Dems Build Ohio Firewall

Since Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) Buckeye State bummer in the '04 pres. election against Pres. Bush, the Ohio Democratic Party (ODP) has gone on steroids.

After building an aggressive organization for the '06 midterms that continued into the '08 pres. election, the state party continued to grow and has ballooned into the largest Dem organization in the country, behind only the DNC and DCCC. Now approaching 70 staffers on its payroll, the ODP has 15 regional field directors spread out over the state's 88 counties and plans to double that by the end of March. Late last year, the party moved its headquarters from an old building across from the state Capitol to a bigger, newer facility several blocks away to house its expansive staff and new technology.

Said ODP executive director Doug Kelly, "By keeping Ohio Democratic in 2010, Ohio will be the firewall for Pres. Obama's re-election in 2012."

An ODP document notes that the importance of the state to the Electoral College grows even more critical after this year's census: "Projections suggest that Democratic stronghold states will lose as many as 8 electoral votes to growing Sunbelt-area states, giving the GOP nominee another Kentucky or a second South Carolina just from the reapportionment of the Electoral College." It further predicts the party is unlikely to hold FL, IN, NC or VA in the next pres. cycle, and that Obama would have to carry nearly all of the remaining states he flipped in '08, if not Ohio, to win re-election, given these projections.

To keep its momentum rolling, the ODP has been deploying staffers all across the state for a road show known as the "Knockout" program. The program aims to "knockout the Republicans for the next decade [by] motivating activists to get involved early and often." They've given 9 presentations on the ODP's "strategic blueprint" in the last few months and reached more than 2,000 activists, including, they note, 236 people in Akron. That's "twice the crowd that VP-candidate Joe Biden got at the same union hall in September 2008," according to an ODP staffer.

The ODP plans to hold these "Knockout" events in all 88 counties, and in doing so, they're lengthening their volunteer list. What's more, ODP field staffers say they're supplying those volunteers with access to some of their best data to make them most effective now.

National Dems appear to agree with Kelly's pronouncement to put a continued emphasis in Ohio: Jay Howser, among the most respected campaign managers in the party, was dispatched to OH last week to boost LG Lee Fisher's (D) SEN bid. Fisher has just $1.8M CoH, compared to likely GOP opponent/ex-Rep. Rob Portman's $6M.

Howser headed Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) '08 re-election bid and in the process effectively took the state off the GOP's target list. He was tasked next with rescuing Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-CT) race, though Dodd's challenges proved so insurmountable that Dem strategists decided retirement was wisest.

Dem Senate strategists note that Fisher still has a primary against Sec/State Jennifer Brunner (D), but they're hopeful his fundraising will start picking up. As Howser put it, "Having a strong party apparatus here can only help us."

Most operatives, including Kelly - one of the most experience Dem EDs in the country - and Howser, credit Gov. Ted Strickland (D) with pressing the party apparatus to keep active and expand after Election Day in '06. Kelly spent 18 years in DC, 10 of which were at the DNC. He was DNC research director under Pres. Clinton and was technology director during Pres. Bush's first term, when he largely rebuilt the party's technology systems and worked with Howser.

After Kelly relocated to Cleveland to focus on non-profits for a few years, the newly elected Strickland tapped him in late '06 to keep the party purring in the off-season in an advisory role. By April '07, Kelly moved to the ODP full-time.

And on his watch, the party's fundraising hit an all-time off-year high in 2009, when most political funraising had been hit hard by the economy, by raising $7.3M.

"We have a track record now with this model from 2006 and 2008. We have a network of mid- to high-level donors who are investing early," Kelly said of the record fundraising year. He added, "People see this as an investment and want to get in early, because we did what we said we were going to do. We're also aggressively expanding our low- to mid-level donor networks, because they all know 2010 will be tough."

Kelly pointed out that the last 2 cycles were easier because voters were tired of the GOP and Dems were just coming to power. "2010 gives us a chance to really prove the model under adverse circumstances," he said.

Even with a politically potent climate for Dems in '08, Kelly explained that the "model" has a top-to-bottom focus for "winning at all levels." He cites 2 statistics as evidence of the early investment and heavy, round-the-clock staffing: Dems won the state House of Representatives by 3,861 votes out of more than 5 million cast, and they won 19 of 20 targeted races by less than 1K votes on Election Day.

"That's not through luck. That's having a smart, aggressive program in the field working through the year. This has to be built over time, not overnight," he said.