Monday, May 3, 2010

Blackwell hits the phones.

Ohio GOP State Auditor hopeful Dave Yost was able to utilize the big gun in his arsenel over the weekend - Ken Blackwell.

Now, no one is saying Blackwell will be Yost's ideal advocate in the general election, but it's hard to get a bigger personality to get the vote out among the dedicated Republican voters that come out in each and every primary.

And that's how he's being utilized in the below robo-call from the ORP.



Now, I've heard a lot of folks saying the Seth Morgan/Dave Yost GOP primary will determine once and for all just how powerful the Tea Party movement is as an election driver. I'm not entirely convinced. If Yost was some moderate squish, then perhaps those folks would have a point. But Yost is very clearly a conservative - so much so that even Blackwell has endorsed him. And one thing is clear, Blackwell did not have to step into this mess of a primary.

So now we have conservative versus conservative in a battle where neither side has a substantive amount of cash to communicate their message to a mass audience via paid television advertisements. Both sides have their troops working their tails off to get the vote out. And both sides are passionate.

While primary voters are more engaged than most voters, they still haven't been paying close attention to this race. Consider the Senate Democratic primary as a comparison. That race has two candidates that have already ran and won statewide....and just a few weeks ago their name ID was below 40%.

Now think how low that number must be for Morgan and Yost.

So both sides in the Morgan/Yost battle will work their butts off. But at the end of the day, many conservative voters won't have a clear choice. There isn't one obvious liberal Republican that everyone knows to kick to the curb.

But what this battle is gaining for all the Tea Partiers new to campaigning is experience. They have learned about door-to-door, GOTV phone calls, organizing volunteers, etc. etc. And that will pay off down the line.

If we've learned anything the past year and a half it's that elections really do matter. The longer Ohio continues to be run by liberal Democrats that refuse to confront the oncoming fiscal disaster, the worse off we all are.

Let's all work together to send them a message in November.

4 comments:

  1. I was at the first Columbus Tea Party last year, and Dave Yost spoke at it. It is a huge mis-characterization for media to paint him with a "non Tea party affiliated" brush.

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  2. The experience tea partiers have gained will only be helpful if they support GOP candidates in November. I've had many of these folks say to me that they would rather have Rich Cordray as AG over Mike DeWine. While DeWine isn't a movement conservative, this is just crazy talk.

    We certainly didn't get much tea party support in the 09 municipal elections. They were more worried about running for Congress with zero experience than helping out at the grassroots level and building network. Hope they have gained a little wisdom since then....but it sure doesn't seem that way.

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  3. Cordray over DeWine may be "crazy talk" to Yellow Dog Republicans, but there is one element of the conservative amalgam that doesn't see it that way - voters whose primary issue is gun rights.

    DeWine supported every critical federal gun-control issue that came up during his time in Washington. Cordray, on the other hand, has demonstrated at least a political, if not personal, support for gun rights, the latest being an amicus filing on the gun-rights side in the Chicago gun ban case.

    I once asked DeWine face-to-face why he supported the so-called assault rifle ban. He stood there and laughed at me. It will be a cold day in hell before I put a favorable mark beside his name on any ballot. From the gun-rights people, the best he can hope for is that they pass on this contest come November.

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  4. Your "primary" issue isn't gun rights. It's your ONLY issue. That's fine, but my guess is that when push comes to shove you'll get the exact same treatment from AG Cordray as from AG DeWine only you'll get screwed on 90% of the other stuff too. Brilliant....or not.

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