What's so great about the Portman campaign?

I keep hearing pundits saying that it is the textbook campaign that we will be reading about in poli sci texts for years, but they don’t explain it now. Strickland is a popular former governor and it seemed like a winnable race for the Democrats, but Portman is annihilating him and the DNC has pulled its money.

This National Review article has some details about the campaign.

The upshot seems to be that he has set up a record as a relative moderate, is running a very “politics is local” race with a good ground game, raised a bunch of money, and has skillfully avoided the internecine conflict within the party.

Portman’s campaign has failed at winning me over; I’ll do everything I can to defeat the bastard.

What’s great about the Portman campaign is that he has avoided doing anything at all, other than appearing sane and non-threatening. He has courted the sane part of the Republican party, he is focusing on issues that benefit both sides of the aisle, and is reminding people about Strickland being around when the economy tanked. I have not seen much effort on Strickland’s part to get himself out there here in Southwest Ohio, but then again I live in Boehner’s home county, which has been a Republican stronghold for a while, though demographics are changing. The key to Portman’s success has been being a typical white bread, folksy, tell people what they want to hear, don’t do anything nuts, semi-centrist politician. He’s comfortable, and Ohio likes comfort.

Ohio Democrat here. I dislike Rob Portman and will vote against him. That said, as long as he avoids stepping on his dick he will cake-walk to re-election with an opponent like Strickland. Ted Strickland was a failure as governor of this state and he is not that popular. Most of my friends are Democrats and none of them are excited about Strickland. Or to put it another way - many were excited about the opportunity to vote Portman out. Then came Strickland and fizzle

Looking at Real Clear polling, Portman has had some sort of lead since frigging June so I have to roll my eyes at this. He spent more money and reminded voters why they kicked out Strickland 6 years ago. The National Review article linked above mentions how he managed to “walk the tightrope between Trump, Clinton and Kasich”. Sure, ok. So write up that textbook. It’ll come in real handy for the next incumbent Senator running against a voted out Governor during a Presidential election featuring the most unfavorable candidates in history. Summary of textbook: raise lots of money and look neutral on the President thing.

Atlantic article which doesn’t make it sound exciting

That resonates with the theme of a NYT article from a few weeks ago which showed that although this was supposed to be a great year for the Democrats in the Senate, it hasn’t really turned out that way. The reason is candidate recruiting. Although there are several vulnerable Repiblicans, the Democrats that ended up winning the primaries turned out to be weak.

Another Ohio Dem here. This is pretty much my outlook, too (although I’d say Strickland was a so-so governor rather than an outright failure; the economic currents were very much against him when he ran for reelection). He’s no spring chicken and has run, I have to say, an unimpressive campaign. A GOP negative ad blitz has also hurt him, and Portman hasn’t put a foot wrong yet. The DSCC seems to have pretty much written Strickland off: National Democrats pull more money out of Ohio's U.S. Senate race - cleveland.com

I’ve contributed to Strickland’s campaign this year, and will definitely vote for him, but I think he’s likely to lose.

Portman has been pretty effective at painting Strickland as being responsible for every financial woe of the state. I don’t think it’s really fair, but some of the ads are pretty bad for Strickland. The recovery actually started well before Strickland left office, and was almost enough to get him re-elected in a bad year in 2010. But the collective memory seems to be that Strickland=recession and Kasich=jobs. The dumbest Portman ad is the one whining that Strickland left less than a dollar in the state rainy day fund. Well, no shit, that’s what the rainy day fund is for. But dumb doesn’t mean ineffective.

And the Democrats never really found anything to tar Portman with. They tried trade. A while back there were a bunch of ads saying that Portman was “the best senator China’s ever had,” with ominous pictures of red flags and Portman talking to Chinese men in suits. And Strickland followed up with this bizarre fortune cookie stunt. I get that the Dems were trying to capitalize on the anti-trade stuff that’s been stirred up recently…but the thing is, despite all of the commentary about how Ohio is a devastated rust belt state that is aching for protectionism, you’ll notice that neither primary was won by the more anti-trade candidate.

That’s the only Portman ad that I’ve seen, and I agree that it’s dumb. Yeah, OK, remind the voters that he was governor during bad times, that makes sense. But why are they reminding us that he did everything in his power to make them less bad? If that ad were all I knew about the race, it’d lead me to vote for Strickland.

On the other hand, those Chinese trade agreement ads go the other way. Of course Portman is negotiating trade deals with China. That’s the kind of thing I want a senator to do: Do these people really think we shouldn’t have international trade? If that ad were all I knew about the race, it’d lead me to vote Portman.

If I were Strickland’s ad guy, I’d go after Portman for his ties to Dubya. He was Trade Rep and OMB Director during some not-so-great economic times, backing some even-worse policies.

Seems like Ohio is one place where the Republicans are just doing a much better job than the Democrats in a state where they should be evenly matched. This is the second statewide race in a row that just fell apart for the Democrats when it was expected to be competitive.

Will there be coat tails? That is, how much will the presidential race affect the senate race? Or the reverse?

Portman’s lead is pretty substantial - his lowest number in the past month has been +8 and the aggregate is +13. Coat tails aren’t likely to save Strickland.

Real Clear Ohio Senate polls

Could Portman’s coat tails give Ohio to Trump?

Very unlikely, I think. He’s preferred by most voters to Strickland, but not so amazingly popular that he would carry Trump with him over the finish line. I suspect Hillary will carry the state, perhaps narrowly, while Portman is easily reelected.

Actually, it looks like Ohio is going Trump. His lead is small but looks solid. He’s led the last five polls in a row:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/oh/ohio_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5970.html

I remember hearing about how Portman/Strickland was going to be a battle for the ages and I didn’t believe it. Strickland’s popularity as governor has been overstated. His approval ratings weren’t bad, but he did lose reelection to Kasich, after all.

Care to make it interesting? $20 says Hillary carries the Buckeye State.

Not when Clinton is in the middle of a bounce.