When the votes are counted on Tuesday night, some races might be blowouts, over and done with not long after the sun has set, but the Ohio governor's race is not likely to be one of those.
That was evident by the frenetic pace of campaigning Saturday by both candidates - Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland and Republican challenger John Kasich.
Every poll in the past two weeks - and the sense among party leaders on both sides - is that the race is too close to call and will come down Tuesday to one thing and one thing only - which candidate and his party organizations can push the most voters out to the polls.
That is why, on Saturday, both candidates raced around like men whose hair was on fire, targeting key areas where they hope to fire up the masses, Republican and Democrat.
• Quiz: Election oddities
• Best, worst political ads
For Strickland, that meant a swing through the Youngstown suburb of Boardman, the northeast Ohio city of Canton and a rally in Columbus, with the one Democrat many believe is most likely to light a fire under Democratic voters - former President Bill Clinton.
And, Sunday, in Cleveland, Strickland will campaign with President Obama; and later in the day, with Vice President Biden, in a further effort to gin up excitement among Democrats.
In Columbus late Saturday afternoon, at a Teamsters local hall, Clinton outlasted a group of college Republicans who heckled him and Strickland, waiving signs saying "Failure".
"That's a metaphor for what's wrong with this election,'' Clinton said, gesturing toward a protestor with a megaphone. "If I didn't have anything to say, I'd scream too."
Clinton told the Columbus crowd of about 600 that, during Strickland's term, Ohio increased its higher education rating from 27th to 5th in the nation, and now boasts the lowest business taxes in the Midwest.
"This man is a great governor, and you have to re-elect him,'' Clinton said. "He is a great governor and a great man."
For his part, Strickland said his GOP opponent wants to get rid of renewable energy standards - an example, the Democratic governor said, of the choice between moving "into the future or retreat back into the past."
While Clinton and Strickland were stumping for Democratic votes, Kasich - the former Columbus-area congressman and House Budget chairman - spent his entire day in the southwest corner of the state, the one area that any Republican running statewide must win and win big to seal a victory on election night.
Kasich - with his wife Karen and their 10-year-old twin daughters, Reese and Emma in tow - raced around southwest Ohio in an SUV, stopping at Republican Party get-out-the-vote centers in Butler County's Fairfield Township, Kenwood in Hamilton County, and in Lebanon, the seat of Warren County.
And, in the middle of the day, the Kasich SUV roared down I-71 to Cincinnati's riverfront park at Sawyer Point, to make a previously unscheduled stop at a tea party "Remember in November" rally.
Each one of those areas will be critical for Kasich on Tuesday.
Six years ago, it was those very areas that saw a pumped-up GOP turnout at the polls. That gave President George W. Bush the edge to win Ohio's electoral votes and a second term in the White House.
"When people come and tell you have to keep working, that's kind of insulting to you,'' Kasich told a group of about 60 volunteers at the Fairfield Township office, most of whom have been working for weeks calling thousands of like-minded voters.
"I know you have been working,'' Kasich said. "I am as grateful as a person can be for the faith and trust you have placed in me."
David Kern, the Liberty Township resident who became Butler County GOP chairman earlier this year, said he has seen "literally hundreds of people who have never been involved in politics before come forward. These people have a fire in their belly."
At all of his get-out-the-vote center stops Saturday, Kasich spoke only briefly and then lingered for a while posing for pictures with GOP volunteers before hopping in the SUV to be driven to the next stop.
At the Hamilton County GOP Victory office behind the Kenwood Towne Center on Galbraith Road, Kasich struck briefly on what has become a theme lately of his campaign - that he has been the victim of unfair attacks by Strickland and his Democratic allies.
"They are running a campaign of fear; we are running a campaign of hope,'' Kasich told the GOP volunteers at Kenwood.
The one stop Saturday that was not on the Kasich campaign's announced schedule was the trip to Sawyer Point for a short speech that closed the Cincinnati Tea Party's "Remember in November" rally, which drew about 200 people.
"I love the tea party!" he proclaimed to the applauding crowd, saying the movement "gets a rap because we don't take cues from the elite."
While Strickland is campaigning in Cleveland and Toledo Sunday with Obama and Biden, Kasich will be in the Columbus area, going door-to-door with local Republican candidates in strong GOP suburbs like Worthington and New Albany.
Monday, Kasich will return to Cincinnati for an election-eve rally at a Lunken Airport hangar with U.S. Senate candidate Rob Portman and House Minority Leader John Boehner, who will become House speaker if the GOP takes control of the House Tuesday.
Reporter Quan Truong contributed.
• Blog: Politics Extra
• Elections 2010 coverage
• Voters Guide
No comments:
Post a Comment