Monday, March 06, 2000
McCain pleads for Ohio win to keep his campaign alive
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WILMINGTON — John McCain pleaded with Ohio supporters Sunday to bring him a win Tuesday, knowing full well that what Ohio Republicans do could make or break his campaign.
“I need your help,” the Arizona senator told about 1,000 Ohio supporters crammed into a corner of an immense maintenance hangar at the Airborne Express Airfield here Sunday.
“Help us win Ohio.”
Mr. McCain delivered much the same message earlier Sunday afternoon at a Cleveland rally. The fact that he spent the next-to-last campaign day be fore Tuesday's 11-state Super Tuesday primary in Ohio underscored its importance in the McCain campaign's effort to keep pace with Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
Mr. Bush is expected to win Tuesday's primary in California — the largest state — and is expected to follow up with wins in two more big states — Texas, his home base, and Florida, where his brother Jeb Bush is governor.
That means Mr. McCain — who trails in the polls in Ohio — will need a sweep of the New England states up for grabs Tuesday, along with New York and Ohio, to have a reasonable chance of taking the nomination away from Mr. Bush, who, until Mr. McCain's campaign surged in New Hampshire, was considered to have a lock on the GOP nomination.
Speaking Sunday in Wilmington to supporters who came from as far away as Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati to see their candidate, Mr. McCain ripped into the Bush campaign for a TV ad that has been running in California, New York and Ohio. It attacks Mr. McCain's environmental record. Mr. McCain argues the ad distorts his Senate record.
The $2.5 million TV ad buy was made by two wealthy Texan supporters of Mr. Bush, who have said they did not consult with the Bush campaign before airing the anti-McCain ad. That kind of contact would have been illegal under federal election law.
Sunday, Mr. McCain called the attack “despicable.”
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PRIMARY PRIMER
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When Ohio voters go to the polls Tuesday, they will have a number of ballots to choose from: Democratic, Republican and “issues only” ballots.
There also are ballots for the Libertarian and Natural Law parties, both of which gained primary ballot status this year.
If, in the last partisan primary in March 1998, you voted one party's ballot and want to switch to another this year, the poll worker at your polling place will ask you to sign a declaration that you “support the principles” of the party to which you want to switch.
In the presidential primary election in Ohio, you will find a list of names of the presidential contenders, but what you will actually be voting for is a slate of delegates to the parties' presidential nominating convention pledged to one candidate or another.
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“This kind of attack from George Bush's cronies is wrong,” Mr. McCain said. “If we are going to allow these people to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the law spending millions on negative advertising to try to destroy people's reputations, then the system is seriously broken.”
Mr. McCain's visit to Wilmington marked the first appearance of an opposition “truth squad” on the Ohio campaign trail. Such bands of volunteers for the opponent who tail candidates from appearance to appearance have become a common sight in presidential campaigns in the past two decades.
Sunday, it took the form of a Bush campaign school bus — the “No Education Plan Express,” a parody of Mr. McCain's “Straight Talk Express” campaign bus. The Bush bus pulled into the Airborne Express parking lot about two hours before Mr. McCain's plane arrived.
After the McCain rally in a hangar, U.S. Rep. Rob Portman, R-Terrace Park, picked on the theme that the Bush campaign has sounded over the past two days — that Mr. McCain has no clear plan on education, while Mr. Bush has a record as an education reformer in Texas.
“One of the best things that George W. Bush has going for him is a remarkable record in Texas on education reform,” Mr. Portman said. “Test scores in Texas are up 60 percent in some cases and the governor has had a comprehensive plan which includes accountability for schools and teachers.”
Today in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, Mr. Portman and Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell will greet lunch-hour diners at Hathaway's restaurant in the Carew Tower and in the Tower Place Food Court.
But their candidate, the Texas governor, has stayed away from Ohio since his three-city tour last Tuesday, which included a rally at Cincinnati's Memorial Hall.
Since then, Mr. Bush has spent most of his time in California and New York, Super Tuesday's biggest prizes.
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