Posted on 06/07/2005 8:34:21 AM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Congressional race: Divide to conquer?
With the vote so split up, the winning tally may be strikingly low
By Barry M. Horstman
Post staff reporter
A seat in Congress - one of the most coveted prizes that American politics has to offer - could be won by fewer votes than it takes to get elected to student government at a decent-sized university in next week's special 2nd Congressional District election.
With 11 Republican candidates and five Democrats - six, counting one running as a write-in - competing for the seat vacated by Rep. Rob Portman, an anticipated low turnout could mean that a candidate may not even have to crack five digits to become his party's nominee in the Aug. 2 general election.
"I'd take 8,000 votes right now and be pretty happy," said state Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-Mount Lookout. "I think that's a winning number."
Most candidates project a Republican turnout in the low- to mid-30,000-vote range, close to the 30,895 votes that Portman received in the 2002 primary, with the Democratic turnout perhaps less than half that. Last year, Portman, a Terrace Park Republican who left Congress this spring to accept President Bush's appointment to the cabinet-level post of U.S. trade representative, drew twice that many votes - 63,796 - in the primary, but that came in a presidential election year that dramatically drove up turnout.
The seven-county district has the most lopsided Republican advantage of any congressional district in Ohio, having produced a 2-to-1 margin for President Bush in 2004 and landslide 3-to-1 victories for Portman in his past four re-election campaigns. Consequently, most attention in the June 14 primary will focus on the increasingly contentious GOP contest, whose victor will be viewed as essentially a congressman-elect, with the Democratic primary and Aug. 2 general election seen as little more than electoral formalities.
If local Democrats are unwilling to concede the race, neither do they underestimate the very long odds facing them.
"It's a special election, where unusual things can sometimes happen," said Tim Burke, Hamilton County Democratic Party chairman. "If we get the right Democratic candidate and the right Republican candidate, and then have an awful lot of things go right for us in the general, there's a chance. But I'm not going to kid anyone. Under any circumstances, that district is always going to be a very difficult one for any Democrat."
Aware that, for all practical purposes, winning the Republican primary may be tantamount to election, the GOP contenders - driven by the frenetic pace dictated by the unusually short campaign created by Portman's resignation - for the past two months have been feverishly crisscrossing the sprawling district, which stretches from eastern Hamilton County and southern Warren County east to Portsmouth, halfway across southern Ohio.
Of the 11 Republican candidates, four - Brinkman, Hamilton County Commissioner Pat DeWine, former U.S. Rep. Bob McEwen and former state Rep. Jean Schmidt - are widely viewed as the presumptive frontrunners, a function of the name identification, political experience and resources, financial and otherwise, that they carried into the campaign.
The other seven, most of them first-time candidates, offer a diversity of backgrounds and life experiences. Drawn from both the district's urban centers and remote rural outposts, they include several teachers, a part-time letter carrier, a former government worker, a lawyer, a financial analyst and a professional magician.
It will take a magic trick worthy of David Copperfield, however, for any of the seven to become the GOP nominee, less due to a lack of credentials than to the harsh political realities in the path of their uphill effort to rise from unknown to serious contender in a sharply abbreviated campaign. Their best hope - perhaps their only hope - is for the better-known candidates to so seriously splinter the vote that a dark horse could perhaps slip through.
"Often the rural areas get overlooked," said candidate Steve Austin, a retired civics teacher from Peebles, a small town about 80 miles east of Cincinnati. "That's a problem in terms of representation. And it's also a problem for a candidate."
Similarly, Jeff Morgan, a youth minister and part-time postal worker also from Peebles, jokingly tells audiences that searching for his campaign signs is a political scavenger hunt. Billing himself as "The Best Congressman Money Can't Buy," Morgan admits that he is trying to accomplish with handshakes and door-knocking what his better-known opponents are doing with expensive TV and radio ads, mass mailers and paid consultants.
"I'm certainly not a household name," he said.
Even for the candidates who are, an 11-way race poses obvious challenges, starting with concerns that the votes siphoned off by the lesser-knowns in the race could alter the top contenders' finishing order. As in any field race, the vote gap that separates the first- and second-place finishers will be shaped not only by how voters assess their two candidacies, but also by the votes that go to the distant also-rans at the bottom of the ballot.
Their effort to separate themselves from the pack also is complicated by the candidates' general agreement on most major issues, giving voters little in the way of a philosophical hook in the race.
"You can't just say you're pro-life or support the 2nd Amendment or want to cut taxes, because all or nearly all of the other candidates feel the same way," DeWine said.
That has left the candidates grasping for other ways to try to distinguish themselves:
McEwen, a former six-term congressman from Ohio's 6th District who has been a Washington lobbyist since his 1992 defeat, emphasizes that his 12 years in Congress would give him a seniority edge that could benefit the 2nd District.
"Congress operates on seniority," said McEwen, who bought a condominium in Anderson Township when Portman's unexpected departure from Congress created a vacancy. "I'd be able to walk in as a seventh-termer. That can make all the difference. It affects your committee assignments, who speaks on the floor. It affects what you can do for your district."
As the only woman in the race, Schmidt hopes that gender works to her advantage.
"I'm the conservative female in the race," she told one forum in Sharonville. "And there are so few in Congress. That can give some extra emphasis to what you say and do."
DeWine and Brinkman point to their legislative records, arguing that they have long track records of acting on some of the goals that other candidates can only espouse.
Stressing that he cut property taxes as a Cincinnati City Council member and this year helped to reduce county spending by 3.5 percent as a commissioner, DeWine characterizes himself as the "best remedy for Ohioans' tax fatigue."
