Posted on 10/15/2006 7:49:07 PM PDT by nj26
Senior Republican leaders have concluded that Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, a pivotal state in this year’s fierce midterm election battles, is likely to be heading for defeat and are moving to reduce financial support for his race and divert party money to other embattled Republican senators, party officials said.
The decision to effectively write off Mr. DeWine’s seat, after a series of internal Republican polls showed him falling behind his Democratic challenger, is part of a fluid series of choices by top leaders in both parties as they set the strategic framework of the campaign’s final three weeks, signaling, by where they are spending television money and other resources, the Senate and House races where they believe they have the best chances of success.
Republicans are now pinning their hopes of holding the Senate on three states — Missouri, Tennessee and, with Ohio off the table, probably Virginia — while trying to hold on to the House by pouring money into districts where Republicans have a strong historical or registration advantage, party officials said Sunday. Republicans also said they would run advertisements in New Jersey this week to test the vulnerability of Senator Robert Menendez, one of the few Democrats who appear endangered.
Senior national Republican strategists who had been briefed on decisions made during the party’s internal deliberations discussed the overall strategic thrusts but declined to provide specific dollar figures, saying that would give too much information to the Democrats.
The decision involving Mr. DeWine offers the most compelling evidence so far that Republicans are circling their wagons around a smaller group of races, effectively conceding some Senate and House seats with the goal of retaining at least a thin margin of control...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And I don't see that as a bad thing........being to the right of most Republicans, that is......
He has GOT to win for the sake of the moral and economic state of the state.
The alternative is a leftist phony who's posing as a moderate.
Anyone in the establishment who has hurt feelings and is holding a grudge about Blackwell had jolly well better grow up and do the right thing here.
I have no patience with either whining, nor sour grapes losers who take their ball and go home because they didn't get their own way.
I've done my fair share of complaining about the state and national parties, but it's always been about the message, not the effort. Except for the high and mighty in DC, and a few of those types in Columbus, most party operatives I've seen lately make the floor traders on the NYSE look lazy.
And I do want to apologize here for the last line of a couple posts ago. I got a little carried away there.
but don't we take for granted that the MSM won't say anything positive about the GOP or negative about the Dems? To me, that's a GIVEN.
I thought I heard the Dems are cutting back funding for the same race.
The question is....who is cutting back since they think the race is in the bag, and who is cutting back since they are running scared.
They are running scared at DailyKos, but I don't know if that is the general feeling of the Dems or not.
It's easy to be in 'combat mode' here on FR.
Let's get this job done, OK??
If Mark Foley were from Ohio, he would probably receive some collateral damage from the scandal.
I fully realize that Ken Blackwell isn't a Taft clone, and in fact defeated a Taft ally in the primary. Unfortunately, the Ohio citizenry is so disgusted with Taft's horrible record of both governing and corruption, they're willing to take it out on innocent candidates. It's too bad, as Blackwell truly has the potential for greatness.
You make Ken Blackwell sound a lot like Ronald Reagan.
In terms of principals, that's probably true, but not in terms of message. The difference is that Reagan emphasized those conservative principles that had the widest appeal, and Blackwell emphasized those with the most narrow appeal. I think he's now doing much better, but the initial message coming from his campaign focused (wrongly, IMHO), on issues that alienated too many voters.
He may still be able to pull is off, but its going to be tough.
Lower taxes? Job creation? Better schools? Those are the issues he's emphasized the most, IMO. What's wrong with that 'message.'
And about Michigan.......it doesn't matter if they stink. It's always a tough win. But with Tressel at the helm and the strong and balanced offense and incredibly capable young defense, I think it will be the end of another perfect season.
Divisive = conservative, principled.
I agree it's not surprising the RINOs that got the state into this mess decided to go off in a huff.
