DeWine Update

I saved up a number of Mike DeWine stories... Here is one from the Akron Beacon-Journal:

Metro Parks, Serving Summit County is getting a $1.35 million federal grant to buy more wetlands in northern Summit County.

The grant, arranged by U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, will be used to purchase 236 acres south of state Route 82 in Twinsburg Township.

The Trust for Public Land, a national environmental group, has an option to purchase the land from a developer, said Christopher Knopf, director of the Cleveland office. The price will be $2.7 million, he said.

"This will make it happen," he said of the grant announced Tuesday.

The article doesn't say where the grant money is coming from...let's hope it isn't from the taxpayers...

Here is one from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Democrats are furiously e-mailing around two recent polls on who would win a Senate bid next year against Mike DeWine, a tactic that apparently is supposed to show that the veteran lawmaker is likely to lose next year's elections.

But if the two polls make one thing clear, it's that it's actually really hard to tell who would win.

One poll, from Zogby Interactive, shows that Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett of Indian Hill is on track to beat DeWine 45 percent to 35 percent, while U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, would only beat DeWine 40 percent to 37 percent.

"Paul Hackett's message of hope and change is resonating with voters throughout the state," Hackett spokesman Karl Frisch said in a statement praising the poll.

Apparently he didn't see another recent poll from the (Columbus) Dispatch, which found that Brown would beat DeWine 35 percent to 31 percent while Hackett would lose to DeWine 31 percent to 32 percent.

The margin of error for the Zogby poll is 3.2 percent while the margin of error for the Dispatch poll is 2.5 percent - meaning that, actually, the race still could go either way.

Seems to me like these polls are missing somebody important.

Again, I really hate polling, especially of Ohio voters because they can't seem to get this right no matter how many times they try. But I'm just not buying the hype that DeWine would lose to either of these guys by the numbers Zogby is using. And the Columbus Dispatch couldn't get RON right, what makes them think I will trust them on this.

All of this leads me to this snippet from the Times-Reporter:

Ohio’s Democrats are giddy.From Washington to Columbus, many Republicans, including our own Rep. Bob Ney of Heath, are entangled in scandals and issues of one degree or another and that fact has would-be Democratic officeholders lining up to challenge the likes of Ney, U.S. Sen. Mike Dewine and others.

Some words of advice for you Democrats...Outside of Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio is a very conservative state. If you’re going to be successful, you’ll have to walk a fine line on such issues as gay marriage, the death penalty, abortion, prayer in school and the environment.You’ll get some distance with an anti-war stance, but not much. No, the Iraq war is far from a pleasant experience, but Ohioans don’t want weenie leaders who are unequivocally opposed to armed intervention. Connect yourself with the Ted Kennedys and Howard Deans in the Democratic Party and you’ll lose.

Question: Do you see Hackett and Brown aligned with Ted Kennedy and Howard The Scream or Joe Lieberman? That tells me all I need to know...