Brinkman, whose 34th Ohio House District overlaps part of the 2nd Congressional District, consistently tells voters that his candidacy is built around four issues: "100 percent anti-tax, 100 percent pro-life, 100 percent on 2nd Amendment rights and limited government."
Eric Minamyer, a retired Navy captain from Symmes Township, decided to run when he saw that there "wasn't a single person who had served a single moment in uniform" in the race.
"There are fewer veterans in Congress today than there has been any time in the past 50 years," Minamyer said. "That bothers me. Their voice needs to continue to be heard."
Peter Fossett, a high school history teacher at Cincinnati Country Day, is perhaps the only candidate who can point to significant philosophical distinctions from the rest of the field.
"I'm a political conservative and a fiscal conservative, but have a more moderate position on social issues than the other 10 candidates," he said. "I think the government should stay out of issues like abortion, marriage and religion."
Believing voters want a congressman who supports President Bush but is not blindly loyal to anyone, Douglas Mink, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, trumpets the fact that he resisted strong party pressure in his previous run for public office.
In 2002, a top aide to Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder tried to dissuade Mink from entering that year's 28th Ohio House District primary against Jim Raussen, who had narrowly lost to Democrat Wayne Coates in 2000. To position Raussen for a rematch, the Householder aide boasted to Mink, GOP leaders, through redistricting, had removed thousands of African-American voters from the district. Mink rebuffed the party's heavy-handed overture - which, thanks to a secretly recorded tape, became a public embarrassment for Republicans - but lost to Raussen in the primary.
"I showed I'm independent and don't give it to bullying tactics," said Mink, an online social studies instructor at Butler Tech.
Tom Bemmes, Morgan and Austin play up their humble roots.
"I grew up the eighth of nine children in a two-bedroom home," Bemmes, a teacher and professional magician, tells campaign audiences. "The Founding Fathers wanted a common man like me to represent you."
Similarly, Morgan says that growing up on a farm instilled a lesson as valuable in politics as it is in life.
"With a farm, you've got to make do with what you've got," he says. "I think government can do the same."
And Austin, noting that he worked his way through college working as a barber, says: "I understand the struggles of a middle-class family."
Smith, a 35-year-old financial analyst at the Procter & Gamble Co., often describes himself as "a patriot to freedom" and part of a "new generation of leaders (with) the ability to inspire others."
Whatever difficulties the crowded field poses for the candidates, Brinkman sees the political free-for-all as a good thing for voters.
"People like choices - they want to go into a grocery store and have 50 different boxes of cereal to choose from," he said. "That's how it is in this race. You've just got to hope you're the one they pick."
Is it wrong that a part of me kinda wants the magician to win? Oh the fun he could have up there! LOL
She's the former state rep because she lost her 2004 primary over her vote to increase the sales tax.
I'm glad I donated to Brinkman.
Although, I must say, if I knew for a fact which candidate could beat Dewine I'd swing over to that camp.
A low turn-out would favor Brinkman but most other candidates in the primary could make a legit claim to being conservative as well.
Considering the bruising nature of the GOP primary, it's possible that many Republicans could stay home in the general election and the Dem candidate could slip thru in an upset.
I'm unfamiliar with the candidates. Why Brinkman? Is he the true conservative, and if so, how do we know this?
Pat DeWine still has to be the frontrunner though. You know there are lots of establishment types even in a low-turnout primary.
Thanks for the background, JZ.
I would'nt worry too much about DeWine. I'm getting tons of mail promoting him as a candidate.
The problem is, I don't live in that district. I'm 3 miles away in Bohener's district!
Please tell me Schmidt looks like Ann Coulter..
OH-2 is the most GOP district in the state.
Bony chicken with an Adam's apple?
Brinkman is supported by GOA.
I live in Steve Chabot's district, on the West Side of Cincinnati, and I can assure you that Pat DeWine is hardly well-liked. He's made a number of enemies since his days on Cincinnati City Council, including publicly sparring with the head of Cincinnati's Police Union, taking out a sitting county commissioner in a nasty primary, and leaving his wife for another woman while she was pregnant with his third child. His amibition has also been criticized, as he was just elected as a Hamilton County Commissioner last November and he's already running for another office. Believe me, his negatives are high and his father's recent actions aren't making things any better for him. He's been booed at several campaign events, been slammed for claiming endorsements he didn't really have, and even skipped events to avoid hostile treatment. The problem I see is that he's both well-known and well-financed and could win on that alone in such a crowded field. Brinkman, McEwen, and Schmidt are clearly better alternatives to DeWine, but separately he'll probably beat each of them, save possibly McEwen. McEwen is still fairly well-known from his former days in Congress and he has more money than Schmidt or Brinkman. DeWine has been attacking him recently, leading me to believe that he sees McEwen has his strongest competitor. I like Brinkman and would be happy if he wins. Hopefully he'll run for Mayor of Cincinnati if he doesn't, though.
Exactly. It's hard enough to overcome name ID in a primary, and in a crowded special primary, zheesh ...
Still, here's hoping.
LOL!..@ she doesn't look like Helen Thomas. :D
Thanks for the info. Has the NRA gotten involved in the race?
The NRA hasn't gotten involved and nobody seems to think they will. But the Gun Owners of America have endorsed Tom Brinkman and nobody else. Most of the organizations are issuing multiple endorsements or none at all, but GOA has given their endorsement exclusively to Brinkman.
McEwen and DeWine are spending their time and money trashing each other. Let them beat up on each other. Meanwhile, Brinkman is running a positive campaign and Republicans will be seeing a lot of him in the final week.
DeWine and McEwen deserve each other, but the 2nd District deserves better. Please encourage everyone you know to support Tom Brinkman, the only candidate in this race with a proven conservative record and the integrity to match.
Yes,he is the true conservative.Go visit www.gobrinkman.com
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