Friday, March 10, 2000
Ohio is at 'heart' of presidential contest
Winning here key in tight race
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio has a marketing slogan — “The Heart of It All” — that is supposed to lure fishermen to Lake Erie and vacationers to bed-and-breakfast inns in the state's more picturesque small towns.
This year, though, it applies best to the presidential race.
“Ohio is going to be right in the thick of it,” said Herb Asher, professor emeritus of political science at Ohio State University. “By the fall, Ohioans will be seeing George W. Bush and Al Gore in the state every other day.”
Ohio has always had a role in picking presidents; America has yet to elect a Republican president who did not win the Buckeye State's electoral votes.
But, in 2000, Ohio may take on added importance in a Bush-Gore contest that is expected to be close from start to finish.
"It will be close'
Sun Belt states like Texas have backed GOP presidential candidates in the past two presidential elections, but the string of heavily populated industrial states that hug the shores of the Great Lakes — such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois — have gone to Bill Clinton twice. That could make the difference between his vice president's winning and losing this fall.
“They'll fight tooth and nail here,” U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said of the two major party nominees. “And it will be close in Ohio. It almost always is.”
There is a reason the contest for the presidency is usually so intense in Ohio; it has to do with the nature of the state.
It is, as Mr. Voinovich says, “a microcosm of America,” made up of big cities and small towns, a considerable labor vote and a large African-American population that usually goes to the Democrats, great sprawling suburbs and sparsely populated rural counties that are as rock-ribbed Republican as it gets.
It is a mix that makes for close elections, particularly when there is no incumbent running and the road to the White House is wide open.
Wooing independents
Tuesday's presidential primaries offered no solid clues as to how the state will go this fall. Mr. Bush spent only one day campaigning in the state, but scored an easy win over Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Mr. Gore had an even more impressive victory in Ohio over former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley.
Both winners in the Ohio primary did it the old-fashioned way — by turning out their parties' core voters.
But, in the fall election, the major party candidates will have to woo the hundreds of thousands without allegiance to one party or the other, who, more often than not, decide elections.
Ronald Reagan won them in Ohio in the 1980s; Bill Clinton took them in the 1990s; and, as a new decade begins, they are up for grabs.
Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Leland said he expects Mr. Gore to continue the string of Democratic wins in Ohio by “appealing to people on the issues they care about — education, a real patients' bill of rights, keeping the economy booming.
“If it's about ideas, and ideas people care about most, Al Gore wins,” Mr. Leland said.
Tuesday night, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, celebrating a Bush primary win in Ohio that he helped engineer, said the challenge for the Bush campaign will be “taking the message beyond Republican voters and getting independent voters and Democrats on board. You have to do that to win Ohio.”
Mr. Taft said he expects Mr. Bush to emphasize his “record of reform” as Texas governor while trying to appeal to Ohio voters, particularly on education.
“We know it will be a battle,” Mr. Taft said. “But we're ready.”
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