There’s an interesting – in the ‘Chinese curse’ sense of the term – thing happening in Ohio’s Democratic Senate primary. The not-really-short version is that national Democrats have told themselves a marvelous fairy tale about how they can take back to the Senate in 2016: unfortunately, state Democrats actually have to make that a reality somehow. And they’re being hampered by the way that national Democrats managed to blight state Democratic political gardens in 2010 and 2014.
Case in point: Ohio. The Ohio Democratic party leadership has seized upon the elderly (74) Ted Strickland for their Senate candidate, despite the fact that the former governor got beaten in his reelection bid in 2010 by John Kasich. Why? Because there isn’t anybody else at Strickland’s level. The Democrats got wiped out in the Ohio Congressional delegation in 2010, and have not recovered. In 2010 they had ten seats to the GOP’s eight; today they have four seats to the GOP’s twelve (Ohio lost two seats after the last Census). The state legislature is also heavily Republican, if not quite at this level. There are no Democratic state-wide elected officials in Ohio. And the previous Democratic gubernatorial candidate? …Well. Continue reading What the Ohio Democratic Senate primary tells us about the state of their state parties.