Petro: Please don't endorse - if it's Blackwell.

Howard Wilkinson reports:

Attorney General Jim Petro’s gubernatorial campaign is trying to derail a home-county endorsement of opponent Ken Blackwell expected Thursday.

Six local Republican elected officials this week sent a letter asking the Hamilton County party to remain neutral.

“For the sake of party unity, we recommend that we not endorse, but let our neighbors and friends determine who the Republican nominee is,’’ said the letter which went out to members of the Hamilton County Republican Party’s executive committee.

The letter was signed by Hamilton County commissioner Phil Heimlich, who quit as Petro’s lieutenant governor running mate last month, and five Cincinnati area state legislators – state senators Patricia Clancy and Robert Schuler, and state representatives Tom Brinkman Jr., Jim Raussen, and Bill Seitz.

As of late Wednesday afternoon, all of those Cincinnati area state legislators except Seitz had endorsed Petro’s candidacy, according to Petro campaign spokesman Bob Paduchik.

The party’s executive committee is scheduled to meet today to decide first whether or not to endorse and, if so, who to endorse. Both Petro and Blackwell will be given 15 minutes to address the executive committee before the vote.

Paduchik said the Petro campaign “has no expectation that we’ll get that endorsement. Ken Blackwell is the hometown boy.’’

The Petro campaign has already picked up six county party endorsements, including Franklin County and Petro’s home county of Cuyahoga.

Blackwell campaign spokesman Gene Pierce called the letter “hypocritical.’’

“They didn’t do this in any of the counties where they did get endorsements,’’ Pierce said.

Paduchik said there was a simple reason for not asking the other counties to remain neutral.
“They weren’t Ken Blackwell’s home county,’’ Paduchik said.