On the Election:

Voters in Ohio have sent a clear message to politicians as they ramp up their efforts for the 2012 Presidential Election:

We don’t know what we want, but whatever it is, you haven’t shown it to us yet.

Amid the clanging pots heralding the resounding defeat of Senate Bill 5, it was easy for the kazoo chorus accompanying the passage of Tea Party-led Issue 3 to become lost in the din, as Democrats assure us and the President that he is safe here this year.

If Ohio is a safe state for Obama, I haven’t seen the evidence. Unemployment is still damn high throughout the state, and if the referendum on Senate Bill 5 was also a referendum on unpopular Governor John Kasich, Issue 3 was a referendum on Obama’s Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, or “Obamacare,” as it’s known colloquially (or at least in “colloquial” circles).

Issue 3 actually passed with a nearly identical margin as Issue 2 failed. That means that LOTS of independents, the coveted voter base that makes Ohio such a valuable state for Washington players, nixed dramatic union reform just seconds before nixing the President’s signature agenda accomplishment.

Republicans like to point to Issue 3 and Obama’s relative difficulty in the polls as evidence that Ohio will be seeing red in November 2012. According to Rasmussen polls conducted over the last few months, a generic “Republican” candidate was trouncing Obama by as much as eight points. However, those sorts of polls don’t necessarily shed too much light on how an actual election would go, as the imaginary candidates are often simply set in opposition to the least popular elements of the incumbent’s administration. When Obama is polled next to the actual frontrunners the GOP has managed to come up with, his numbers are much better. In fact, a Rasmussen poll released on November 15th showed Obama edging ahead of the “generic” Republican by one percent, and ahead of the perceived GOP frontrunner, Mitt Romney, by 45 percent to 43 percent. That’s within the margin of error for the poll, and other swing states give Romney a slight advantage. But these are early polls, and Ohio is fond of throwing curveballs.

I can’t get any satisfaction

Obama’s big problem right now is our crappy perception of him as the leader of the country. Nationally, 38 percent disapprove of his handling of health care, which is, incidentally, about identical to the margin voting ‘no’ on State Issue 3. This is of special note for those on the left who say that Ohioans were confused by Issue 3, and didn’t know what they were voting for … there’s no evidence that is anything but wishful thinking. We don’t like Obamacare, even if we don’t know much about it; its handling by the media and the fanatic protests by Tea Partisans left us with a cherry-cough-syrup taste in our mouths.

Obama also scores poopily on the economy. Whether he is receiving an undue share of blame for the economic toilet in which we swirl is up for debate; however, our national perception is that all that bailout money went right to the people that caused the problem, and instead of seeing those suckers going to country-club prison, we are seeing the big banks hatch schemes to charge us ridiculous fees for using our check cards. Progressives see Elizabeth Warren, the consumer finance maven who designed the Consumer Protection Agency, as a political martyr, left out in the cold as a sacrifice for the voracious appetite of the GOP.

In fact, we see Obama’s every effort thwarted by Republicans, who are being rather obvious in their opposition to his plans. Tough titties, Mr. President – we expect you to be a leader, and the only leading that seems to be going on is that of you, by your nose, by a bunch of congressional freshmen reading Ayn Rand at lunchtime and burning your bills in effigy directly afterward.

Meanwhile, Obama’s foreign policy is much better off, with the killing of Osama bin Laden and several other high-ranking terrorist leaders and the apparent drawdown of the war in Iraq. He might end up a little more vulnerable in Libya, and even the stalling trade agreement talks with South Korea could end up as a conversation about the domestic economy, but overall, he is safer on this than any of the Republicans, and has done quite a bit to repair the decades-long assumption that Dems are weak in the warfare pants.

Ohio Repubs fare little better

Kasich is the least popular governor of any state except Hawaii. He’s perceived as an out-of-touch bully of the middle class, and that’s exactly the worst place for him to be moving into 2012. Conservatives, especially those with some money lying around, witnessed his inability to pass the kinds of dramatic conservative reforms he promised. In fact, Ohio is likely to put two more GOP signature projects on the ballot next year: the 2010 census demanded we give up a couple seats in Congress through the process of redistricting. The map drawn up by the Republicans in House Bill 319 is one of the most overtly gerrymandered maps this side of Louisiana, and the state’s Supreme Court has ruled that, even though the redistricting bill was passed with a theoretically referendum-proof appropriations clause, the map itself is indeed subject to referendum. If a deal can’t be reached by Christmas, Ohio may well see two primaries for the Presidential election, dramatically lowering our impact on selecting the Republican nominee.

Democrats, led by former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, are also likely to put the Republican’s elections reform law, House Bill 194, up before voters, as well. The law, which would decrease the number of days for early voting and prohibit local and state government from sending out unsolicited ballot request forms, is being called the “voter suppression bill” by its opponents, and the moniker seems liable to stick. Brunner encouraged ballot application mailings as part of her effort to decrease the lethally long poll lines seen in 2000 and 2004, lines that, as they affected mainly the poor (especially in high population areas such as Cleveland), amounted to voter suppression.

Kasich was able to sign a law allowing bar patrons to carry their guns into bars, as long as they weren’t drinking. And, significantly, the fierce clash over S.B. 5 allowed his budget, which cutlassed local government funds and eliminated the estate tax, to squeak by with relatively little scrutiny – that budget, which was balanced on the backs of small municipalities, could well backfire on him if the Democrats can craft a message around those cuts when it comes time to measure his success in the Capitol.

But it’s also hard to believe he’s going to be able to galvanize much support for the Republican nominee with his track record for efficacy in shambles and his poll numbers lower than a snail’s bellybutton.

David S. Lewis covers Ohio Politics for the American Independent News Network. Check out more of his work at www.americanindependent.com.