Posted on 10/09/2005 11:19:23 PM PDT by RockinRight
"Too Conservative" charge has been handled before
If it weren't for polls, the case that Ken Blackwell's opponents would make against giving him the Republican nomination for governor would be that he couldn't win a general election.
Too conservative, they'd say about the secretary of state. Ohio's a swing state, they'd say. You have to fight for the political center.
Blackwell, so beloved of national right-wing organizations, so eager to make clear that he is not in the Voinovich, DeWine, Taft, Petro, Montgomery mold of Ohio Republicans, would scare independents and moderates.
He might be able to win a Republican primary by firing up the conservative base, but that would be a dead end.
This argument was, in fact, being heard in political circles not very long ago.
Some people were adding that being black would also hurt Blackwell, though that concern has been losing force for some time.
Now, Blackwell is not only leading in the primary polls by a good 15 points, but is showing better than the other Republicans in matchups with Democrats. A Zogby poll shows Blackwell running essentially even with Democrats Michael Coleman (mayor of Columbus) and U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland. Meanwhile, the other Republican candidates for governor, Attorney General Jim Petro and Auditor Betty Montgomery, run behind the two Democrats by 4.4 to 11 percentage points.
(The poll also showed Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, a Democrat, with an 8-point lead over U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine.)
So the case that Blackwell would be a peculiarly week candidate is now strained. Actually, the conventional political wisdom of the moment is exactly the opposite. It holds that he'd be peculiarly strong as Republicans go, because he is widely seen the way he labels himself: as the "anti-Taft."
Even before Taft was in ethical trouble, Blackwell was criticizing the Ohio Republican establishment under Taft as harshly as a Democrat would, if from another direction. Now Taft has a pathetic 15 percent approval rate. (Of the 15 percent, 2 percent said they "strongly approve," suggesting that they misunderstood the question.)
The hope that Blackwell will be seen as too extreme by Ohio's political center has been damaged by Blackwell's success in identifying himself with a couple of the most popular causes of the right: low taxes and opposition to gay marriage. His opponents would like to tie him to less popular conservative causes, but will be hindered by his lack of a legislative record. They will also want to tie him to an unpopular president and the religious right, at least in the general election.
But such efforts often prove fruitless against a guy like Blackwell. Such an ideologue gets credit from conservatives for being a conservative and from others for being principled. The opposition he generates from those who don't like his views generally doesn't overbalance that support.
That's why moderate states often elect non-moderates: former Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, a true-blue liberal, in Ohio; fire-breathing conservative Sen. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, which has voted against George W. Bush twice now.
Perhaps Blackwell is benefiting in the polls now from being better known than any other candidate in either party. The name recognition of others will rise eventually. But if Blackwell is better known now, it's because he's been at the center of political debate as a leader of causes. That standing as leader will continue to be an asset.
Blackwell has followed a formula:
Pick your constituency and give it what it wants. His moves are out of a national playbook for conservatives. The idea was always to become the conservative candidate first. Play to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the "moral conservatives," the right-wing audience for national talk shows, and place some confidence in the organized support that follows. Only then stretch a little toward the center if necessary.
Understood in that light, he looks less like a leader and more like a follower; less like a distinctive individual and more like a mold.
Either way, he has often gotten the jump on the more traditional, Ohio-like politicians he's running against, reducing them to positioning themselves on his proposals, most specifically his call for a constitutional limit on taxes and spending.
Given that we're talking about popular proposals, his opponents have a problem. If they can't solve it by saying he's unelectable, they've got a serious problem.
Ping!
"Too Conservative" charge has been handled before"
After eight years of Bob Taft, too conservative might actually appeal to Ohio voters.
Yah.
Blackwell has a tightrope to walk though. He can't just run super hard right to distance himself from Taft, and he can't run as a quasi D either, obviously.
That said, if anybody can do it, he can. He's the only hope the Ohio R's have.
Oh, he's also a shoe-in for VP or P at some point if he pulls it off.
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