Doesn't it count for anything that Blackwell let Taft have the last gubernatorial nomination because it was 'his turn'? No, of course not. Then when Blackwell does run he gets a bunch of hysterical anybody-but-Blackwell RINOs pitching fits like tents at a cub scout jamboree.
yes, that's the wild card in MD. middle class african americans who would lie to pollsters, but just might walk into the voting booth and quietly pull the lever for Steele.
hopefully the RNC understands this and will help Steele. Steele should focus all his campaigning in the last weekend in the african american community.
if you read my post #4, you'll see that I already said this doesn't line up with other info I've seen regarding DeWine. so yes, its a bluff from the NYT.
Primarily, the social issues he emphasized during the primary. I know a good number of folks who vote Republican, but were turned off by the emphasis on issues such as gay marriage. It was like Ken hadn't yet gotten passed 2004. Anyway, the point is that he really ran to the right hard during the primary, and I don't think he's been able to overcome that.
Lower taxes? Job creation? Better schools? Those are the issues he's emphasized the most, IMO.
Those are the winning issues, IMHO, and he's emphasized them almost exclusive coming down the stretch. But that's not the campaign he was running earlier this year. At least, its not what I heard.
Here's a possibility. There's a lot of people polling "against" DeWine. They aren't independents (I can't imagine), because Independents like him. They have to be the right-wingers who are mad at him for stuff.
NO amount of advertising is going to get them to "change their minds", if they are going to "change their minds" it will be either because they are just venting but will show up to vote, or because they decide in the end they'd rather have a bad republican than Senator Reid as majority leader.
DeWine can run ads to make THAT happen. But by announcing this publicly, it might make the dems stop spending money there -- and that might slightly depress the democratic turnout, which might be what DeWine needs.
Just speculating. But it seems that both Santorum and DeWine could do a lot better than they are polling now if the conservatives simply come home. (And I can't say how much it pisses me off that I have to say that about Santorum -- I understand DeWine, but the ONLY thing Santorum did was back an incumbent, his record in the Senate is golden for conservatives and for people not to vote for him and to let that empty suit Casey win is maddening).
You mean that they should have picked Petro, who was actually electable? No, they won't learn that lesson.
It's too bad, really, Petro was a good man, but just not as conservative as Blackwell. But Blackwell had too many negatives, the conservative insiders knew it, but because they WERE insiders, the "conservative populace" chose to ignore them as part of the party organization.
Which is sad, because it was hard getting the organization infiltrated, and now Petro might be considered "too conservative" next time around.
No, the lesson they should learn is that Voinovich and DeWine are not the way to go. You need to go with people who have solid, predictable (and hopefully conservative) ideologies.
There will be a lot of second-guessing about who was electable in retrospect. I won't believe a word of it.
My brother-in-law is deeply involved in Ohio politics in the Columbus area, he almost ran for office there, and he's been connected to several campaigns and is on the local committee and other boards.
I trust his judgment, and his reports. He was a Petro supporter because his personal interactions with Blackwell and Blackwell supporters convinced him Blackwell would have a hard time winning, and couldn't pull the moderate republicans because his campaign was too devisive.
But he's been out every day pounding the pavement for Blackwell and DeWine, even though he's a conservative. And he's not against Blackwell for Governor, he just wanted to win and saw Petro as an excellent opportunity to put a "more conservative" and honest person in the governorship.
Blackwell's team instead tried to tar Petro with the corruption of Taft in the primary, which was bad form, and then laughed at the Petro supporters when Blackwell won.
I'd be happy if Blackwell won the governorship, he's a good person and would be good for Ohio (even though he has a couple of odd ideas, don't all politicians).
But if I'm to judge between a self-described Blackwell campaign person, and my brother-in-law, I think I know who I believe, and in that case I have to agree with those here who report that Blackwell's campaign is spending too much time complaining about the "lack of support" when in fact the support has been hard-working.
You know what it does to volunteers who are already mad at you for the slander of their candidate when you tell them they aren't working hard enough for you?
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