Testimonials & Media

Op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch by chief political writer Joe Hallett describes how Virginia's Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine beat heavily favored Republican Thomas Kilgore by campaigning on sprawl and smart growth issues instead of abortion and other wedge issues in key Republican growth counties. Hallett describes Greater Ohio’s campaign, including its Candidates' Briefing Book, and advises Ohio’s candidates to take a lesson from Virginia.

Sprawl issues could give lift to Democrats

February 12, 2006

BY JOE HALLETT

In the lexicon of Democrats, there is a word for Delaware, Licking, Fairfield and Union counties: unwinnable.

After the May 2 primary election, the Democratic nominee for governor will plot a county-by-county strategy for winning in November. He will look at the four Columbus-area counties and the other six among Ohio’s 10 fastest growing counties and be tempted to ask his aides, "Why bother?"

Those counties, all bordering major urban counties, easily are among Ohio’s most Republican. In 2004, President Bush won an average of 65 percent of the vote in the 10 fastest-growing counties. In the last four gubernatorial elections, the Republican candidates have averaged 67 percent of the vote there.

For Democrats, Ohio’s top 10 growth counties — also including Butler, Geauga, Greene, Lake, Medina and Warren — might as well be on Pluto.

Then again, perhaps Pluto is as close as Virginia. If so, maybe Gov. Timothy M. Kaine left his playbook lying around.

Heading into last November’s gubernatorial election, Democrat Kaine was the underdog to Republican Thomas Kilgore. Kaine no doubt looked at Virginia’s five fastest-growing counties and conjured something akin to the Pluto image. The five were reliably Republican; Bush won them all in 2004, averaging more than 58 percent of the vote.

But somehow, when the results were tallied in the five counties, Kaine won them with 50.5 percent of the votes, nearly an 8-point swing from Bush’s performance a year earlier. Kaine beat Kilgore in Prince William and Loudon counties, fast-growing suburbs of Washington. He proved that message still matters.

Rather than being dragged into debates about abortion, same-sex marriage and other wedge issues, Kaine tailored a "smart growth" message to voters in the five counties and successfully tapped into their frustrations about unchecked sprawl despoiling their quality of life by overcrowding schools and roads and requiring higher taxes.

Kaine’s platform, illustrated by his cry to "build the roads before building the subdivisions," hit home, especially with affluent and educated suburban women, whom Ohio’s Gene Krebs describes as "the soccer moms who can’t get their kids to soccer practice on time because they’re sitting in traffic and are pretty ticked off about it."

Krebs, a conservative Republican from Preble County and member of the Ohio House from 1993 to 2000, is state director of a nonprofit organization called Greater Ohio. Funded by good-government and charitable foundations, Greater Ohio’s goal is to promote state policies for land use that revitalize existing cities and towns, strengthen regional cooperation and conserve Ohio’s farmland and natural resources.

Krebs and his staff have written a playbook for Ohio’s gubernatorial campaign and given it to the four major candidates — Republicans J. Kenneth Blackwell and Jim Petro and Democrats Ted Strickland and Eric Fingerhut. So far, the Republican candidates have been locked in a fight over who loves Jesus more and hates abortion most. Meanwhile, the Democratic campaign could devolve into a fight over who loves unions and guns and who doesn’t.

Voters want more, Krebs said last week, and the candidate who adapts Kaine’s smart-growth message to Ohio will reap support across the state, but especially in the fast-growing suburban and exurban counties. Southern Delaware County is a prime example of sprawl-gone-awry fraying at the nerves, Krebs said.

"For all those folks who work in downtown Columbus and who moved to Sunbury, it used to take them 35 minutes to get home and now it takes an hour and 35 minutes. They look at their schools being constantly overcrowded, and every time they think they’re getting ahead with road construction, then a developer builds another housing subdivision and suddenly they’re back to square one."

Greater Ohio’s playbook lays out coherent plans for smart land use and energy independence, livable cities and towns, preserving farmland, ending schools’ reliance on local property taxes and restoring Lake Erie.

"If you’re a Republican and you want to win the primary, you need to start formulating where you are on these issues," Krebs said. "If you’re a Democrat and you want to fish in the Republican voter pond, you’ll want to take a look at these issues."

Kaine told The Washington Post that he targeted suburban voters in fast-growing counties because they were open to a message that stressed "development, land use, transportation. Those folks feel it, understand it, worry about it more than anyone else."

Folks in counties that historically are Pluto for Democrats made Kaine governor of Virginia. There’s a lesson for Ohio.

Joe Hallett is Dispatch senior editor.
jhallett@dispatch.com