Why the Ohio Electorate Is Jaded
Exhibit A — The US Senate contest.
Each candidate operates well to the left of where his base is. “Republican” DeWine is well to the left of Ohio’s conservatives; Brown has always been well to the left of the average Democrat in the 13th Congressional District, and is even further to the left of the average Democrat in the entire state.
Both candidates are going to spend the next 6 months “courting their base” (a term used in the article).
Oh, how I despise that term. Now I realize every marriage is supposed to retain a little bit of courtship, but courtship is the last thing I’m in the mood for when the bride has been AWOL for 5-1/2 years and fooling around with every ……. I’ll stop.
On the Dem side, after chewing up Paul Hackett and spitting him out in little pieces, the many pro-2nd Amendment, anti-illegal immigration Democrats who saw something to get excited about in Paul Hackett are supposed to cozy right up to Sherrod Brown (people forget that these were key Hackett positions; though he didn’t emphasize immigration much, his parting interview with OH02 made it very clear where he stood). Yeah, just like that.
I can’t speak for the Dems, but as a conservative I can say that I’ll vote for Mike DeWine, but please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending all of a sudden to be a kindred spirit.
You’re right, Tom - the whole “courting the base” gambit is insulting. Either candidates stand for something and can lead people to their positions - or they don’t and can’t. Ohioans get to chose between two candidates of the latter category.
I’m not as hard on DeWine as you’ve been, but he’s clearly not a teacher, influencer or leader.
Comment by Paul A. Miller — May 8, 2006 @ 11:46 am
#1, he doesn’t realize how tough it will be to get a lot of people to pull the lever for him. DeWine should be thankful that Blackwell won, because it means the base will at least get into the polling booth, so they’ll be in a position to hold their nose and vote for him if he doesn’t anger them too much in the next six months.
Comment by TBlumer — May 8, 2006 @ 11:57 am
I wouldn’t be so quick to criticize the Dems for dumping Paul Hackett.
They’re just doing what the Republicans do — backing the one with the most in their coffers.
If you don’t like it, if you’d have liked your boy Pierce to have got a fair shot, listen to the liberals and demand publicly financed elections.
Comment by Theo — May 8, 2006 @ 1:58 pm
#3, no way.
If you’re going to do it right, you would do exactly the opposite of publicly funded elections:
- In a US Senate race, you would first limit any and all contributions to individuals who actually live in the state (no corporations, no PACs, no unions — only real, living, breathing adults). The Founders never envisioned that out-of-state money would be used to influence races.
- The same goes for whatever jurisdiction is involved — if it’s a congressional district, only indivduals within that district can give, etc.
- You would take away the limit on individual contributions, so that somebody could finance an insurgent campaign like Gene McCarthy did on a national level in 1968, essentially using the money of one rich guy.
- The only “public” requirement would be 48-hour full disclosure once a candidate gets past a certain threshold (maybe $100,000 for a US Senate race) so that everyone would see who’s giving money right away.
There are a lot of low-budget ways an insurgent campaign could have worked this year, but some tactical errors were made that are too boring for here, and the existence of two challengers made it nearly impossible. That said, it’s getting easier to challenge an incumbent instead of harder — as long as Congress doesn’t tighten the noose further on freedom of speech, which unfortunately they’re doing almost as we speak:
http://www.bizzyblog.com/?p=2043
And the libs aren’t happy with what Congress is doing because it doesn’t restrict speech enough. Sorry, no sale.
Comment by TBlumer — May 8, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
The only appeal DeWine has to the conservative base is the fact that he is not Sherrod Brown. Brown’s biggest problem is he is running in Ohio and not in one of the nutty coastal states.
Comment by LargeBill — May 8, 2006 @ 4:10 pm
Sooner or later one has to be square with principles.DeWine,like Clinton,is a political animal.If he wins in November what will we have voted for? No apparent core values….certainly NO Conservative ideals…just another brick in the status Quo….meanwhile back at the ranch…….
Comment by P.G.Calabalini — May 8, 2006 @ 10:31 pm
Dewine ,like Clinton ,has no core value/belief system and certainly no conservative values.If he wins ….we conservatives loose….Ohio looses and continues its tailspin.
Comment by P.G.Calabalini — May 8, 2006 @ 10:37 pm
#5,6,7 — So we vote for DeWine for ABB reasons — Anybody But Brown. Just bleeping great.
Comment by TBlumer — May 8, 2006 @ 10:42 pm
Cash = speech, huh?
So if I have more cash than you, I have more speech?
Go on - tell me how “the Founders” would’ve interpreted that one.
Comment by Theo — May 9, 2006 @ 1:33 am
#9, I didn’t know you objected to Gene Mccarthy’s 1968 campaign so vigorously.
The Founders interpreted it thusly–
1st amendment: “Congress shall make no law…. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
Money having been invented at the time, they knew that candidates would need it and spend it in the course of running for office.
Giving money to someone is a form of exercising free speech. My problem is that Bill of Rights is all about individual rights, not the rights of corporations, or PACs, or unions, or trade groups, or whatever. Individuals should be able to exercise their free speech rights and should be able to give a candidate they favor as much money as they wish. George Soros, if he’s a citizen, should be able to give Hillary $20 mil if he wants to, and the Waltons should be able to give whoever they like as much money as they want, as long as it’s fully disclosed. The world worked that way until the so-called Watergate-era reforms started restricing free speech in the 1970s. If those “reforms” and CFR are so great, why don’t we have a squeaky clean election process?
Comment by TBlumer — May 9, 2006 @ 1:53 am
#9, and another thing…. If enough people feel that limits on money contributed to campaign are needed, there is only one constitutional way to accomplish it — amend the constitution to place such a limit on the free speech.
Comment by TBlumer — May 9, 2006 @ 2:17 am
I don’t know folks. How about instead of allowing the candidates to take all the money in the world, how about limiting them to say 100,000 total and equitably distributed amongst all valid candidates from a fund. You have that and NO more. Maybe that would get the word to the politicians….sound bite candidates are not welcome. You have to beat the doors, walk the walkways, and meet the folks and get your opinions and platforms out THAT way. What a novel concept. Have a politician meet the common every day folk. In that way the candidate cannot monopolize the airwaves by buying up time. Even better you see the REAL person, not the nicely editing smiling faces on the TV.
Comment by Jon — May 9, 2006 @ 7:03 am
#12, that protects incumbents, who have ways to get on TV and other tricks (mailers and weekly e-mails) that challengers don’t have. I can see from your perspective how that’s an improvement, but I don’t agree that it is.
I also think technology MAY be reduing the relevance of money as an inherent incumbent advantage, but we’ll see.
Comment by TBlumer — May 9, 2006 @ 10:10 am