Broder: For the GOP, a Heartland Plunge

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601425.html

When the Columbus Dispatch's respected poll recently reported that Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was trailing Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland by 20 points in the race for governor of Ohio, there was dismay but no shock among his fellow Republicans. Those I interviewed during a recent visit here said they had seen it coming for a long time.

But it is a political earthquake. Democrats have not been able to win a single statewide office in Ohio for most of the past decade -- and are completely shut out of power in the capitol at this moment. Strickland has never run a statewide campaign and is trying to become the first person since Rutherford B. Hayes to go from Congress to Ohio's governorship. Blackwell has won election in Ohio and led the successful campaign that gave George Bush this state -- and the presidency -- over John Kerry in 2004.

And yet, when the Dispatch poll came out, the best that Blackwell could say was that his own internal surveys showed him trailing by only 11 points -- as if that were a consolation.

What I heard here -- and in subsequent interviews at the National Governors Association convention in Charleston, S.C. -- from one Republican after another signaled serious trouble for the GOP across a broad swath of states from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma in key midterm election contests for House, Senate and governor.

The impression these Republicans had is that support for GOP candidates had nose-dived this summer -- in part because of the chaos conveyed by the daily televised scenes of destruction in Iraq and Lebanon and in part because of the dismal reputation built by the Republican Congress that is home to many of the endangered GOP candidates.

[Sherman A1]

1. I hope you are correct

I just have my doubts about the election process.