Toughest Job in Ohio Today: Spinning This Poll If You’re the One Down 25

….. and running on an issue that appears to have no traction.

Now I’ll be the first to say, given the history of Ohio polls, especially the disastrous Reform Ohio Now polls by The Columbus Dispatch and the Ray Bliss Institute last October, that it’s always healthy to be skeptical. And of course, any non-presidential primary election is ultimately about turnout.

That said, I’d rather not be the poor fellow who has to explain why, if your guy is the one shown running 25 points behind, this poll is nothing to worry about (HT NixGuy). Lack of name recognition certainly can’t, or at least shouldn’t, be offered as an excuse.

On a more than a little related matter, here’s a “Dear Congressman Murtha” letter (HT Large Bill) that should give pause to those who think that Jean Schmidt’s House floor speech in November and its aftermath will, or even should, be her undoing:

DEAR CONGRESSMAN MURTHA…
By JOHN A. LUCAS
(a lawyer in Knoxville, Tenn., a West Point graduate and previously an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam, where he earned four Bronze Stars–Ed.)

I SAW YOU ON TV recently. With all the venom and bile you could muster, you pronounced, “This is George Bush’s war.”

I understand fully what you were saying. You were telling the country and - more importantly - our enemies, that this is not your war, that you do not support it.

More than that, you were saying that it is not your party’s war. And, you were telling Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden and their jihadist allies that it is not America’s war: “This is George Bush’s war!”

You are wrong, congressman. Dead wrong. You are wrong on three levels: institutional, historical and moral.

On the institutional level, Congress voted to authorize this war. Virtually every prominent Democratic politician spoke in favor of its objectives - Hillary and Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Madeleine Albright and Joe Lieberman, to name just a few.

Many now conveniently ignore or seek to rationalize their vote. A few courageously stand by it.

But, it is not Congress’ war, either. When Congress voted to authorize the war and the commander-in-chief gave the order to initiate it, it became our war. Ours: yours, mine, the country’s. Our war, sir, not George Bush’s.

You are wrong, too, about history - past and future. You were referring, of course, to the Iraq “war.” However, history tells us that this is one battle in a larger war against radical, fascist Islamic fundamentalists who seek to conquer.

Read the whole thing. Jean Schmidt is indeed fortunate in who the other side picked to be the face of their antiwar efforts.