Denial, It's Not Just A River In Africa Anymore

In last night's Senatorial debate, Mike DeWine decided to defend the indefensible. Namely his attack ad that several TV stations are refusing to air now because it has been proved demonstratively false. It is no wonder he thinks things are peachy keen in Iraq.

The Ohio Senate Race

A couple of good things have happened in this race in the last 72 hours. On Friday night, Sherrod Brown quite literally crushed Mike DeWine in a debate broadcast on PBS. Now, it is true that few impressionable voters that would be watching a debate on a Friday night. Only true political junkies do that. Hell, the only reason I watched it was because it was on at the bar I was at.

Anyway, while that wasn't a significant event in the race, this past weekend the NRSC decided to pull out of the race, meaning no mo dough for Mikey to run attack ads against Brown. They see the race as a sure loser, and while I'm not quite ready to say it is a done deal, republican voter apathy towards both DeWine and gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell seems to be trending that way.

Although recent polls have had this race all over the map from tight to blowout, I thinking Brown beats DeWine by a comfortable margin. Prediction: Brown 53, DeWine 47.

Sherrod Brown Ad

Here is that Sherrod Brown campaign video I talked about yesterday. I still can't blog from You Tube so I have resorted to directly embedding the videos.

Devastating New Ad

Sherrod Brown has a new attack ad against Mike Dewine and it is pretty devastating. The gist is that Mike DeWine skipped almost half of the meetings of the Senate Intelligence Committee and that in the last two years he has only attended a third of the meetings.

The great thing about this ad though is that the general mood of the ad resembles the ones that are being ran here telling us about how much the terrorists want to kill us, an obvious ploy to get voters to vote republican. Brown's ad plays off that ad and lays it at the feet of an "AWOL" Mike DeWine. I hope this one makes it to TV, but there will have to be some editing, it runs a little long. You can check it out here, or here.

Polling

In the latest Rasmussen Poll of likely voters, Sherrod Brown leads Mike DeWine 49-41, but that isn't the real gem in this polling. By a margin of three to one, respondents said they believed the republican leadership has been protecting Mark Foley for years. Yes, that's right years.

That is about as bad as news as republicans have had lately, and while on NPR this morning several rural voters said the scandal will not change their votes, I have a feeling suburban voters don't feel the same. The NPR poll is due out sometime today.

Harold Meyerson

Ooh, Harold Meyerson gets shrill and kicks the living shit out of David Broder's recent centrist themes. Go read it here, it pretty much covers why voters should vote against such "moderates" as Mike DeWine, Lincoln Chafee, and Olympia Snowe.

New Polling

Survey USA has some new polling out that shows Ted Strickland leading Ken Blackwell 56-35 among likely voters. Strickland is over 50% in every demographic save two. Strickland only gets the support of 29% of conservatives, which is to be expected, but Strickland only gets 20% of the support of those who classify their race as other. While it shouldn't matter in this race, the Democrats should pay attention to this. The 2000 census shows that those who classify their race as other actually outnumber Hispanics. It is an untapped pool of voters that we should be courting.

The other good news from this poll is that again Sherrod Brown is over 50% leading Mike DeWine 52-42 and that for the first time that I have seen, Brown finally has a lead over DeWine among men 48-47, although that is well within the margin of error. Brown is crushing DeWine among women voters 55-36.

Women are going to propel us in this election. Strickland's lead among women in this survey is a whopping 28% (58-30). Make sure you tell every woman you know to vote.

Update: I see that SUSA also polled the OH-02 race and that the good Dr. Victoria Wuslin is within the margin of error (45-42) of Jean Schmidt on very hard turf for Democrats to win on.

The Ohio Poll

The Ohio Poll has released their first poll of likely voters in Ohio and there is some good news for Democrats in it, and also a potential problem for us as well. First, the good news. Ted Strickland leads Ken Blackwell by 12 points, 50-38. Sherrod Brown leads Mike DeWine by 4 points 51-47.

Now, it is my opinion that the Ohio Poll skews a little bit farther to the right than most polling so for both of our candidates in these races to be over fifty percent is definitely a good thing. However, there is some danger lurking in the cross tabs.

The first potential problem is for down ticket Democrats running for office this year. A lot of them are going to need some good coat tails from a potential gubernatorial blowout. Strickland has a comfortable lead in most age groups, but in the 18-29 age group he holds a commanding lead of 66-28. That is great if the youth vote shows up on election day, but even among likely voters they are the ones most likely not to show up.

They are also some of the easiest ones to disenfranchise with voter ID requirements. They are at this point in their lives still fairly transient in nature, and very few update their drivers licences every time they move. They also tend to live in groups and some of them may not have a bill at their house in their name, or if they live in the dorms and their parents pay their bills then they also may fail to meet ID requirements. The various campus Democratic parties should be starting massive voter education drives informing voters what they will need to vote.

The second concern is for Sherrod Brown. It appears that for him to defeat Mike DeWine women are going to have to show up at the polls. His lead is based almost solely on his lead among women and they are, again, one of the groups most likely not to show up on election day. What to do about this, I'm just not sure.