 Todd DormanTodd Dorman is a columnist for The Gazette. His blog has been bringing smiles to readers' faces since November 2007. |
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SD 18 Liz Mathis is your Senator-Elect
Where to begin?
What can you say about Senate District 18? It doesn’t take a professional politco to explain the significance of those early absentee vote totals, which essentially built Democrat Liz Mathis’ victory margin before any of us old-schoolers showed up at the polls Tueday. The Democratic ground game was a piece of electoral craftsmanship. Republicans were not only out-spent, but they were out-hustled.
Republican Cindy Golding was a solid candidate, but Senate Republicans divided by infighting and state Republicans seemingly distracted by presidential caucusing didn’t deliver her a solid campaign. Sentate Republicans’ Nov. 10 leadership election will not be a happy hive of high-fives. They remain a minority.
Add Mathis’ name-recognition advantage as a longtime TV anchor in a very short campaign, and her big victory really isn’t a massive surprise. The margin and the relatively high turnout were somewhat unexpected in their scope. But the outcome was predictable.
Still, it wasn’t necessarily a slam dunk. Golding seemed to have the advantage on the economic/tax/business issues that top many voters’ list of priorities. She was better in debates and took strong, clear stands on many issues, calling for slashing regulations, reforming property taxes and breaking free GOP priorities in the Democratic Senate. It’s a message that’s worked for Republicans.
But in a district that prizes moderate independence, Golding often looked too much like a partisan. The first TV ad run in her name was a shot at President Obama. That’s original. She seemed, at times, to be running against Mike Gronstal instead of Liz Mathis. Marriage may not have mattered to most, but her call to put civil rights to a divisive majority vote likely turned off some district voters and motivated others to work for her defeat. For the National Organziation for Marriage and The Family Leader, it was a stinging rebuke.
Mathis did a better job portraying herself as an independent, non-partisan voice decrying gridlock and pledging to work across the aisle. Her ads and mailings depicted a farm girl candidate who would listen and learn and push for tax credits and incentives and then do more listening and learning. She was smart late in the campaign to hone in on education issues as a focus. Her opponent chided her for skipping school board elections, making Mathis like about 90 percent of the population. I’m not sure that line of attack resonated.
But Mathis also seemed to declare her independence from taking strong, clear stands on many key issues. I hate to be a victory party pooper, but that’s going to have to change.
Come January, she’ll have to start going on the record and casting votes. And after a year in the Senate, Mathis won’t have the luxury next fall of pleading extreme thoughtfulness when asked about the state’s problems. We like to be listened to, but we’re also going to want to hear clear answers.
But for now, congratulations to the senator-elect.
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Hustle and hard work count in politics. Contrary to the sour grapes we are about to hear, so too does substance. Mathis, in part, won this election, but Cindy Golding worked hard to lose it.
For all of our sakes, let’s hope the state GOP looks at this special election and, for once, draws the correct political conclusions: drop the campaign against gay and lesbian civil rights, it’s a loser; stop demonizing organized labor and working to demolish collective bargaining, it’s a loser; stop resorting to negative attack ads, they are losers.
Republicans, the way to win elections and make this country better is to bring us together. Stop trying to tear us apart.
Jeff they can’t help themselves, greed is what drives them.
While the two of your are busy slapping yourselves on the back, many of us will be watching this newscaster/rookie politician, try to deliver on her promises to the voters. Being opposed to Mathis election, I feel she bought the win with the amount of cash spent in advertising. I am awaiting the gazettes’ reporting on the accounting aspects. B4 you say it, I deny being a sore loser. Lol, Not a resident of SD18.
Sheesh, Joseph, Golding ran a poor campaign, get over it. Has it occurred to you that Golding went negative from the get-go, stayed negative when her “Obama and Mathis are celebrities” ad flopped, and never really told anyone what she was for, except to vote to strip gays and lesbians of civil rights
Oh yeah, and there was her appearance at the rally sponsored by the anti-gay hate groups, and her statement that she was “troubled” by GLBT scholarships. And, she really slipped on a banana peel when she claimed she had no control over the appearance of the “celebrity” ad, which made it look like she was a passive tool of the state GOP.
Mathis may not have run a brilliant campaign, but she put the same-sex marriage issue to rest at the beginning of the campaign, and never attacked Golding. You may not be a “sore loser,” but GOP initiatives, like Ohio’s bid to restrict collective bargaining rights or the Mississippi “life begins at conception” constitutional amendment, were also defeated.
Joseph, many voters are telling the GOP to clean up its act. Why would that disturb you?
Sour grapes much Joseph?