What’s the Matter With Ohio?

« on: July 02, 2008, 07:22:24 AM »

TonyBlair

Verified Member
CTH Professor

Reputation: +54/-0
Posts: 3824

What’s the Matter With Ohio?
By W. James Antle III

AS OHIO GOES, so goes the nation. Except maybe with a little bit more feeling: During the 1990s, Republicans achieved a level of dominance here that far exceeded Newt Gingrich's in Washington. In 2006, the Democrats did better in Ohio than in the nation as a whole. Now the Buckeye State GOP is in the doldrums and some of its problems may have implications for the national party, even if bitter voters clinging to guns and religion manage to deliver the state's electoral votes to John McCain this fall.

Whatever suspense there was on election night 1992 basically ended when the networks called Ohio for Bill Clinton. Clinton carried the state again four years later. But his successes masked the state's rightward shift throughout the decade. Clinton barely edged George H.W. Bush 40 percent to 38 percent and beat Bob Dole 47 percent to 41 percent. In both cases, he underperformed the national popular vote and saw some of his narrowest margins in any big state. And few Democrats did better in Ohio than Bill Clinton during the 1990s.

Three things helped the Republicans dominate Ohio politics from 1990 until recently: redistricting, term limits, and the Democrats. Republicans began the decade in control of the state Apportionment Board, helping them draw district lines to their favor. In 1992, state voters passed a term limits law that kept the more popular Democratic elected officials from the 1980s from being re-elected in perpetuity. Finally, the increasing liberalism and ineptitude of the state Democratic Party was a poor match for many Ohioans outside the Cleveland-dominated northeast section of the state.

By 2004, Republicans held all six statewide executive offices. They controlled two-thirds majorities in both houses of the state legislature. Republicans had a 5 to 2 majority on the elected state supreme court. The GOP took both U.S. Senate seats and held 12 of Ohio's 18 seats in the House of Representatives. George W. Bush beat Al Gore by 50 percent to 46 percent in the 2000 presidential election. Despite John Kerry's desire to turn the Buckeye State into the 2004 equivalent of the Florida recount debacle, Bush prevailed again four years later by 51 percent to 49 percent -- thus giving the Republican incumbent his winning margin in the Electoral College.

At various points in the '90s, a Republican held the congressional seat now (safely) occupied by Dennis Kucinich. They held the House seat vacated by current Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. A Republican served two terms as mayor of Columbus. After John Glenn's final re-election bid in 1992, the Democrats did not win another statewide office -- with the exception of nominally nonpartisan supreme court races -- for 14 years. In 1994, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate won just 25 percent of the vote. The state GOP boasted national rising stars like John Kasich, Gingrich's trusted scalpel on the House Budget Committee, and John Boehner, today the House minority leader. The Republicans held the governorship longer than any party in Ohio since the early 19th century.

THEN IT ALL CAME crashing down.

http://spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=13450


	Logged

We could say [Democrats] spend money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors. It would be unfair, because the sailors are spending their own money. --Ronald Reagan

Al Gore didn't invent the internet, he invented global warming

The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants - Camus

The person who advocates government planning of the economy always assumes that it is his plan that will be put into effect. --Hayek