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 State Of Ohio As of June 1, 1997
Ohio was the first entirely American state, and one which ever since has seemed an epitome of American normalcy. The original 13 states started as British colonies, and the next three, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee, were spun off from them. But Ohio sprung Athena-like from the head of Congress, as the first state formed from the Northwest Territory of 1787. The Northwest Ordinance established 6 by 6 mile square townships, which imposed geometric order on diverse American landscapes west to the Pacific; it set aside one square mile per township for public schools, and the landscape was soon peppered with schoolhouses and small colleges, the foundation stones of a literate republic. The Ordinance prohibited slavery, opening the way for free labor to clear fields, raise crops, build mills and factories, and, in less than half a century, make this wilderness one of the most productive parts of western civilization. Ohio, in the years after the Civil War, became one of the great industrial states, the longtime headquarters of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, the site of major steel mills along the narrow and languidly flowing Cuyahoga and Mahoning Rivers, and home of the biggest soap companies, machine tool makers, tire manufacturers and producers of safety glass. Settled by Virginians in the southwest around Cincinnati, by New Englanders in the northeast in the Western Reserve around Cleveland, Ohio has always been split between cultures: between the southern-accented counties south of the National Road and U.S. 40 and the northern-accented cities and towns to the north; between Butternut and Copperhead territory that didn't want to fight the Civil War and Yankee territory that fiercely prosecuted the War and Reconstruction afterwards. This split heritage made Ohio politically a closely divided state -- and a nationally pivotal one. Just a century ago it was Ohio that produced the candidate and campaign manager -- Governor and former Ways and Means Chairman William McKinley and iron and coal industrialist Mark Hanna -- who won the Presidency in 1896 and inaugurated a 34-year period of Republican national majorities. McKinley's Republicans were for high tariffs and hard money, had a friendly regard for workers and even some unions, but no patience with large union combinations and nascent socialism. They preached a nationalist Americanism tempered by a wariness about making major commitments abroad. Republicans were the majority in this increasingly industrial Ohio, losing rural Butternut counties but carrying the big industrial cities of the north. Then came the Depression of the 1930s, and Ohio became the scene of something like class warfare, with sitdown strikes and victories for the CIO industrial unions in autos, steel and tires. CIO cities -- Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Toledo -- moved sharply toward the Democrats, while places with few CIO members -- Cincinnati, Columbus, the dozens of small factory towns dotting the flat limestone plains of northern Ohio -- stayed Republican. The political fighting was fierce and the stakes seemed big. CIO leaders hoped to organize the entire work force and build a Scandinavian-style welfare state; Republican leaders like Ohio Senator Robert Taft feared union control of business would imperil freedoms and throttle the economy. In the 1930s and 1940s, the unions made great gains. But Taft held them off, reducing union power with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, his own reelection to the Senate in 1950, and -- his eventual rival -- Dwight Eisenhower's presidential election in 1952. In the years since, Ohio has oscillated and been courted by national campaigns. In the 1970s it seemed to swing toward the Democrats. Jimmy Carter won crucial electoral votes by carrying Ohio by 11,000 votes and Democrats controlled the state House throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Now in the 1990s Ohio seems to have veered Republican. Bill Clinton did carry the state twice, but by the narrowest of his margins in any megastate -- 40%-38% in 1992, 47%-41% in 1996. Also Ohio Republicans won a smashing victory in 1994 and, below the presidential level, held their own in 1996. The 1994 headline event was the reelection of Republican Governor George Voinovich by a 72%-25% margin -- by far the biggest margin since 1826, when neither Republican nor Democratic parties existed. And Republicans in 1994 won up and down the line: Mike DeWine was elected senator over Democrat Joel Hyatt 53%-39%, in a race that initially seemed even, and in a state that had not elected a Republican senator since 1970. Republicans won every one of the statewide offices, dominated by Democrats since 1970; they won large margins in