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Tuesday, February 07, 2006

OH-16: An Update

Posted by DavidNYC

Two items of note on OH-16:

First, I'm told that two people have been petitioning here, Kim Kendall and William Smith. I don't know anything more about these individuals, but at least it's looking like we may have a candidate.

Second, I've also received some internal polling numbers. They are very interesting:

Party Preference
Vote Dem: 46
Vote GOP: 42

Re-Elect Numbers
Re-elect Ralph Regula: 39
Consider someone else: 20
Definitely someone else: 23

Amazingly, people say they prefer a Democrat to a Republican in this district! Moreover, Regula's support is soft - just 39%. That said, I think it would be very hard to beat him even in what will be a very bad year for Ohio Republicans. His job approval (63-23) and favorability ratings (66-26) in this poll are quite high.

However, Regula is almost certain to retire after this final run (he's already 81). That means we'll have a very winnable open seat in 2008. These poll numbers demonstrate that we can't abandon this district this cycle, even if our prospects for 2006 are daunting. We need to engage in party-building activities now so that we can compete here later. And at the very least, we need to start by giving the residents of OH-16 a Dem to vote for this year.

Posted at 01:36 PM in 2006 Elections - House, Ohio | Technorati

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Comments

Kerry faired reasonably well in the district (46%) and Richard Regula running after Ralph's retirement could end up being a blessing. I'm thinking that the record of sons in open elections to replace their fathers is sorta sketchy.

Posted by: RBH at February 7, 2006 03:14 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Question: (Since I don't know the rules in Ohio)

Why are they 'petitioning'?

In California and most other states true petitioning only happens when you don't have the cash for the filing fee. Almost always you have to have some SMALL number of signatures as well the fee...but if you don't have the fee it's a LOT of signatures and hard to do.

Could someone clarify?

Posted by: Stuart O'Neill at February 7, 2006 05:50 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Ohio state law.

Page 3 (page 9 on the PDF) has the requirements. $85 and 50 signatures are the two requirements,

As for California, I heard that the 19th district candidate, T.J. Cox, who is supposedly wealthy, is getting signatures in order to build up a base of volunteers. That sounds pretty smart to me.

Posted by: RBH at February 7, 2006 07:16 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Then what's the holdup? Either you are in or out as George Clooney said.

And that's not who you build a base of support with only less than 10 months to go!

One of the problems of contesting every district is doing so with Candidates with no experience or background who know HOW to contest the District!

And they don't know how to even begin to raise volunteers or more importantly money. It's the result of not having any online or teleseminar education for them.

Like the Candidate today on DKos who has raised a total of 10K in several weeks, couple of months, in his 'Fighting Dems' quest he doesn't even know how to begin his quest for $$. And I'm sorry the quest for $$ is overwhelmingly important if you want to have an impact in a District.

10K. $10,000 won't pay for one mailing. It's a simple matter of providing mass education in a mass medium for the candidates themselves since they cannot afford to hire professional managers, fundraisers etc.

Frankly I'm working on such a process for just those people....the one's not supported by the Dtrip etc and left on their own with non-professional staff. Very frustrating when anyone realizes how important the 2006 elections could be to our Democracy!

Posted by: Stuart O'Neill at February 8, 2006 12:18 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment