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Retire or Get Defeated at the Ballot Box? Republicans Say: Retire |
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My, my, how times change!
In 2004, Rep. Deborah Pryce (R) easily waltzed back into office with 60 percent of the vote in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, which sprawls from the western suburbs of Columbus north into Union County and south into Madison County. Two years later, she barely made it back for an eighth term with just over 50 percent of the vote.
This morning, Pryce announced she would not seek a ninth term and joined retiring former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Rep. Ray Lahood (R-Ill.) and President Bush’s brain—or at least a good portion his frontal lobe—Karl Rove as the latest Republicans to scurry away from Washington and Bush. Pryce, Hastert and LaHood held three of the top four Republican leadership posts when the GOP controlled the House.
For Pryce, it wasn’t a scandal like the one that sank her mentor, former Rep. Robert Ney (R), or a bid for higher office or lack of funds that drove her from the upcoming 2008 race. Most Buckeye state political observers say it was much more basic—she wasn’t going to win (check out these recent posts on DailyKos). Working family voters are a big reason she was facing defeat.
CD 15 had been a pretty safe seat for the lock-step Republican, who, by the time she was seeking her eighth term in 2006, had voted against working families more than nine times out of 10 and was a Bush loyalist on 87 percent of her votes.
But unlike 2004, by 2006, there was a major change in Ohio 15: Working America had come to town and recruited thousands of people seeking better state and federal policies on workplace and other economic issues. And at election time, with more than two dozen canvassers and many more volunteers, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO joined with the union movement’s Labor 2006 mobilization to get out the vote for working family-backed Mary Jo Kilroy.
With Labor 2006 and Working America reaching out to the more than 70,000 union members and their families the district, Pryce’s dance back into office became an ungainly stumble. Her 56,000-vote margin in 2004 shrank to just 1,055 in the victory over Kilroy, who will be the likely Democratic candidate in 2008.
With the 2006 race as a blueprint to build on, Working America and Working Families Vote 2008 are poised to turn out an even bigger vote in November 2008.
You can keep track of the race on the Ohio15th blog, Buckeye State Blog and the Ohio AFL-CIO website
5 Comments
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It is good to see these Republican scoundrels crawling back under the slimey rocks from which they came.
I just spent two weeks with family and friends in Ohio. This is a different state than prior to the 2004 presidential elections. Folks are angry, as are workers. One family member said she has not had a raise in five years. They got out and made a difference in their Congressional, Senate and Governor races. They are still geared up for 2008. No one I talked to believed that Bush really won the election in Ohio. From what I heard, all of the Republican Congressmen need to be concerned.
There should be a big Democratic landslide across the country in 2008. I strongly believe that, and it looks like Hastert and Pryce do also. The AFL-CIO will play a major part in removing a lot of foes of the average citizen and just plain common sense policies from Congress and other elective offices.
We need term limits. There is too much senility in government as we see by the utter destruction of American working Families. “Our” presidents keep givng away or selling America to foreign interests. At least Mexico has a term limit on presidents to one time. The way Bush has treated working families is an example of once and OUT!
I have many friends from Ohio, and I really hope the Dems have a landslide in 2008, because there are many economic struggles in that state now. I do know that many people had first hand knowledge of documented voting fraud when Bush ’stole’ the White House in 2004. That’s why Ohio needs a Democratic landslide, so there will be no dispute as to who really gets the electoral votes.
On the other hand, it is good that many Republicans are jumping ship, but I don’t trust them, and I believe that by disassociating themselves from the president, they are free to attack the upcoming candidates in any sleazy, mudslinging, vicious manner they chose, something Rove is already doing.