both houses of the legislature, replacing the nation's longest-serving state House speaker, Vern Riffe, with Jo Ann Davidson; they gained four seats in the U.S. House. The new lieutenant governor, Nancy Putnam Hollister, a woman with an old Yankee pedigree, ran with the Serbo-Croatian Voinovich, who had served 10 years as mayor of Cleveland. Republicans also elected a woman Attorney General (Betty Montgomery), a black Treasurer (Kenneth Blackwell), and Ohio's first Hispanic legislator (John Garcia of Toledo). In 1996, Republicans lost two House seats, but held a majority of the House delegation and both houses of the legislature. Republicans ran only 3% behind their 1994 showing in seats contested both times; they won the voting for U.S. House 51%-46%, for state Senate (in which only half the seats were up) 57%-40%, and for state House 53%-46%. The interesting question is whether this is a short-term blip or a long-run trend, a return to a McKinley-type Republican majority or a momentary interruption of New Deal voting patterns. It is a question of national significance, for in income levels, urban-rural balance, and ethnic mix, as well as presidential percentages, Ohio is close to the national average. One place to look for answers is in north-and-east Ohio, the traditionally Democratic area along Lake Erie and reaching south to the coal-mining counties across the Ohio River from West Virginia. This was the heartland of the CIO unions, the United Steelworkers in Youngstown and Cleveland, United Rubber Workers in Akron, United Mine Workers in the coal country, and United Auto Workers in Toledo and Lordstown. It is heavily ethnic, with hundreds of thousands of Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks, Serbs, and Croatians streaming in throughout the early 20th Century. When its auto, steel, rubber and glass factories lost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the five years after the oil shock of 1979, north-and-east Ohio was one of the most Democratic parts of the country; as a separate state, it would have come as close to voting against Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 as Massachusetts or New York. It voted solidly for Michael Dukakis in 1988 (54%-46%) and Bill Clinton in 1992 (47%-31%). But as the shock of the early 1980s wore off, and it became clear that CIO industries' high-wage, low-skill jobs were gone for good, attitudes began changing. Voters gave up on trying to recreate the old factory economy and began building a new, more supple and adaptable manufacturing economy, with smaller factories, less rigid management and fewer union members, fewer low-skill jobs with high wages and more medium-skill, high-flexibility jobs with chances for advancement. They gave up on restricting trade, as steel and auto import quotas lapsed and NAFTA was approved, and began manufacturing goods for export markets. And so Ohio began to grow again. Cleveland's new downtown is gleaming, Akron is proud of the polymer technologies which have replaced tire manufacturing, the Cuyahoga River is clean and the valleys carved by rivers in the limestone are a source of pride. George Voinovich, long familiar to the Cleveland TV market, carried north-and-east Ohio 55%-45% when he was elected governor in 1990; in 1994, against a little-known opponent, he won 69%-29%, the kind of Republican margin not seen in this area of Ohio since the 1920s. Even more startlingly, Republican Mike DeWine carried the area over Democrat Joel Hyatt 47%-45% in the 1994 Senate race. Then in 1996 the Democrats came partially back: Bill Clinton carried north-and-east Ohio 54%-33%. But his percentage was no higher than Dukakis's, and not enough for a statewide majority. The politics of union-management struggle, class warfare and economic redistribution seems less than vigorous, perhaps dying, in one of its American heartlands. The rest of Ohio has long been a Republican area, a stronghold for Robert Taft and for James Rhodes, governor for 16 of the 20 years between 1962 and 1982, who favored low taxes in order to attract jobs. In the 1980s, this larger part of Ohio's cultural conservatism and patriotic nationalism, plus faith in a growing economy, made it heavily Republican: 67%-32% for Ronald Reagan in 1984 and 63%-36% for George Bush (whose grandfather owned a steel factory in Columbus) in 1988. In 1992 and 1996 George Bush and Bob Dole won only pluralities here, but Republicans carried the area overwhelmingly in 1994. The economy in both parts of Ohio has proved to be surprisingly robust in the 1990s. The unemployment rate, long high, fell below the national average; household incomes were up sharply; over half a million jobs were created. Ohioans' high-skill manufacturing is booming, and small entrepreneurs have created thousands of jobs in the shadows of huge steel mills long since shut down. Politically, this