Sen. Wilson has only himself to blame for blunder

Charles A. Wilson Jr. appeared to be the Democratic Party's ideal candidate for the 6th Congressional District.
Wilson had respectable name recognition in the district, money, the support of the popular outgoing incumbent, money, essentially an easy primary, money, he's won five state Legislature races and money.
But the premise was built on a very expensive house of cards that came crashing down during the past week.
Wilson filed his nominating petitions Feb. 13, three days before the filing deadline, with 96 signatures. Wilson needed 50 valid signatures from registered Democrats in the 6th District to get on the ballot.
That was one step on the road of stupidity for Wilson and his campaign. Wilson's traveled the 300-mile-plus congressional district and could have easily obtained 150 signatures; the maximum amount he could file.
The second step, and it was a giant one, on that road was Wilson's collecting the signatures in Belmont and Scioto counties. Those counties are split, with portions in other congressional districts.
Wilson of St. Clairsville knows this better than anyone because he lives in the 18th District. Incredibly, he told me last week he forgot that bit of information about his home county of Belmont.
It turns out only 53 of the 96 signatures came from 6th District voters.
Wilson was nervous, but confident he'd have 50 valid signatures.
He's been on this road before. Wilson screwed up his petitions in a failed bid in 1994 to run for Congress. He had enough valid signatures, but he didn't fill out a declaration of candidacy on each of his nominating petitions, and he was disqualified as a candidate.
Raising money and successfully campaigning in this race is the hard part. Getting enough valid signatures is as easy as it gets.
Even as it became apparent that Wilson wasn't going to get the 50 signatures, he kept expressing his confidence that he would be certified.
This is extremely curious because his campaign knew definitely Monday that he didn't have enough signatures.
Wilson had seven valid signatures from Scioto County, a fact he acknowledged last week and was confirmed by Nancy Shepherd, that county's elections board director.
Wilson insisted he had 43 good signatures from Belmont County.
But that county's election board met Monday to certify its ballot and to verify Wilson's signatures.
Cynthia Fregiato, who serves on that elections board, said a Wilson campaign official, who she declined to identify, asked the board after the meeting about Wilson's petitions. That person was told Wilson had 41 valid signatures from Belmont, Fregiato said, thus making him two short of the magic 50 number.
The only two people in the audience for that meeting, according to the board's minutes, were Jason Wilson, the candidate's son and then-campaign manager, and Belmont County Democratic Chairman James Tekely.
It's impossible to imagine Wilson's own son didn't tell dad that he wasn't going to be on the ballot. But Wilson issued a statement after the meeting was held saying he was "confident" he'd be certified.
A recheck by Belmont on Wednesday revealed two other signatures weren't valid so Wilson had 50 bad signatures and 46 good ones.
Whatever the reason for this political disaster, it pretty much ends Wilson's chances of winning this race.
Wilson can run as a write-in candidate on the May Democratic primary, something Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern wants him to do, or run in the November general election as an independent.
Neither is terribly appealing.
It's going to cost Wilson a small fortune to educate people to write-in his name on ballots, and show them how to do it, particularly in counties using electronic touch-screen voting machines for the first time.
Running as an independent with a Democratic candidate on the ballot is going to hurt Wilson's chances in what was considered just a few days ago as one of the most competitive congressional races in the country.
Wilson needs 1,886 valid signatures -- equal to 1 percent of those in the 6th District who voted in the 2002 gubernatorial election -- to get on the ballot as an independent.
If Wilson couldn't get 50 valid signatures, could he get 1,886?
Wilson could convince the Democratic primary winner to quit and have him take that place on the November ballot. That also is a bad move because voters will correctly determine that Wilson is either buying his way on to the ballot or is bullying the primary winner to quit.
It's going to take a miracle for Democrats to retain this seat, and they have no one to blame but themselves.