part of the state for granted.
So, gird your loins. The politicians are coming and they want your vote. Come November, you’ll have to have been living in a corn silo not to be caught up in the political storm that’s heading our way.
Jeff Bruce is journalist in residence at Wright State University. He can be reached at jeff@jeffbruce.net.
