McCain is coming

Howard Wilkinson reports in tomorrow's Enquirer:

The contest among Republican presidential candidates for Ohio’s campaign dollars and votes starts next Friday, when Arizona Sen. John McCain comes to Cincinnati for a private fundraising event.

McCain, who has yet to formally announce his candidacy, will be at Cincinnati’s Queen City Club Friday for the fundraiser and private meetings with key GOP officials and campaign donors. No public events are planned.

McCain’s Cincinnati swing comes 10 days before one of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, comes here for a breakfast fundraising event at the Westin hotel.

The Arizona senator, who leads some national polls of GOP voters, will be the first Republican presidential candidate to land in Cincinnati, but surely will not be the last. Local GOP leaders say that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, one of McCain’s rivals, is planning a March fundraising event in Cincinnati.

Cincinnati and southwest Ohio has a long history of being an almost bottomless well of campaign dollars for GOP presidential candidates. – a lesson George W. Bush learned early on in his 2000 presidential campaign, when McCain was his principal rival for the GOP nomination.

Bush recruited deep-pocketed GOP donors like Carl Lindner and Cintas chairman Richard Farmer early on, denying McCain access to Cincinnati’s pool of Republican campaign money.
That experience eight years ago may explain why McCain is coming to Cincinnati so early in the primary season.

Officially, the Hamilton County Republican Party is taking no position on the coming battle for the GOP presidential nomination, although county chairman George Vincent said the party would help any GOP presidential candidate get the word out about campaign events in southwest Ohio.

“But it’s way to early for the county party to take a position on the presidential primary, if it ever does,’’ Vincent said.

McCain’s presidential exploratory committee is planning no pubic events for the Feb. 16 visit to Cincinnati.

The Hamilton County GOP isn’t take a position in the primary, chairman George Vincent said.
But on the following day after McCain’s visit, the Northeast Hamilton County Republican Club will hold its annual pancake breakfast at the Sharonville Convention Center. The club always conducts a straw poll at the breakfast. Last year, it was on the Ohio gubernatorial and 2nd Congressional District primaries; This year, and the Republicans will be asked to choose among a long list of GOP presidential candidates.

Organizers of the breakfast have invited presidential candidates to attend, but, as of Friday, none had accepted. McCain, a spokesman said, would be moving on from Cincinnati Friday night to events in Chicago on Saturday.