There was a thoughtful letter in Reader Mail today in response
to my June article on the Ohio Republican
Party. I'll reproduce it here because I think it has some national
implications:
I appreciated W. James Antle III's piece on the Ohio
Republican Party, particularly his concession at the end of the
piece that 2006 Republican gubernatorial nominee J. Kenneth
Blackwell, despite striking all the right conservative notes, was
swamped by his opponent, Democrat Ted Strickland. I would direct
Antle, and your readers, to political scientist John Fenton's 1960s
book "Midwest Politics," which branded Ohio's politics as
"issueless."
Blackwell ran an issues campaign: He talked about a
constitutional amendment that would have limited state spending
growth -- that is, before the state's sane moderate wing persuaded
him to throw it out because it was disastrously worded -- and
leasing the state turnpike. Strickland, meanwhile, ran on a
platform that supported grandma, apple pie and the American
Way.
Throw out the Democratic tidal wave in 2006; Blackwell never
would have won modern Ohio, which, as Fenton noted, likes bland
politicians who don't rock the boat. Politicians who, as legendary
Ohio GOP Chairman Ray Bliss put it, keep issues out of campaigns.
Despite sending two bedrock conservatives, John W. Bricker and
Robert Taft, to the Senate in the middle of the last century, the
leaders of the Ohio GOP since the 1960s have largely been moderate.
Four-term Gov. James A. Rhodes loved big bond issues; George
Voinovich and Mike DeWine, Ohio's two recent GOP senators, were
decried as "RINOs" -- Republicans In Name Only -- by their
conservative detractors in Ohio.
Better a RINO in Ohio, because, here, "true conservative" is a
euphemism for "loser."
Obviously, I don't entirely agree with this. My correspondent is
right that Ohioans tend to be nonideological, which is why such a
nondescript Republicanism was able to gain power there in the first
place. But ultimately, the GOP was brought low by its "sane
moderate wing." Moderate Gov. Bob Taft was enormously unpopular and
every bit as much a liability to Ohio Republicans as the national
party. Moderate Sen. Mike DeWine went down to defeat by 12 points,
losing to a Democrat who would have been too liberal to win
statewide less than ten years ago. Uber-moderate Betty Montgomery
lost her race for attorney general, albeit narrowly. Moderate Jim
Petro would have lost the governor's race too, and conservative Ken
Blackwell won statewide three times before 2006.
That said, there is something to the critique. Most voters
aren't ideologues in Ohio or most other places, though many of them
may be partisans. Some conservatives, even promising and talented
ones, run for office as if it is their mission to implement
Heritage Foundation white papers. Blackwell was one such candidate.
Steve Forbes was another. There's nothing wrong with Heritage
Foundation white papers -- the country would usually be better run
if they were implemented -- but people vote for political
programs they connect with personally. The average voter isn't an
ideologue or systematic political thinker. Campaigns that try to
appeal to them on that level are likely to fail.
topics:
Constitution, NATO
