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Mark Shields: A gubernatorial horse race in Ohio?
By Mark Shields
CLEVELAND (Creators Syndicate, Inc.) -- Ohio is a one-party state. Republicans, who maintain lopsided majorities in the state legislature, have for the last eight years held every elected statewide constitutional office. GOP Gov. Bob Taft, with leads in some public polls of up to 30 points and a campaign treasury 20 times bigger than that of his Democratic opponent, former Cuyahoga (greater Cleveland) county commissioner Tim Hagan, had been waltzing to a second term. Then, the historically reliable Columbus Dispatch poll shows a horse-race: Taft 47 percent and Hagan 39 percent. Other independent surveys put Taft, who is known by the entire electorate, under 50 percent and underdog Hagan, still unknown to one out of three voters, about 10 points back. What is happening here? Tim Hagan rightly does not attribute the abrupt narrowing of the race to his own or his campaign's brilliance: "Quite frankly, the polls are a referendum on the governor and the state of our state, which Ohioans know is not good." The nation's seventh most populous state, which faces more than a $4 billion shortfall in its next budget, trails all its Great Lakes neighbors in median family income. Nor is the Ohio governor's race the exception in the fall of 2002. Because of the national economic downturn, states are now confronting their worst fiscal crisis in 20 years. In 48 of the 50 states, revenues fell below official expectations. Because, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, state revenues lag behind any economic recovery and because some states have already spent their "rainy-day" funds or their tobacco settlements next year fiscally for the states will be worse. This is one good reason why elections guru Stu Rothenberg, who only months ago called nine state races "safe" for one party today lists only three of November's 36 governors races as "safe." (GOP incumbents in Nevada, Nebraska and Colorado.) Voters understand the real difference between governors and members of Congress. They know that senators make speeches and headlines, and usually for every problem have either a policy paper or a press release. So relentlessly critical in their public utterances can legislators sound that they recall Irish playwright Brendan Behan's inspired comparison of critics to eunuchs in a harem: "They're there every night. They watch and listen every night. They see how it should be done. They simply can't do it themselves." Governors actually do. They write real budgets by which they are ultimately judged to be responsible or not. The governor decides whether and where roads are built or if the state's schools will be allowed to crumble. They make a difference, and they leave footprints. Governors are accountable; legislators are not held accountable. That could explain why close to 400 of the 435 U.S. House races on November 5 are judged today by both sides to be "safe" for one party, while only three of the 36 governors races are. In Ohio, Bob Taft has a $9 million war chest and, thanks to campaign appearances by former president Bill Clinton, Hagan (whom I have personally known and liked for 30 years) finally nears $1 million. An unreconstructed New Deal Democrat, Hagan -- to the consternation of his managers -- has put the candid back in candidate, offering his own plan to deal with the state's fiscal crisis (the governor says it is "too early" for his plan), which includes eliminating half a billion in tax-breaks to Ohio businesses, legalizing video gambling at the state's horse tracks and pledging a public vote on increases in the state income or sales tax if the legislature fails to act. He is against capital punishment and supports state-sanctioning of civil unions for gay couples --not exactly majority positions that have been pre-approved by voter focus groups. Without money for a major TV buy in Ohio's eight media markets, Hagan is somewhere between a longshot and an underdog. But maybe because he grew up in hard-scrabble Youngstown the fourth of 14 children, he remains the happy warrior: "My grandparents came here from Italy and Ireland. My family lived for a while in public housing. The GI bill allowed me to go to state colleges. And in a generation, I'm able to challenge Bob Taft, the great grandson of the president of the United States (not to mention the son and grandson of U.S. senators). This is a great state. This is truly a great country." He'll get no argument here.
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