MiddletownJournal.com

2nd District race crowded, compacted

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LEBANON — Cincinnati Right to Life’s political action committee endorses three of 11 Republican candidates in the race to replace former U.S. Rep. Rob Portman. The Family First PAC is backing two.

Rather than endorsing Jean Schmidt, president of the Greater Cincinnati Right to Life, Warren County Right to Life President Lori Viars has thrown her support behind former congressman Bob McEwen.

Among other neoconservative leaders in his camp, McEwen lists John Wilke, a founder of the pro-life movement and Cincinnati Right to Life group, while campaign literature lists Wilke among those backing state Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr.’s campaign.

In the void caused by differences within neonconservative circles, political observers see room for Hamilton County Commissioner Pat DeWine, son of U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and a former Cincinnati City Council member, in the June 14 GOP primary.

Depending on the depth of hard feelings or voter indifference, the Democrat emerging from that party’s primary might even be able to contest the Aug. 2 general election otherwise expected to go to a Republican, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland said.

“Some of these folks can be really mean. They can be really mean to each other,” said Strickland, a Democrat who split two elections with McEwen when they squared off for the 6th District congressional seat.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they engaged in some pretty hurtful campaigning,” said Strickland, now running for Ohio governor.

In the final weeks, all 17 candidates in the special 2nd District primaries are trying to build campaigns capable of attracting likely supporters through candidates’ nights, phone banks, Web sites, e-mail and direct-mail contacts. Going door to door is out of the question.

By setting special primaries, rather than waiting until Aug. 2, the next regularly scheduled election, officials involved cost the counties involved an estimated $800,000. Their decision also plays to the advantage of politicians, like DeWine and Brinkman, perpetually planning for the next election, said Tom Bemmes, a Reading Junior High teacher also in the race.

“They didn’t have to start from scratch,” said Bemmes, a math teacher, magician and former school board member.

Bemmes said any prospect of campaign support due to his work on behalf of school levies was weakened by the fact the redrawn 2nd District ends a half-mile from his home.

Since redistricting after the 2000 census, the 2nd District sprawls across all or part of seven counties and 2,630 square miles with more than 600,000 people. Starting in eastern Hamilton County, the district heads east along the Ohio River almost 130 miles and covers all of Clermont, Brown, Adams and Pike counties, as well as two-thirds of Scioto County.

It also covers most of southern Warren County and Lebanon.

The compressed campaign leading to the August general election is strikingly similar to one from which Portman, a Cincinnati lawyer with substantial campaign coffers and strong ties on Capitol Hill emerged victorious in 1993.

Portman was one of seven candidates, including McEwen, on GOP ballots in a special election in Hamilton, Adams, Brown, Clermont and Warren counties.

As then, ballots in 2005 will list five Democrats, including an 82-year-old Mason lawyer who hopes some voters will write in his name.

The 2nd District seat was last vacated mid-term by Willis Gradison, a Republican who became a lobbyist in the health-care industry after 18 years in Congress.

In 1993, Portman returned to the area for the race after serving on President George H.W. Bush’s staff and beat McEwen, still stinging from a congressional banking scandal. Today McEwen is a Capitol Hill lobbyist who recently purchased a condominium in eastern Hamilton County.

Others expected to draw GOP votes on June 14 are Schmidt, a marathoner, former state representative and former Miami Twp. trustee, and Brinkman, a Mount Lookout man elected to the Statehouse in 2000 after working in a family printing business.

The only Warren County Republican in the race is David R. Smith, a Procter and Gamble financial analyst new to politics.

From suburban Hamilton County come Bemmes, private school teacher Peter Fossett of Montgomery; and retired naval officer and township trustee Eric Minamyer of Symmes Twp., and Douglas E. Mink of Sharonville, who teaches social studies in an online school.

Hailing from Peebles in Adams County: Steve Austin, a retired civics teacher, and Jeff Morgan, a part-time letter-carrier and youth minister.

Affluent Indian Hill in Hamilton County produced two Democrats: lawyer and recent Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett III and physician and philanthropist Victoria Wells Wulsin. Also from Hamilton County is stay-at-home civil engineer Jeff Sinnard, like McEwen, from Anderson Twp. Health care administrator James Parker is from Pike County, on the district’s eastern boundary.

Warren County Democratic candidates include former a Waynesville mayor and four-time Portman opponent, Charles Sanders, and Arthur Katz, the 82-year-old lawyer and Bronze Star recipient from Mason running as a write-in.

The scramble started after Portman, who spent more time last fall campaigning for President Bush’s re-election than his own, was appointed the Bush administration’s international trade representative.

Recognizing the key role the evangelical neoconservative movement played in the Bush’s re-election, Republicans popular in these circles are trumpeting their endorsements.

McEwen is backed by national family-values figures, including James Dobson of Focus on Family, former White House staffer and conservative pundit Oliver North, and area leaders like Phil Burress, who led the successful drive last fall to pass an amendment to Ohio’s constitution that bans gay marriage.

But loyalties within the movement are divided. The founder of Cincinnati Right to Life is among those backing several campaigns.

“Tom Brinkman has been a consistent and aggressive pro-life vote in the Ohio House,” Wilke states on a Brinkman flier.

On McEwen’s Web site, Wilke states, “We are happy and pleased to offer our personal and enthusiastic endorsements of Bob McEwen’s congressional campaign for the second district. We encourage our fellow pro-life voters to support Bob’s campaign. His twelve years of seniority will serve American’s unborn babies, and the residents of this district well.”

Contact Lawrence Budd at (513) 696-4542.