economic growth has benefited incumbents, George Voinovich in 1994, Bill Clinton in 1996. Voinovich attracted no serious competition and Democrats were unable to field winning candidates up and down the ticket, in vivid contrast to the 1970s and 1980s. Clinton increased his 1992 margin, and Democrats showed better morale, but their institutional base still seems weak; organized labor was more active than in 1994, but far less of an influence than in the 1960s and 1970s. A test for both parties comes in 1998. Senator John Glenn, the last major Ohio Democrat in office, who turns 77 in 1998, announced in February 1997 that he would not run again. Glenn, who started off his career disengaged from his party's liberals, has become an outspoken supporter of Bill Clinton and an increasing partisan in the Senate. George Voinovich announced in December 1996 that he would run for the seat, and early polls showed him to be a favorite. Whether Democrats can field a strong senatorial candidate is a major test for them; whether Voinovich can be followed by a like-minded candidate is a major test for the Republicans. 1998 is also a test of where Ohio stands in history. Is it New Deal Ohio, with ethnic factory workers ranged against small town businessmen, ethnic Catholics versus rural Protestants, all engaged in a contest to see how far and in what ways government should be enlarged? Or is it McKinley Ohio, with mechanical tinkerers and can-do manufacturers, adaptive businessmen and hard-working employees, striving to work hard, raise families and serve communities that feel little class conflict or economic envy? Ironically, the best-known figures of each party come from the other's heartland, Glenn from pious small town Guernsey County, Voinovich from a Serbo-Croatian ward in Cleveland. Presidential politics. With 21 electoral votes and a tradition of close partisan competition, Ohio is a crucial state in presidential politics. It matched the national average in 1984 and 1988 and came close to doing so in 1996. It cast the narrowest margins for Bill Clinton of any megastate in both 1992 and 1996. No Republican has ever been elected president without carrying Ohio; no Democrat, in the electoral vote arithmetic of the 1990s, can be sure of winning without it. Richard Nixon advised Reagan and Bush managers Ed Rollins and Lee Atwater to put extra money and special ads into Ohio, to make it a roadblock for Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. In 1992, that strategy was reversed, since the West Coast was lost to Bush and the South in jeopardy; then James Carville made Ohio a roadblock. In 1996 Ohio switched its presidential primary from May to March 19, and voted on the same day as Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. But even then, just four weeks after New Hampshire, the race was already over. George Voinovich was the first governor to endorse Bob Dole, and eventually the whole Republican leadership followed; Dole beat Pat Buchanan here 66%-22%. Congressional districting. Ohio lost two districts in the 1990 Census and is likely to lose another one in 2000; this state that elected 24 congressmen in 1970 elected 19 in 1992. The contorted district lines, with at least three grotesque barbell-shaped districts, are the product of a late bipartisan compromise in 1992. But already six contests have been won by the party that redistricters thought would lose: so much for the plans of mice and men. A challenge to current lines brought by former Congressman Clarence Miller and the Libertarian Party filed suit in November 1994 was rejected. The People: Est. Pop. 1996: 11,173,000; Pop. 1990: 10,847,115, up 3.0% 1990-1996. 4.2% of U.S. total, 7th largest; 26% rural. Median age: 35.3 years. 13% 65 years and over. 87.1% White, 10.6% Black, 1% Asian, 1.3% Hispanic origin. Households: 56.1% married couple families; 27% married couple fams. w. children; 39% college educ.; median household income: $28,706; per capita income: $13,461; 67.5% owner occupied housing; median house value: $63,500; median monthly rent: $296. 4.9% Unemployment. 1996 Voting age pop.: 8,347,000. 1996 Turnout: 4,534,434; 54% of VAP. Registered voters (1996): 6,644,803; 914,795 D (14%), 1,030,248 R (16%), 4,699,760 unaffiliated and minor parties (71%). Political Lineup: Governor, George V. Voinovich (R); Lt. Gov., Nancy Hollister (R); Secy. of State, Robert A. Taft II (R); Atty. Gen., Betty D. Montgomery (R); Treasurer, J. Kenneth Blackwell (R); Auditor, James Petro (R). State Senate, 33 (12 D and 21 R); Senate President, Richard Finan (R); State House, 99 (39 D and 60 R); House Speaker, Jo Ann Davidson (R). Senators, John H. Glenn, Jr. (D) and Mike DeWine (R). Representatives, 19 (8 D and 11 R). Elections Division: 614-466-2585. Filing Deadline for U.S. Congress: February 19, 1998.
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