As I waited this weekend with baited breath for the latest Columbus Disgrace poll to be released showing Ted Strickland supposedly beating Ken Blackwell by three touchdowns, I remembered something. It seemed to me a year ago at this time this very newspaper and others were showing similarly lop-sided polls in favor of all four Reform Ohio Now amendments. In the midst of a nineteen point Strickland spread, a five point Brown spread, and an article in today’s Disgrace proclaiming perennial loser Richard Cordray “far ahead” of Sandra O’Brien in the Treasurer’s race, one has to wonder how reliable these polls really are given how wrong they were a year ago.

So let’s backtrack to last year. 2005 was an off-year election in the State of Ohio with conditions which seemed to favor the Democrats: a relatively unpopular President, a very unpopular Governor, perceived corruption in Columbus, and a host of Democratic mayors up for re-election in the major cities. Ohio, thought an alienated group of leftists, seemed ripe for reform with everything seeming to go their way. The polls reflected this with many predicting all four amendments would pass by wide margins up until Election Day. Not only did they all fail, they didn’t have a chance. Eighty-seven of Ohio’s 88 counties rejected all four resoundingly with no-fault absentee balloting carrying (barely) in Athens County. Remember, this was an election in which Republicans weren’t supposed to show up.

It would seem prudent then to read such articles and polls proclaiming the gubernatorial race (and others, for that matter) over with salt shaker in hand. True I’ve only been here for three years, but Ohio can’t have changed that much politically in the last two. This is an important election which will determine whether the Democratic Party still matters. There are important elections on all levels this year. Senator DeWine needs our help to keep confirming judges who don’t hallucinate when they read the Constitution. Congresswoman Deborah Pryce and eleven other Republicans need your help so that San Fran Nan doesn’t become Speakerette. Here at home, this is our one chance to save the State of Ohio or watch it wither away in to oblivion as a million Ohioans become Floridians, Arizonans, or perhaps worst of all, Californians. Ohioans know what’s at stake this year, and you can bet Republicans those papers didn’t bother to survey will show up. In light of their history of bafflingly inaccurate polls, perhaps the Columbus Disgrace and not Ohio itself is “leaning Democrat.”