By Carl Weiser
Enquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - An anti-tax group released a poll Tuesday showing that Ohio Republicans are so angry at Sen. George Voinovich for his stand against President Bush's tax cut that they would support other Republicans for the Senate next year, including Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Voinovich's office and a moderate Republican group dismissed the poll as a "push poll," meaning it was not scientifically valid and was designed to pull desired answers from people using misleading questions.

Whatever its validity, it shows the pressure being applied almost daily to Voinovich in what is likely to be a make-or-break week for Bush's proposed $550 billion tax cut.

A self-described "deficit hawk," Voinovich wants to keep a tax cut at $350 billion unless Congress finds a way to pay for more with spending cuts or closing tax loopholes. He and a handful of other senators are key to the tax cut's size and ultimately its passage or defeat.

Voinovich spokesman Scott Milburn said not only was the poll misleading and irresponsible, but it also wouldn't have mattered anyway what the numbers show.

"This is about what he thinks is right or wrong," Milburn said of Voinovich.

The Club for Growth did the poll Thursday of 400 likely Republican primary voters. The same anti-tax group ran ads last month skewering Voinovich for disloyalty to the president. The ads likened Voinovich to the French during the Iraq war.

Their poll showed that among Ohio Republicans, Bush's approval rating was at 88.5 percent while Voinovich's was at 51 percent. Respondents overwhelmingly said they wanted Voinovich to show more support for the president's tax-cut package and by a nearly 4-to-1 ratio said they supported the president's tax cut over Voinovich's.

In a hypothetical match against John Kasich, a retired Columbus congressman, Voinovich would lose 37.5 percent to 26.3 percent, with the rest undecided. Against Blackwell, Voinovich would lose 31 percent to 30 percent, though that's well within the poll's five-point margin of error.

"These are, to me, absolutely stunning, stunning numbers," said the Club for Growth's executive director, David Keating. "We were astonished. We thought he might be vulnerable, but we didn't know how vulnerable."

Voinovich's spokesman said the poll questions falsely implied that Voinovich opposed Bush's tax cut. Voinovich supports the president's entire tax cut of $550 billion, Milburn said. But he wants to make sure nothing more than $350 billion is added to the deficit.

The Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of moderate Republicans, said the Club for Growth was grandstanding and looking for media coverage.

"The poll was a farce," said the partnership's executive director, Sarah Chamberlain Resnick.

In Maine, where the Club for Growth did an identical poll against fellow tax-cut rebel Olympia Snowe, people who didn't give the right answers were screened out, she said.

"Hung up on. If they didn't get the answer they wanted to hear, you were done," she said. She didn't know if the same thing happened in Ohio. The Club for Growth's Keating called Resnick's charges untrue and "weird."

The poll is only one of many attempts to yank Voinovich, as well as Snowe, into line to support the president's tax cut. Also:

• Blackwell himself has begun a $10,000-a-week radio ad campaign in support of the tax cut. In radio ads airing in Cincinnati and eight other Ohio cities, Blackwell tells listeners the tax cuts will bring jobs to Ohio. He doesn't mention Voinovich.

"It's not news in Ohio that he and I differ on tax policy," Blackwell said. "Neither of us is bashful about our position."

Blackwell, a friend of Club for Growth's president, Stephen Moore, said the poll numbers encouraged him. But he reiterated that he is running only for governor in 2006 and won't run against Voinovich.

• President Bush visited Ohio last week to push for the full tax cut, deriding those in Congress, like Voinovich, who prefer a "little bitty" $350 billion plan. Bush has been stumping for his tax cut almost daily.

Milburn scoffed at the idea that Voinovich might change his mind because of the pressure.