McEwen won the vote in Brown County, which I am ashamed to say, had a very light turnout of just over 3000 total voters.
Pat DeWine appears to be having a meltdown of Dean proportions in the primaries in Iowa. He is getting no better than 3rd place votes in the counties, and is not making a decent showing at all for all the money he spent and materials put out.
I must disagree with Bill Cunningham and others who voted for Schmidt. Bizzyblog focused on Bob McEwen's "underhanded" dealings, but Schmidt is just as, if not more dirty. She ran a very nasty campaign against Tom Niehaus, making some careless accusations and slinging mud. She also accepted donations from PACs who were ordered by Paul Householder to donate only to her for the State Senate race. She also is beholden to many special interests in the region. She is more a political hack than one might think. She is just as ambitious and ruthless as Hillary, but at the same time is willing to raise taxes to get good liberal press.
I hope the voters know what they are getting, if Schmidt wins. She will be just as disastrous for this area as a win by the Democrats, in my opinion, and she represents the insiders in Columbus responsible for CoinGate. Beware, Ohio!
Why is DeWine sinking fast? Answer: it was an all points attack. And he has his father to thank for it. Conservatives (ARE YOU LISTENING, OHIO GOP, LAND OF BIG TENT), the BASE of the party, could not forgive the family for Mike's approving of the filibuster compromise. Combine that with the extramarital issues, as well as DeWine not keeping his promise not to run, and you have the answer.
Schimdt is winning because many were split by DeWine McEwen. If either candidate were not in the race, Schmidt would not have a chance. She is winning because of the deep divisions caused by this nasty primary. And I fear by playing to that nastiness, we may have handed the 2nd district to the Democrats. Hackett will be very tough to beat, as his record on the surface is very conservative. He is a veteran. He comes from an area with highly successful schools (Milford).
If Schmidt wins, I predict the 2nd District will go down in flames to the Democrats.
9:53pm Update
Bizzyblog has crunched the numbers, and has come up with the notion that GOP voters outnumbered Dem voters 3 to 1, on the surface making one believe that Hackett will have a tough road to haul. I would tend to agree if the candidate were anyone beside Schmidt. Schmidt has polarized many people in her own district (the ones who split voted for DeWine and McEwen) so much that they will consider voting Democrat. Bizzy's analysis is heartening, but I think the race in the general election will be close if Schmidt is the candidate. Like McEwen, she has MANY skeletons in the closet that can be jumped on. And, Hackett is a war veteran, so that could swing some voters.It looks like it is going to be definately between Schmidt and McEwen, and DeWine appears to be having one of the great flameouts in state political history. He had the best organization, the greatest war chest, but yet I think his own over mailing as well as the "sins of the father" did him in.
