Columbus Dispatch...
Close margin again predicted in GOP primary voting 
March 3, 2012 

Here’s an out-of-state political expert’s view of what the next few days in Ohio will be like: 

“It’s going to be a helluva week, and you’re going to be the epicenter.” 

Larry Sabato, oft-quoted political scientist from the University of Virginia, joins such non-Ohio observers as George W. Bush “architect” Karl Rove and Quinnipiac University pollster Peter A. Brown in proclaiming the Buckeye State as the crown jewel of Super Tuesday.

Another virtual certainty: Ohio’s delegation to the Republican national convention will be split between at least two candidates for the first time in many years. 

Beyond that, the expert consensus ends for the topsy-turvy GOP presidential slugfest. However, several say Ohioans might see the same movie that played leading up to Tuesday’s Michigan primary and the Jan. 31 Florida primary. 

The plot is simple: Romney’s leading opponent (Rick Santorum in Michigan, Newt Gingrich in Florida) rolls up an early lead in the polls, Mitt Romney and his well-financed “super-PAC” dominate the TV battlefield with mostly negative ads, and in the end the former Massachusetts governor winds up on top. 

“In that final week the Romney camp, through organization and TV ads, turned it around,” Brown said of both the Michigan and Florida campaigns. 

Ohio Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine said such reversals “speak to the fluidity of the race. ... There is still a great deal of wrestling going on within the Ohio Republican family with who the nominee will be.” 

But Romney faces a more compressed campaign period than he did in those other two states. 

“He’s (Romney) going to have to go (nuclear),’’ said Barry Bennett, a Republican consultant in Washington with long ties to Ohio politics. “The other difference is where he had two or three weeks to destroy somebody (in past primaries), now we’ve got just seven days, and he just spent $4 million to win 15 delegates,” in Michigan. 

Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values — whose political arm endorsed Santorum in January — said, “I think what we’ve learned so far is if you have enough money to tear someone apart, you can win. It’s going to boil down to how much money Romney wants to spend on his personal destruction machine to beat Santorum.” 

Curt Steiner, a Republican consultant in Columbus who is backing Romney, said, “Even though I don’t think Ohio will be a layup for Romney, the Romney campaign should be more able to target the repeat and consistent Republican primary voter and get that person to vote for Romney. 

“To some extent, Santorum lives off the land, and the momentum interrupter that just happened in Michigan will hurt Santorum.” 

While Ohio could mimic Michigan, Sabato pointed to two major differences: Romney gained an advantage by playing to his upbringing in the state up north, and Ohio’s percentage of evangelical and born-again Christian voters is higher. 

“That has been the key to the Santorum vote,” he said. “People just shouldn’t underestimate this strong fundamental support for Santorum, and against Romney. Some of it is anti-Mormonism. Evangelicals do not like Mormons.” 

Former longtime Ohio Republican Chairman Robert T. Bennett says Santorum will get major backing in more-conservative areas of the state. 

“When you have a combination of tea party supporters and strong conservatives like in southwestern Ohio, it’s going to be tough for Romney down there. Going up the I-75 corridor into Toledo, and the farm belt in western Ohio, it’s going to be tough for him.” 

Romney should do better in more-moderate areas such as northeastern Ohio, which has a large number of Republicans even though they are outnumbered by Democrats, Bennett said. 

“Central Ohio I think is going to be the swing area. I think they’re going to have to battle it right here in the Columbus media market.” 

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, who has endorsed Santorum, predicted that Santorum will “do very well” along the Ohio River, too. When DeWine mentioned Santorum’s name on Tuesday night at a gathering of 300 Republicans in Lawrence County, he “got spontaneous applause.” 

The attorney general said he would be “shocked” if Santorum didn’t get the votes of three-quarters of those 300 Republican leaders. 

The latest polls show that close to half of Republicans could still change their minds. 

William Anthony Jr., director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said that while Republicans are on pace with Democrats with absentee-ballot requests, fewer have returned their completed ballots. 

As of Tuesday evening, about 14,400 Republicans had asked for an early ballot but only 7,300 had returned them. Democrats have requested 14,200 ballots and returned 7,900. 

“It’s interesting to me because it suggests Republicans haven’t yet made up their minds who they are voting for in the primary,” he said. 

Statewide, early voting is going much more slowly than four years ago. An informal survey by the secretary of state showed that 159,632 early ballots had been cast through Friday. During the entire 2008 primary, 556,140 ballots were cast early — although, unlike this year, some counties mailed forms to all voters. 

Yesterday, Romney’s campaign rolled out several supporters, including U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, chiding Santorum for appealing for Democratic votes in Michigan. The same thing could happen in Ohio, where laws are fairly lax on such “crossover voters.” 

“We saw that Rick Santorum cheated, but he couldn’t cheat enough to win,” Turner said in the conference call. Turner added that the former Pennsylvania senator should give back whatever percentage of delegates he won with Democrat support. 

When those on the call were asked about Romney’s earlier admission that he’d voted in Democratic primaries in the 1990s against Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy, campaign officials jumped in to say those were different. 

Also unmentioned in the call was Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” in 2008 in which he urged GOP voters in Ohio and elsewhere to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton to extend the Democratic campaign and weaken Barack Obama. 

Read this and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch