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Blackwell told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Taft was "attached at the hip to the status quo." As if to illustrate the point, Republican leaders moved quickly to muscle Blackwell out of the primary. By January, Taft had been endorsed by 81 of the 88 state county chairs, 51 of the 66 members of the Republican State Central Committee, and 78 of the 81 GOP state legislators. Robert Bennett was openly telling the media he preferred to avoid a Taft-Blackwell primary. "The upside to a primary is, if you don't have any name recognition, it gives you the ability to get name recognition," the chairman told the Plain Dealer. "The downside is that you burn money, and money's hard to come by, particularly with today's contribution limits."

Republican leaders urged Blackwell to run for Taft's job as secretary of state, a move that had the added benefit of pushing another conservative, state legislator Ed Kasputis, out of a statewide race. "Ken's getting a lot of advice right now," the Ohio GOP executive director told the local media. "He's getting a lot of calls from county chairmen urging him to run for secretary of state."

Initially, Blackwell wouldn't bite. He told reporters, "There are only three options I have considered: Running for re-election, running for governor or entering the private sector. I have ruled out the private sector. And I will be a candidate in 1998. And my focus is on being a candidate for governor." The Dayton Daily News quoted him as saying, "The only thing worse than running for secretary of state would be being secretary of state."

Yet Blackwell would end up doing both. Reportedly promised up to $4 million in campaign funds by the state party leaders -- as well as their blessing if a future GOP president nominated him for a Cabinet slot -- if he bowed out of the governor's race and ran for secretary of state, Blackwell folded. That November, Voinovich was elected to the U.S. Senate, Taft won the governorship, Blackwell became secretary of state, and Republicans maintained their stranglehold on the statewide non-judicial elected offices. In 2002, the GOP reshuffled again as Montgomery and Petro traded jobs to avoiding being term-limited out of office.

SOME REPUBLICANS PROBABLY look back ten years and wish they had juggled differently. After an early feint to the right, Taft quickly reverted to Voinovich's tax-and-spend ways. In 2001, he sought a $465 million tax increase on businesses (of which he got about $350 million). He slapped another $400 million on top of that the following year while raising the cigarette tax by 31 cents a pack. State spending continued to rise faster than inflation and population growth combined. Taft nevertheless ran to his 2002 Democratic opponent's right on taxes and spending, winning by 20 points.

In his second term, the charismatically challenged governor's droning for dollars became almost comical. "We need new revenue, and we need it right away," Taft intoned during his 2003 State of the State address. He later called for a "season of sacrifice," which would have included hitting the service sector with a 5-cent sales tax, doubling the tax on beer, new levies on businesses, increasing electricity taxes by one-third, and sticking another 45 cents a pack on the cigarette tax. Although some taxes were also to be cut, Taft's plan represented a significant net tax increase.

The Cato Institute repeatedly gave Taft an "F" on its annual fiscal report card for the nation's governors, ranking him toward the bottom. Time magazine labeled him one of the three worst governors in the country. Unified Republican control of the state government didn't stop a 20 percent "temporary" sales tax hike even as the state continued to hemorrhage jobs. A Republican activist in the state quipped, "The power to Taft is the power to destroy."

Fiscal policy isn't the only area in which Taft destroyed, or at least damaged, the Republican brand. He didn't manage the gifts he received much better than the state budget. On August 17, 2005, he was charged with four misdemeanors for failing to disclose roughly $5,800 in gifts. It was mostly penny ante stuff -- an $87 stuffed bear, a $125 framed photograph, some hockey tickets, free meals, golf outings, and pottery -- but the sight of the governor in court didn't go over well with the voters. Taft was the first Ohio governor to be charged with a crime while in office.

Occurring at the same time was "coingate," a scandal in which the state Bureau of Workmen's Compensation was investigated for placing $50 million in investments into a rare coin business run by Tom Noe, a big GOP donor. The scandals took a toll on Taft's popularity. A Zogby poll put his approval rating at 6.5 percent, among the lowest ever recorded. Democrats were already running against the Republicans' "culture of corruption" and soon there was a national tie-in as well: Congressman Bob Ney was ensnared by his dealings with Jack Abramoff. It was no surprise when the 2006 elections hit Ohio Republicans hard. If anything, it should have been much worse.

Now Buckeye State political conditions favor the Democrats. The state Democratic Party under Chris Redfern is growing and innovative like the GOP in the '90s. Candidates are winning who would have been too liberal for statewide office ten years ago, like Sen. Sherrod Brown. Brown's 12-point victory over incumbent Mike DeWine proved even Taft-Voinovich Republicans are vulnerable.

IT WOULD BE COMFORTING if the moral of this story were simply: Turn right, GOP. Republicans don't have to raise taxes, spend irresponsibly, or do favors for Abramoff. But Ken Blackwell opposed the taxing and spending, zinged Republicans who "campaign like Ronald Reagan but govern like [1980s Democratic governor] Dick Celeste," and promoted the 2004 marriage initiative that helped re-elect President Bush. His gubernatorial campaign in 2006 was lackluster, but on policy he gave conservatives everything they could ask for -- and still he lost as badly as anyone else. Then again, maybe that is the moral of the story: Once a party loses its credibility, it takes more than one election to gain it back.

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