OHIO Unconcerned with alienating party, Blackwell blasts GOP

The secretary of state called the House speaker 'a schoolyard bully.'
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has never been afraid to take on his own party, and recent scathing comments directed at Gov. Bob Taft and House Speaker Larry Householder are no exception.
Taft, a Republican, had barely left the Ohio House after his sixth State of the State address last week when Blackwell, who listened politely to the 31-minute speech, lambasted the governor for not addressing state spending practices.
Blackwell, who's leading a charge to repeal a penny sales-tax increase, then accused Taft of being "in cahoots" with public employee unions to stop the effort.
Not satisfied, Blackwell then went after fellow Republican Householder, who also opposes the repeal on the grounds it will hurt the state budget.
Blackwell called Householder a "schoolyard bully" and the "most unprincipled legislator in the last 100 years" serving as speaker.
Householder, a Glenford Republican, dismissed Blackwell as a "Rodney Dangerfield of Ohio politics" trying unsuccessfully to get respect.
Not concerned
Blackwell said Friday he had no concerns about alienating what he called "the wayward party elite" and called his comments part of "a struggle for the heart, soul and mind of the Republican party."
"It's getting the party and its leaders to behave in a manner consistent with traditional Republican values and principles," Blackwell said.
"Warfare" and "direct hand-to-hand combat" is how Herb Asher, an Ohio State University political analyst, described the fray.
Nevertheless, Blackwell "resonates with the conservative segment of the Republican base in taking on that issue and taking on the speaker, and saying, 'I'm serious about this,"' Asher said.
Blackwell, 55, is a conservative Republican and the first black elected to statewide office in Ohio. He's one of three statewide office holders gunning for the governor's job in 2006, along with Attorney General Jim Petro and Auditor Betty Montgomery.
Blackwell, a former Cincinnati mayor, was appointed state treasurer by Gov. George Voinovich, then elected to that seat in 1994. He served one term.
In 1997, Blackwell rankled some Republicans by testing a campaign for governor despite an arrangement by party leaders under which Taft sat out the 1990 campaign in exchange for a clear shot in 1998.
Blackwell, who was lobbied heavily by state and county GOP officials to run for secretary of state, said he never agreed to such a deal.
But in January 1998, trailing Taft in the polls and fund-raising, Blackwell announced he would run for secretary of state, which he easily won.
Job with Powell?
In 2001, Blackwell also dangled the possibility that he would take a high-ranking Washington job under Secretary of State Colin Powell. Blackwell had previously served as an undersecretary in the U.S. Department of Housing and an ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
After leaving party supporters guessing for several days, he finally announced he was staying on as Secretary of State, but not before successfully reminding Ohioans of his national credentials.
Blackwell is also often a frequent guest on national political talk shows such as CNN's "Crossfire" and Fox TV's "The O'Reilly Factor."
"Blackwell has been extremely savvy," Asher said. "There may have been some times when he had no intention of running, but was able to extract some support from the state party by threatening to go in a particular direction."
Blackwell may be trying to forge as distinct a record as possible, as well as align himself with national Republicans, said Ron Walters, a University of Maryland political analyst.
But Walters, who has watched Blackwell's career for several years, questioned the wisdom of Blackwell's attacks on fellow Republicans.