In Ohio as in nation, it’s Dems versus Dems

By JULIE CARR SMYTH

There are differences and similarities, experts say.

COLUMBUS (AP) — The Ohio standoff between Gov. Ted Strickland and company against Attorney General Marc Dann ought to appear to followers of this year’s contentious Democratic presidential primary as just more of the same.

It’s Democrats vs. Democrats, as is the to-the-bitter-end contest between presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

It features one underdog who refuses to budge.

And it looks like it’s going to last awhile.

“There is a similarity in that a prominent Democratic politician refuses to bow to the inevitable as seen by other Democrats,” said John Green, director of the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute for Applied Politics.

At the national level, Clinton continues to fight back suggestions that her defeat for the Democratic nomination is assured and she needs to bow out gracefully. Even after Tuesday’s primaries in North Carolina and Indiana gave another boost to Obama’s long-standing lead among convention delegates, Clinton pledged to push ahead.

In Ohio, Dann has been scarred by a sexual harassment scandal at his office and his admission May 2 of an affair with an employee. But he dug in his heels last week, refusing to resign despite the demands of Strickland, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and other top Democrats in statewide offices and the Legislature.

“There’s this feeling that, barring some really unusual turn of events, enough superdelegates are eventually going to fall in behind Obama and he’s going to get the nomination,” Green said. “And there’s a feeling that Marc Dann’s going to eventually leave office, whether it’s from the great political pressure or by way of impeachment.”

In other key ways, though, the two scenarios are opposite.

The longevity of the battle between Clinton and Obama is stemming from divisions among Democrats, Green said, but Ohio Democrats responded to the Dann controversy with one voice. And the presidential contest is about defining the Democrats, and Ohio Democrats sought to appear party-blind.

“We promised the people when we sought these offices that we would do our best to serve them competently, sincerely, honestly, with integrity, and that was our pledge and our commitment,” Strickland told reporters. “I think all of us felt that we had an obligation to the people of our state to send a very clear message that inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated, whether it’s coming from a Republican officeholder or a Democratic officeholder.”

Strickland minced no words that he was trying to send a message that Democrats whom Ohioans elected in 2006 on campaign pledges of cleaning up Republican ethical breaches were not going to bring back what the party dubbed that year “a culture of corruption.”

“I can assure you it is not more of the same. I’m the governor, Marc Dann is a Democratic officeholder, as am I, and I am calling for his resignation, and I am saying that we will encourage impeachment if he refuses to step down,” Strickland said. “I think that’s a pretty clear message to the people of this state that inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated.”

The response may be party neutral, but it still stands to politically benefit Ohio Democrats, Green said.

“The battle between Obama and Clinton is about who can win in November, and the candidates have a personal interest in that,” he said. “The reaction of the Democratic officeholders [in Ohio] was damage control: ‘We won in 2006, things were going pretty well, we know we’re going to face some tough opposition this fall, we don’t need this headache.’”

Paul Tipps, a former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, said the strong response of Ohio Democrats — including the party — could wind up backfiring.

He said he has been through eight scandals involving state elected officials — four Democrats, four Republicans — and negotiation was always viewed as superior to force in resolving the matters.

Dann’s refusal to resign set in motion impeachment proceedings that could mean a very public trial that sets legal precedent on the propriety of extramarital affairs by elected officials, the definition of mismanagement in office, and other areas that politicians could be judged on for centuries to come.

“We’ve got ethics laws, we’ve got campaign finance laws, and now we’re going to have moral standards just for Democrats?” Tipps said. “To me, Democrats are putting together a firing squad and standing them in a circle.”

Green said both political parties have a tendency to rally around their own, and that Strickland was sending a signal that that wasn’t going to happen in this case.

“One might argue that one of the things Democratic officeholders were doing was to prevent rallying, by rallying on the other side,” he said. “It’s the natural impulse of partisans to rally, but I don’t know if it’s the natural impulse of citizens. Sometimes partisans look pretty bad in the eyes of the public.”