The takeaway for Betty Montgomery, who is not pro-life or pro 2nd amendment, should be obvious. An honest reading of the tea leaves, should leave her to a graceful exit before the primary happens. She hasn’t made headway and has had several appearances where she was challenged by conservatives.What Nix fails to take in to account here is that she already has the endorsement of two county parties from the "squishy conservative", northern part of the state. Other than that, I find no fault in his analysis for Montgomery.
Petro doesn’t look good either. He has switched sides on the pro-life issue and that is sure to come up. Only Blackwell sits good here. I expect him to stick in as the establishment Republican choice.Petro is, for all intents and purposes the middle ground between Blackwell and Montgomery. CoinGate should tar him and Montgomery pretty good. There was talk early, that Petro was going to drop out. I suspect he will do so before Montgomery does.
But that brings up another issue from the election results. Let’s talk about establishment Republicans. We had two that tried to anoint themselves as the front runners and the effect was that they went down in flames. They ended up bashing each other. This ought to give Petro some pause. Right now the mood of the Republican electorate is pretty dark toward the “establishment” Republicans in Columbus.I think Nix is refering to what I have been calling the "maverick moderates." People like Paul Householder and Bob Taft and Mike DeWine and George Voinovich. These guys are the establishment in the GOP and the base is getting more than a bit frustrated with the lot of them.
Third takeaway. DeWine was attacking everyone left right and center. McEwen also attacked a lot. Schmidt spent a lot of her limited funds on a positive campaign in the past. Positive wins, especially if you have credibility and something to offer. Both Blackwell and Petro should remember that.I really thought DeWine was going to pull it out...and then he went negative. That turned me off right quick and I don't even live in the district. Throw in the constant harrassment that the DeWine camp subjected the consituency with through all those mailings and calls...it was just too much.
What the "establishment" candidates usually bring to the table is the organization and infrastructure. I am reminded of Dick Gephardt in the Democratic presidential primary campaign last year. Gephardt got his butt kicked and he had the best organization...the exact same thing happened here. Campaigns are going to have to realize that they have to do something new; the same old same old is not going to cut it any more.
Great analysis, Nix! We're putting you on the BlogRoll...
