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The Race Looks Over for Ohio's Lee Fisher, but He Keeps Running

1 year ago
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Linda Killian
Linda Killian
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For weeks, the Ohio Senate race between former Republican Congressman Rob Portman and Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher has appeared to be essentially over with various polls showing Portman with a double-digit lead.
National Democratic groups stopped giving Fisher money long ago and he is being hugely outspent not only by Portman's campaign but by American Crossroads, the conservative pro-Republican group which is the brainchild of Karl Rove. American Crossroads has spent more than $450,000 on pro-Portman TV ads and almost $300,000 for anti-Fisher ads blaming him for job losses in Ohio.
And yet, Fisher marches on. Despite the polls, he has no choice but to put one foot in front of the other and continue to campaign.
"I'm running a 24-7 campaign. Lee Fisher does not sleep," he told me in an interview recently. "I think the polls are missing a lot of stuff," he insisted, touting the Democrats' ground game and get-out-the-vote efforts, which began a month ago with early voting in Ohio.
Fisher started the race with a tough primary challenge from Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, which forced him to spend about $3 million of his campaign war chest and left bruised feelings among Democrats, especially some Democratic women in the state.
Meanwhile, Portman, running to replace retiring Republican Sen. George Voinovich, had no primary opponent and more than $7 million in the bank, including money left over from his congressional campaign fund.
Portman, 54, from Cincinnati, served in the House of Representatives from 1993-2005 and followed that with stints as U.S. trade representative for George W. Bush and director of the federal Office of Management and Budget in the last days of the Bush Administration.
That should have given the Fisher campaign fodder to talk about Republican policies blamed for shipping jobs overseas and creating huge deficits, especially in a manufacturing state where jobs, trade policy and outsourcing are the most important issues.
But Fisher was not only the lieutenant governor but also took on the job of director of the Ohio Department of Development, so it's a tough sell for him to blame Portman for Ohio job losses.

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The Republicans have been hammering Fisher and Gov. Ted Strickland for Ohio's bad economy and high unemployment.
"The frustration and anger that I see from people is that they have been evicted from the American dream. Naturally they are upset and want to blame someone, but it's a national recession -- it's not a state recession," says Fisher.
"It is Congress and Portman who lit the match that set our national economic house on fire. There's no way we should be electing the arsonist to be fire chief," declares Fisher. "There's only one reason I'm behind in the polls and it's mone, it's not message. Our message is far more powerful than his."
But that message doesn't seem to be getting through to the voters.
Fisher has a few other problems in addition to his lack of campaign funds. In a year when people want change there is a sense he's been around Ohio politics for a long time. He was a state representative and senator and served as state attorney general as well as running unsuccessfully for governor in 1994.
Jerry Austin, an Ohio Democratic political consultant, said Fisher is just plain unlucky in the years he's picked to run for office. "He couldn't pick two worse years to be running than 1994 and 2010."
Fisher echos this point: "There's no question the political environment plays a significant role in every campaign," he said. "The wind was in our face then, and the wind is in our face now."
There is also the question of personality. Portman is the kind of bland, centrist, make no outlandish statements and ruffle no feathers kind of politician that Ohioans seem to like while Fisher may be a bit too fiery for their taste.
"If you don't know him... he comes off as a bit arrogant. People just never really liked him and warmed up to him," said Austin.
With multiple trips by the president, vice president and first lady to Ohio in the past few months and multi-millions being spent by conservative groups on behalf of Republicans, there's no doubt that the eyes of the nation are fixed on the key swing state of Ohio.
The potential political sea change could sweep Republicans into the governor's mansion and the U.S. Senate. They will almost certainly pick up at least two or three U.S. House seats and could take back the state House, all of which would have tremendous ramifications for 2012 and for the congressional redistricting in which Ohio is expected to lose two U.S. House seats.
Austin said Strickland has to be second guessing his decision not to ask Fisher to stay with him on the ticket and Brunner to run for re-election as secretary of state. Losing the secretary of state's office to the Republicans on top of everything else would almost certainly doom the Democrats when it comes to the redistricting battle.
"I went to Ted sometime in 2008 and I said to him 'I'm a hundred percent loyal to you and if you want me to run for re-election that's the end of this conversation.' We had several long discussions and in the end he encouraged me to do it. And up to the day I announced I said to him if he didn't want me to do it I wouldn't," says Fisher.
"We jointly determined that I could make a bigger difference as a U.S. Senator."
Now it doesn't look like Fisher is going to get that chance and he believes a Republican sweep here would be "a giant mess for the country and for Ohio."
But Fisher isn't giving up. "I'm going to work my heart out, have an effective closing argument on television, and continue to do everything I can to energize the grassroots structure we have in place."
Editor's note: This piece originally misidentified Jerry Austin, and was updated to correct that error.
Filed Under: Senate, Economy, 2010 Elections, Unemployment, Jobs
Tagged: 2010 Elections, 2010 Senate Elections, 2010 Senate Races, Lee Fisher, Ohio Elections, Ohio Senate Race, Rob Portman
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5 Comments

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ezek37

The good people of OH are not fools they see what the dems have done to this country over the last 2 yrs......enough is enough.

October 29 2010 at 12:02 PM Report abuse +7 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to ezek37's comment
michaelgesq

What "the dem's have done to this country over the last 2 years" is the tail wagging the dog. What the Repubs did for the prior 20 years is what has really killed the country. Get real. Things don't change that fast. It takes time to kill the golden goose. Blame the guys in office---the repubs. Put them back in so they can seal the deal or should I say steal.

October 29 2010 at 4:09 PM Report abuse -4 rate up rate down Reply
cayce58

An article in the local paper(moderate republican)took note of the fact that large sums of money were being spent on attack ads by orgs that legally could not contribute to a candidate. His objection is that the law does not require such orgs to say where the money comes from. So, a corp. can target anyone who votes against their misdeeds and the public doesnt know it.

October 29 2010 at 9:55 AM Report abuse -3 rate up rate down Reply
cayce58

All you have to know is this. The republicans, 4 dems and lieberman just defeated a bill in congress to take away tax breaks for corporations that move overseas. Boehner called it an election year trick, but, if you want that, this is your chance to vote for it. The repubs voted as a block against it so---corporations first---america last.

October 29 2010 at 9:41 AM Report abuse -12 rate up rate down Reply
warren

Its hard for me to imagine that voters here in Ohio have such a short memory of the financial corruption in the Taft administration that they are willing to put these same type of people back in charge.The failure of Ohio's economy is primarily the result of the failure of GM and the closing of their plants not the people who are running our government.The republican candidate wants to appoint independent people to indentify businesses that want to locate in Ohio and pay them some unspecified amount for doing it because they can move at the speed of light.He worked for Lehman bothers and they were the tip of the iceburg that lead to the financial collapse.Portman is no more than a mirror image of Voinovich who never had enough courage to stand up to his party leadership when it came to the needs of the people in his own state and my even have helped in the job exodus to foriegn competition.

October 29 2010 at 12:00 AM Report abuse -14 rate up rate down Reply
vallhala5252

I would support a law that all political ads and commercials for Ohio state and lower races must be made, start to finish, in Ohio. Including the actors they use. That means people running for US senators in Ohio, down to local races. This might cut down on the hatred and misleading facts of these commercials. Also, all donors must be named and accounted for.

October 28 2010 at 11:40 PM Report abuse -8 rate up rate down Reply

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