[fieldmarshaldj]

The more appalling aspect of after the 2000 redistricting is that we should've targeted Brown for defeat in a big way, but I heard Taft was supposedly "scared" if the GOP took him out, Brown would run for Governor instead (which even if he had, he still would've lost -- I mean, Taft had faced him before and knocked off Brown as the sitting Sec of State), so the order came down to let him keep his seat.

DeWine, I think is dreadful (not nearly as bad as Brown, of course). I wish we could've gotten someone like John Kasich to replace him. Paul Hackett, of course, is not going to get out of the way for Brown, so that may end up being a pretty ugly scene on the 'Rat side. Although he doesn't deserve it, Blackwell will probably help carry his sorry ass to a 3rd term. Of course, Blackwell himself is of paramount importance to get into the Governor's office.

[Theodore R.]

Is Blackwell now the favorite for the Republican nomination? I had thought that Taft was putting up someone else.

[Clintonfatigued]

Here's another appalling aspect of Sherrod Brown's career: In 1998, Republicans lured a first-tier candidate to oppose him in state Senator Grace Drake, whom they'd tried to recruit many times before. But in the election, they gave her campaign no backing at all. Hugely outspent, she lost by a wide margin.

[AuH2ORepublican]

"The more appalling aspect of after the 2000 redistricting is that we should've targeted Brown for defeat in a big way, but I heard Taft was supposedly "scared" if the GOP took him out, Brown would run for Governor instead"

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That's exactly how it went down. The GOP legislature had already prepared a redistricting plan that would have appended western Akron to West Cleveland (giving Kucinich the edge in that district) and placed Lorain and nearby Dem areas in Kaptur's Toledo-based CD (you can see how easy that was by the fact that most of the more Republican parts of Lorain County are now in Kaptur's CD), which would have forced Brown to run in a GOP district based in Medina County and the Cleveland suburbs, but Brown and Strickland threatened to run as a Governor/Lt. Gov. ticket in 2002 (Strickland was also getting his district made unwinnable in the GOP plan) and Taft insisted that they draw relatively safe districts for Brown (who had been winning in a district 6% more Republican than the one he was given) and Strickland (who had been winning in a district 7% more Republican than the one he was given).

I wrote to Governor Taft (as well as to the top legislative leaders) urging them not to adopt a plan that would allow Strickland and Brown to survive, but obviously Taft wasn't thinking about preserving the GOP majority in the House of Representatives, he merely wanted an easier reelection.