Tomorrow's political notebook today

Just for you Politics Extra junkies, here's the Political Notebook that will appear in tomorrow's Enquirer:

By Howard Wilkinson
Enquirer staff writer


Two Cincinnati TV stations which briefly pulled a union-sponsored ad attacking Rep. Steve Chabot put the ad back on the air Wednesday, after the union provided the stations with documentation that Chabot voted against bills increasing the minimum wage.
The 30-second TV spot was paid for by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Chabot’s campaign filed a complaint with the stations about the ad and both stations - WCPO-TV (channel 9) and WKRC-TV (channel 12) told campaign officials earlier this week they would take the ad off the air.

The ad was off the air on channel 12 Tuesday, but went back up Wednesday.

WCPO general manager Bill Fee said his station had told the Chabot campaign it would stop airing the ad Wednesday, but changed its position Tuesday night, after AFSCME officials provided the station with documents showing that its claim that Chabot had voted against minimum wage legislation was true.

Chabot, a Republican, voted this year against Democratic-sponsored bills which would have raised the minimum wage. Chabot voted for a Republican-sponsored minimum wage increase this year, as well.

Fee said that when a campaign files a formal complaint about an attack ad, the station goes through a procedure proscribed by the Federal Elections Commission where the campaign or organization paying for the ad is asked to produce evidence of its claims and the challenger is invited to produce evidence refuting the charges.

Kerry back in Ohio

Some say John Kerry might be living in the White House now if he had spent more time in Ohio, the state that gave the election to George W. Bush.

He’s making up for it now.

Next Tuesday, the Massachusetts senator will campaign in Columbus with that city’s mayor, Michael Coleman, at a Catholic church on the city’s north side. “Early voting,’’ which starts Tuesday in Ohio, will be the subject of the day.

Kerry will move on from there to the nearby campus of Ohio State University, where he will be the featured speaker at a college Democrats’ get-out-the-vote rally.

No top issue

No one issue is uppermost in the minds of Ohio voters in this fall’s statewide elections, but most voters say they will base their choices for governor and U.S. Senate on their positions on issues – as opposed to character or experience, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The top three issues cited by voters in the University of Cincinnati’s Ohio Poll were education (14 percent), the economy and jobs, including the minimum wage issue (13 percent) and taxes (12%).

The poll, conducted by UC’s Institute for Policy Research, showed that among the random sample of likely Ohio voters 63 percent said they would base their vote for governor on the candidates’ position on issues. The candidate’s character was cited by 18 percent, while the candidate’s political party would determine the vote of 10 percent and the candidate’s experience would influence another six percent.

In the U.S. Senate race, factors such as experience, political party and character were somewhat more important.

In the Senate race, 53 percent said they would base their votes on candidates’ positions on issues, while 15 percent cited character, 14 percent said experience and 14 percent said the candidate’s political party would determine their votes.

A week ago, the Ohio Poll released its finding on the head-to-head match-ups between Democrat Ted Strickland and Republican Ken Blackwell for governor and Republican incumbent Mike DeWine and Democrat Sherrod Brown for the U.S. Senate.

In that poll, conducted at the same time as the polling on what would influence voters, 50 percent said they favored Strickland, while 38 percent favored Blackwell. Independent candidate Bill Peirce polled at three percent while independent Bob Fitrakis took two percent. In the Senate race, Brown led with 51 percent to DeWine’s 47 percent.

The poll of 671 likely Ohio voters was conducted by telephone between Sept. 7 and Sept. 17. It has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

Forum Monday

The Amos Project, a coalition of churches and synagogues that work on social issues, is holding a forum for state, federal and local candidates Monday night, but it is still unclear how many of them are going to show up.

Jim Wallis, a self-described “progressive evangelical’’ will moderate the forum.

Sue Morrissey of the Amos Project said invitations went out to all candidates for Ohio governor, U.S. Senate from Ohio, the 1st and 2nd congressional districts of Ohio, and Hamilton County commissioner.

As of Wednesday, only five candidates had confirmed that they will attend: Democrat Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, 1st District Democratic candidate John Cranley, 2nd District Democratic candidate Victoria Wulsin, and both county commission candidates, Republican incumbent Phil Heimlich and Democratic challenger David Pepper.

The event begins at 7 p.m. Monday at the Cintas Center on the campus of Xavier University, 1624 Herald Ave.