Ohio GOP studies Obama
Republicans look at 2012 campaign for playbook tips
CLEVELAND — While the Republican presidential contenders prepared for their first television debate on Thursday, a group of conservative, grassroots activists was being schooled nearby on how the GOP can reclaim the ultimate trophy of presidential politics, the bellwether state of Ohio.
Inside the House of Blues — a fitting venue for Ohio Republicans of late — they listened as digital experts flown in for the day dissected the playbook of the man who used a set of data-driven tools and mobile phone wizardry to deny them that prize in 2012 — Barack Obama.
“The Obama campaign showed us exactly what they did, and we must be doing it, too,” trainer Ned Ryun, the son of former Kansas congressman and Olympic runner Jim Ryun, told the assembled participants of the Ameri-
can Conservative Union’s Buckeye Boot Camp.
Republicans, eager to reclaim the White House after eight years of singing the blues, are not above showing video interviews of Obama strategists to suspicious conservatives in hopes of capturing the quadrennial prize of American politics.
And despite losing the last two presidential elections to the Democrats, Republicans chose Ohio for the party’s nominating convention next summer, which will unfold in the Quicken Loans Arena, site of the GOP’s testy debates on Thursday. ‘No historic precedent’
It’s about history, not just Ohio’s 18 electoral votes. In 28 of the past 30 elections — and in every presidential contest since 1964 — Ohio has supported the candidate that won the White House. In 2012, Obama won Ohio by 103,000 votes.
“There’s no historic precedent for Republicans winning the White House without winning Ohio,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia, author of the forthcoming book “The Bellwether: Why Ohio Picks the President.”
Ohio has featured what Kondik regards as two of the most legendary ground campaigns in political history — the Karl Rove-directed operation in 2004 when George W. Bush won the election, and Barack Obama’s data-driven organization in 2012.
Republicans and their allies are organizing early because they believe — rightly or wrongly — that the Democratic Party will be unable to match what Obama assembled in 2012.
“Barack Obama, to his credit, built a great political operation and a great data operation,” said Sean Spicer, who has the title chief strategist at the Republican National Committee.
“But it was built for and about Barack Obama. And the second Barack Obama got elected, they stopped investing in it. It ceased needing to exist.”
It’s about what Republicans say, of course, as well as what they do.
“Messages that play in Ohio tend to play in all the other swing states as well, so Ohio is a good stage,” said John Green, director of the political science department at the University of Akron.
But if Republicans are trying to make a statement in Cleveland, it’s yet to be decided what the message will be. The talking points that emanate from primary debates and conventions tend to aim at the party faithful, not the independents and moderates who swing major battleground states.
“The party apparatus under stands that they need to be perceived as competitive, inclusive, unlike 2012 and 2008,” Green said. “They need to get some votes they haven’t been able to get, particularly among swing voters, Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and young people. So part of this is the symbolism. This is the place they need to come to pick up some votes.”
One of the apostles for the GOP’s new emphasis on broadening the party brand is Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who was in Cleveland for the Fox News debate.
“Cleveland has a way of punching above its weight in a way that startles you,” Priebus said. “Cleveland is an unbelievable place. Coming to Cleveland is an indicator that we are going to concentrate on every voter, no matter who they are, what their background is, or where they come from. That is our commitment, and Cleveland is part of it.”
While Cleveland was on the short list as a convention city for many Democrats as well, strategists in both parties recognize that conventions alone do not win states. The Democrats chose Charlotte in 2012, and still lost North Carolina; the Republicans went to Tampa, and then lost Florida. Purity vs. pragmatism
Tone, as well as message, also matters, and Ohio’s Midwestern pragmatism presents challenges for a Republican Party field — deeply conservative Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz is often mentioned — that has tended to emphasize conservative purity and culture war issues that play better in the South.
In a state known for its heavy industry, Ohio Republicans see one of the best models for a more inclusive approach in their two-term governor, now presidential candidate John Kasich. First elected in 2010 in oneof Ohio’s closest gubernatorial elections, he was re-elected last year in a landslide that carried Cuyahoga County, the Democratic stronghold surrounding Cleveland.
“That just doesn’t happen for Republicans,” said Matthew Szollosi, executive director of the 92,000-strong Affiliated Construction Trades Ohio union.
Kasich is often compared to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Midwestern rival for the 2016 GOP nomination. Both signed bills curtailing the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions, an important Democratic constituency.
But unlike in Wisconsin, Ohio voters went on to repeal the anti-union law by a wide margin, setting Kasich off on a more conciliatory trajectory toward organized labor, which still carries clout in the industrial Midwest.
“He listened, which in high-level politics is extremely rare,” Szollosi said. “While other candidates are still looking to throw red meat out there for certain extreme partisans in their party, Kasich has recognized the building trades as an asset to bring industrial development to the state.”
Kasich tried out his message earlier in the week in New Hampshire, where he said that any candidate who is “bombastic” or “a divider” can’t win Ohio. In Thursday’s debate, Kasich stood out by defending his decision to expand Medicaid in Ohio, and reconciling conservatives to the recent Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage.
Veterans of Ohio politics say a “base” election strategy aimed at the ideological wing of the party would likely backfire with the state’s mild Midwestern sensibility. That’s especially so on the labor front.
“A lot of swing voters that Republicans will want to appeal to are white working-class voters, a group that is likely to be unionized,” Green said. “Even if they’re not union members, they have some sympathy, at least, toward private-sector unions.”
As Ronald Reagan proved, blue-collar workers, particularly white working-class voters, are certainly within reach for Republicans. But the candidates will need to show that they understand middleclass concerns in an age of growing income inequality.
Republicans also must deal with the fact that Hillary Clinton was more popular in Ohio than Obama, beating him in the 2008 Ohio primary.
“The really strong Democratic candidate in Ohio was Clinton, not Obama,” said Ohio State political scientist Paul Beck. “The older, white working-class Democrats were much more supportive of her.” ‘They need to change’
Democrats and their union allies plan to highlight some of the more aggressive GOP rhetoric on social issues and minorities, epitomized by Donald Trump’s controversial remarks insulting illegal Mexican immigrants.
On Friday, Priebus said that the Republican National Committee was building “black engagement initiatives” in Ohio.
But, said Nina Turner, engagement chair for the Ohio Democratic Party, “They won’t win over new voters by changing the tone of their message. They need to change the content of their message.”
Turner addressed reporters in a hotel lobby a few blocks away from the Buckeye Boot Camp on Euclid Avenue, in the heart of the Tower City district where the Republicans were gathered for the debates — and to pay their respects to Ohio.
“It absolutely helps just to connect with the local community,” said Texas GOP Chairman Tom Mechler, who was in Cleveland for a meeting of the Republican National Committee. “It’s a big opportunity for the Republican Party.”