Incumbent Democratic Governor Ted Strickland grew up along a backwoods road called Duck Run. They say there was so much shootin' in the neighborhood, the most common expression heard was: "Duck! Run!" Let me be first to state the inevitable. That road will now and forevermore be known as "Lame Duck Run."
This is a hopeful diary, but the hopefulness comes at the end. Yesterday, Quinnipiac released a poll of the gubernatorial race revealing that Strickland's 30 point lead over John Kasich from Frebruary (56-26) is now down to zero (40-40): http://www.quinnipiac.edu/...
This confirms a Rasmussen September poll showing Kasich with a 1 point lead, and an Ohio Poll of October showing Strickland with a 1 point lead, all within the margin of error. The Quinn poll is far more serious, however, because of its trend analysis, Strickland's plummet compared to other state politicians, and a wide Kasich lead on the crucial issue of handling the economy.
Mr. Inevitability has just met Lady Fate.
More below the fold.
Let's get this out of the way. More than a year ago, Kossack Strickland groupies, the Ted-heads, said we need to back the man, because he has such overweening "popularity." To abandon him would be like selling Enron stock just when it was peaking -- and they thought this was a bad idea.
I said Strickland was going to enter a tailspin. They said unkind things.
Quinnipiac then started polling the race on alternate months, showing declining but nonetheless comfortable Strickland leads. It didn't seem to matter that the Quinn polls were badly timed (like the September poll taken right after Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress) or that Quinn's regional cross-tabs were just plain nutty (like showing the biggest Strickland lead in northwest Ohio). As long as Quinn showed "our guy" on top, Quinn was golden and it served as an excuse to ignore all contraindications. Rah, rah, Strickland boom-bah.
It also didn't seem to matter that Ted Strickland was wrecking large swaths of the state with sweetheart deals for timber companies, coal companies, developers, and road builders. Strickland was a big D Democrat, and if his big D stands for Development or Doomsday or Depression, it's no concern of ours, was the attitude. Strickland was "popular," by definition, he's a good ol' country boy. The intelligence of the average Ohioan be damned.
Beginning in June we had a billion-dollar deficit du jour scandal unfolding in Ohio. There were so many NEW billion-dollar shortfalls "discovered" in the state budget, it became hard to keep them all straight. Ted Strickland became the boy with his finger in the dyke, but the dyke had holes the size of mid-sized sedans.
At that point Ohioans expected some honesty from the Governor. We deserved that honesty. We were owed that honesty.
What we got was a Noachian deluge of lies, deception, connivance, and avoidance. Because, you see, Ted Strickland may be a Democrat, but he is no democrat.
The centerpiece of that "strategy" was a scheme cooked up by Strickland homeboy Todd Book -- or perhaps Strickland himself devised the scheme but allowed Book to take the credit. Book, you see, is Strickland's hand-picked man to take the OH-02 congressional seat, never mind that we in OH-02 already have a Democratic candidate who suits us just fine -- named David Krikorian.
The essence of the Cook-the-Books scheme was to close the latest billion-dollar budget deficit by counting future taxes on racetrack slot machines as revenue. Never mind that there are no racetrack slot machines, because voters had rejected state gambling four times at the polls, and Ted Strickland had run for office on a solemn vow to his own Methodist Church -- the largest denomination in Ohio -- to oppose state gambling on moral grounds.
The entire scheme was exposed and thrown out by the Ohio Supreme Court. Funny thing -- now neither Strickland nor Todd Book will take credit for it. Totally and rightfully confused, Ohio voters apoproved four casinos in this past election, but those casinos will not be located at the racetracks, and will pay a much lower rate in taxes, hence not solving the budget problem.
So anyway, the Ted-heads seem to think that Ohioans have not noticed this fiasco, and that Teddy's popularity will soar on the wings of some giant mythical bird.
When Rasmussen showed the race tied in September, the Ted-heads called it "an outlier" because it was a Rasmussen poll. When the respected Ohio Poll showed the race tied in October, the Ted-heads called it a second outlier, because it was negated by all the earlier Quinnipiac polls. Now that Quinn also shows the race tied in November, the Ted-heads have already started to say that it's a third outlier, because it shows too many "undecideds." I suspect they are preparing to call John Kasich's election "an outlier."
Now let me clue you in. When voters move from an incumbent to a challenger, they pass through a phase of being undecided. That large "undecided" group in the new Quinn poll is in transit to John Kasich. Just look at the trend in Quinn polls alone:
2/5 Strickland +30
3/17 Strickland +20
5/6 Strickland +19
7/3 Strickland +5
9/15 Strickland +10
11/11 tied
Over the same period, Strickland's net favorability (favorable minus unfavorable) dropped from +41 to +1, while Kasich's has remained flat, from +15 to +14.
Nor can this trend be attributed to any general current against Democrats or incumbents, because the same poll shows that Senator Sherrod Brown has retained his high favorability, and has actually done a bit better than Republican Senator George Voinovich.
In other words, we are seeing a targeted Strickland effect, which is no surprise given the events that have transpired, and from which no recovery is possible.
But that's not even the worst news for Ted Strickland in this poll. The worst news is hidden, as usual, in the regional cross-tabs. They reveal that Quinnipiac has failed to solve it's problem with getting valid results out of rural Ohio. As in September, when Quinn showed the impossible result of the northwest coming in as Strickland's strongest area, this new poll shows the northwest continuing as strong for Strickland (the exact opposite of all other polls), and the southeast showing even stronger. In fact, according to the new poll, Strickland's popularity has markedly INCREASED in the southeast since September, counter to the trend in all other regions.
The northwest and southeast are Ohio's most rural regions. The nonsensical results show that Quinn has not figured out how to poll rural Ohio with accuracy. This is a challenging problem, since farmers are moving to cell phones even faster than the proverbial young voters.
So here's the thing. If we discard the northwest and southeast results as garbage -- and they ought to cancel each other out anyway -- then the new Quinn poll actually shows Kasich with a very substantial lead (impossible to quantify without the raw data).
Which is only to confirm what every Ohioan already knows on the ground: Ted Strickland is going to lose this election. WE will not vote for him. We've been duped and dumped on enough by the incumbent Ohio administration.
Which brings me to the hopeful part. As I have previously said, Ted Strickland has the best polling apparatus in the state. He knows, much better than Quinn or Rasmussen, that he's headed for a huge loss.
Therefore, it is not too late. Ted Strickland must withdraw from this race. He must be urged to withdraw. He must be forced to withdraw. Ted Strickland has disgraced himself and his party. If he stays in the race, he will doom every down-ticket Democrat in Ohio.
If he does withdraw, things can be fixed. Ted can spend his remaining months devoted to fixing the problems in the budget system, without the past appearance of crass opportunism. He might even end up looking heroic.
Done quickly, a withdrawal would allow Lee Fisher to switch from the Senate race to the Governor's race. Fisher will have a tough time against Kasich, but it's a much better bet than trying to beat Rob Portman. From Fisher's perspective, his chances will improve.
And that would give Jennifer Brunner a clear shot at Rob Portman in the Senate race. A unified Fisher-Brunner ticket would be one that all Democrats, including yours truly, could enthusiastically support. It would give Democrats hope of winning at least one of the two major races -- a hope we do not currently have.
Do it, Ted. It's the right thing. And to all you Ted-heads, urge him to do it. Living in denial for the next twelve months will be hell, and it'll get worse after that.