Is Montgomery conservative?
You say that she has the "grass roots", but its funny, as a Texan, Blackwell is about the only name I have heard about, except the one already in congress, that is...
Yes, not as conservative, or as appealing as Blackwell but conservative. But Auditor Betty Montgomery has been the top vote getter in Ohio. She out polled Governor Taft, Attorney General Petro ,and Secretary of State Blackwell in their last election when all four were running for office. All four won but Betty got the most votes.
She is originally from Northwest Ohio. I owned a radio station there and was familiar with her when she started out some years ago. She is respected as a very hard worker. She is a lawyer but not much of a media hound.
She does not get a lot of media attention. Blackwell as Secretary of state was in the middle of the Ohio recount thing. That was Blackwell and he was all over national TV. That is mostly why you saw him on TV in Texas.
Grass roots works like this. The Bush campaign in Ohio had local people make personal calls on most registered Republican voters in Ohio. Where ever possible the person doing the call was a friend or at least an acquaintance of the person being canvased. They also had lists of Church members. Nearly every church member was contacted and asked to vote. Where possible church members were contacted by a member of their own congregation.
Thus we have friends talking to friends to ask them to vote for a certain candidates. They give them a sample ballot listing who they want to be elected. They give the voter reasons to vote for those candidates. They call the canvased person back during the 72 hours before the election reminding them to vote.
By looking at who we contacted in the 2004 and who actually voted, and the election results we know pretty nearly how many votes were influenced. But it was not just votes for Bush, it was votes for other Republican candidates as well
Four years ago the grass roots organization Betty put together worked for Taft, Petro, and Blackwell in addition to working for Betty. In the coming primary they will working for only Betty. Petro and Blackwell will for the first time need their own organization. Betty being Betty beat them to the punch.
The same thing holds true in primary elections. The party volunteers know who they contacted who voted and who won. It is that kind of number crunching that tells a campaign how many votes the people who are volunteering that campaign can produce.
That in a nutshell is Betty's advantage and the problem Blackwell faces.
Four years ago other people outside of Blackwell's campaign including Betty helped get out the votes for Ken. This time he will have to do it himself. He has yet to start.