Governor's race has strange twists

With November approaching, the candidates are writing new game plans.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Ohio's race for governor is a journey through the looking glass.
The Democrat, Rep. Ted Strickland, is a rural, pro-gun minister, which could make him appealing to some Republicans. The Republican, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, is a black man who could draw votes from Democrats.
In this topsy-turvy political world, none of the usual assumptions hold, and even experienced prognosticators from both parties are hedging their bets.
"I think the formula for winning Ohio needs to be rewritten," said Greg Haas, a Democratic consultant who led Bill Clinton to victory in the state in 1992. "For many reasons, including the candidates running this year, I don't think old models apply."
An important showdown
Both the Republicans and the Democrats view Ohio as a must-have state this November, and the race to succeed Republican Gov. Bob Taft -- who is prevented by term limits from running again -- is expected to be an expensive, $50 million contest.
The GOP wants to extend its nearly 16-year hold on the governor's office in Ohio, a battleground state without which no Republican has ever won the White House.
The Democrats, meanwhile, see Strickland as their best shot in years to take back the state's top job. Their hopes have been raised by Republican scandals in Washington and in Ohio, where a coin dealer and major GOP donor is accused of making illegal contributions and embezzling from a state investment in rare coins.
But the never-before-seen matchup of two unconventional nominees makes the outcome anybody's guess.
Strickland, 64, hails from the sparsely populated reaches of Appalachia, where he has held his congressional seat in a Republican-dominated district since 1996. It is an unusual launching pad for the candidate of a party heavily concentrated in the state's big cities.
Haas said Strickland's rural roots could draw Bush-backing voters in Ohio's many farm communities to the Democrats.
Blackwell, 58, is an ardent Christian conservative who could become the nation's second black -- and the first black Republican -- to be elected governor. Democrat L. Douglas Wilder was elected governor of Virginia in 1989. Also this year, Lynn Swann, a Hall of Famer with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s who is black, is running for governor in Pennsylvania.
The Ohio GOP is hopeful its candidate will pull some black votes away from the Democratic Party. The Democrats may be the party of civil rights, but Blackwell is fond of calling the GOP "the party of Lincoln."
Democrats plan
Strickland is working to neutralize any possible race advantage by crafting a strong urban agenda, promising among other things to have a Cabinet official devoted to urban issues.
The move was demanded by some of Ohio's big-city mayors, many of them black. Among them was Democrat Michael Coleman of Columbus, who said Blackwell hurt himself with Ohio's cities by trying to put a constitutional amendment to limit spending on the November ballot.
"That would have done more damage to cities than anything known to mankind. He's going to have to repent for that -- maybe more," Coleman said.
Blackwell and the GOP-controlled Legislature all but killed the constitutional amendment in a deal under which similar but less stringent spending restrictions were instead put into state law. Blackwell portrayed the compromise as a victory; Strickland said he flip-flopped on a key issue that could have hurt him in November.
Both campaigns are focusing on jobs and education. The public schools are operating under a funding formula the Ohio Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled unconstitutional.