Editor's Note: This is thethird in a series of CSP Daily News stories that will highlight election campaign issues and races of interest to the convenience-store industry. To read yesterday's installment, click here.
DUBLIN, Ohio -- Ohio, the bellwether state of the 2004 election, continues to remain a focus with the mid-terms, thanks to ethics problems tainting the gubernatorial and senate races.
Maverick [image-nocss] Republican Sen. Mike DeWine confronts a fractured state GOP party along with an unpopular president, and a strong challenge from Democratic opponent Rep. Sherrod Brown, who led the incumbent by eight points in a July Columbus Dispatch poll.
He's a potential victim of circumstance, Nathan Gonzales, political editor for the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report, told CSP Daily News about DeWine, noting the challenges of an unpopular war and outgoing Republican governor mired in an ethics scandal. He's trying to paint Brown as too liberal, but that's tough.
The industry's official support of Sen. DeWine is also shaky, reflecting his support of FDA regulation of tobacco and vote against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
There have been some Republicans who've out and out been not helpful to us, said Lyle Beckwith, NACS' senior vice president of government affairs. In years past, we would have supported Sen. DeWine. We're not this year because of his sponsorship of FDA tobacco legislation.
[Sen. DeWine] called me the other day and wanted me to have a fund-raiser, said Roger Dreyer, president of the Ohio Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association, Dublin, Ohio. I told him, It's tough for me to raise money for you, Mike, if you're going to vote against these proposals.' He says, Yeah, but you don't want the other guy.'
The Ohio marketers association eventually provided some backing to DeWine, but its main focus for the midterms is the gubernatorial race, where Republican candidate J. Kenneth Blackwell trails behind Democrat Ted Strickland. Should Democrats get into the governor's house for the first time in years, Dreyer anticipates organized labor will throw its weight around.
Democrats are playing the card that it's corruption in Ohio, said Dreyer. What I'm finding now is that a lot of Republicans are saying, They're all crooks and I'm not going to vote.'
It's going to be a tough race, and I'd be surprised if we win, he said, but it's doable.
[For a complete look at this election season and how it relates to the industry, watch for the October issue of CSP magazine.]
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