Ohio GOP launches all-out drive for Bush
Originally published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Ohio GOP launches all-out drive for Bush
09/27/03
Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus - A Republican all-star cast kicked off the Ohio campaign to re-elect George W. Bush yesterday, pegging the state as one of the toughest battlegrounds for the president in 2004.
Gov. Bob Taft, who will serve as chairman of Bush's state campaign, told a gathering in the Statehouse Atrium that Bush's record fighting terrorism, waging war on Iraq and backing economy-stimulating tax cuts "inspires us all."
"By insisting on solving problems, he is not passing them on to future generations," Taft said.
No Republican has ever taken the White House without winning Ohio, and both Taft and Bush's national campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, acknowledged that they are preparing for a tough battle here - partly by forming a formidable Ohio team and doing it early.
Bush narrowly carried the state in 2000, after Bill Clinton had won the state in both 1992 and 1996. The state is considered an important one to win because of its 21 electoral votes.
Virtually every Republican elected to an executive or legislative office in GOP-controlled Ohio - including its two senators, its Republican congressional delegations, all the statewide executive officeholders and the current and former leaders of both chambers of the legislature - will join Taft in campaigning for Bush.
According to results of an Ohio poll released yesterday, Bush holds a double-digit lead over any Democrat he might face. The poll has a margin of error of 3.9 percent, and was conducted before Gen. Wesley Clark entered the race.
Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt would grab 41 percent to Bush's 55 percent if the election were today, the University of Cincinnati's poll showed. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman would do next best, at 40 percent. Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry trailed by about 20 points each, with Ohio's own Dennis Kucinich - the congressman and former Cleveland mayor - losing to Bush 61 percent to 32 percent.
Still, Bush's popularity has waned. His favorability rating is 20 percent, the poll found, down 20 percentage points since February.
After the event, Mehlman was headed to a much-publicized Ohio Republican Party fund raiser at the Upper Arlington mansion of voting machine executive Walden O'Dell. O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc., wrote in an invitation to the function that he was "committed to helping deliver Ohio's electoral votes to the president" in 2004. He has since expressed regret if his political activities cast aspersions on the integrity of the voting machines he plans to sell in Ohio.
Mehlman said that people are able to separate their political beliefs from their professional activities and that everyone has a right to get involved in the election process.
Subscribe to this blog's feed