After being shutout for every statewide office three consecutive election cycles in a row, the once-moribund Ohio Democratic Party is not only alive, but thriving.

Congressman Sherrod Brown easily defeated incumbent Republican Mike DeWine for U.S. Senate, and Ohio elected Ted Strickland its first Democratic governor in sixteen years in an enormous landslide. Democrat Marc Dann also defeated a giant in Ohio Republican politics, Betty Montgomery, to become Ohio’s first Democratic top cop in twelve years. After a decade of Republican scandal, Dann’s oversight is sorely needed.

In a huge victory, Ohioans also chose Democrat Jennifer Brunner to be the next Secretary of State. You can listen to Jennifer Brunner’s candidate interview with DoubleSpeak here. This means the 2008 presidential election will be conducted without the disenfranchisement and dirty tricks gubernatorial loser Ken Blackwell played with the job against John Kerry in 2004. The Secretary of State is a key official in Ohio as one of 5 members of the Ohio Apportionment Board. This board does Ohio’s Congressional and state legislative redistricting every ten years, and is composed of the Governor, Auditor, Secretary of State, and one legislator of each party. Republican State Representative Mary Taylor squeaked out a victory in the State Auditor’s race, so if redistricting were done today, Democrats would have a 3-2 edge and perhaps be able to undo some of the damage of Republican gerrymandering after the 2000 Census.

Yesterday proved Ohio is very much a purple state that will be hotly contested again in the 2008 presidential election. Democrats are much better prepared to win Ohio in 2008 with Governor Ted Strickland and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner leading the charge.

As the nation waits with baited breath on November 7 to see if Ohio, America’s quintessential swing state, turns from red to blue, it increasingly looks like frustrated voters may have to wait days before knowing who are the winners of the contests for Governor and U.S. Senate.

Since at least the 2004 presidential election, Ohio has been known for voting practices that would make a backwater banana republic blush. And it looks like despite millions spent on new technology, things just haven’t gotten any better. The primary elections were a disaster, and now that Ohio has a no-excuse law for absentee ballots on the books, county election boards simply do not have the capacity to count the votes in a quick, accurate manner.

The situation is not helped by the fact that J. Kenneth Blackwell, all but certain to suffer a landslide defeat in the governor’s election, refuses to allow counties to scan in the absentee ballots prior to Election Day. The reason for this is simple: Blackwell and his struggling Republican pal Mike DeWine will lose heavily in Ohio’s urban counties, and the longer the results are delayed, the more doubt the GOP can cast on the outcome of the elections.

Blackwell’s self-serving interpretation of the law is an outrage, but with November 7 just around the corner, county election officials have neither the time nor the inclination to make Blackwell do what’s right.

It looks like November 7 could be a banner night for Congressmen Sherrod Brown and Ted Strickland. If they win, let’s hope we all know it before Santa gives Karl Rove a lump of coal.

Last week, in an obtusely worded story buried inside the paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer noted briefly that the Ohio GOP let go of its “outreach coordinator” for social conservative groups, Gary Lankford. Lankford had waged an e-mail campaign with scurrilous innuendo about Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland.

The Plain Dealer, a mediocre fish-wrap always careful not to offend the delicate sensibilities of its humble readers, failed to report in detail on just how salacious Lankford’s lies truly were: claiming that Strickland and his wife were “closeted homosexuals in a marriage of convenience.” Politics1’s Ron Gunzburger tells the whole story.

Republicans calling Ted Strickland and his wife gay is appalling, but hardly unprecedented. This is the same deranged logic that dictates it’s okay to lie and tell South Carolinians Sen. John McCain sired an African-American child out-of-wedlock (the truth: he’d adopted a Bangladeshi child). These “Christian” Republicans would do well to remember the Lord’s Ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Clearly, Ohio Republicans will use any Rovian tactic and utter any malicious falsehood to get their way in November. The New Yorker’s Frances Fitzgerald has written a must-read piece on how frightening Ken Blackwell and his Christianist allies truly are.

Luckily, Ohio has a great chance to elect a great governor instead of a reactionary. Help Ted Strickland win today!

According to a new poll by the Columbus Dispatch, Democratic Congressmen Ted Strickland and Sherrod Brown have big leads in their respective races for Governor and Senate.

This is especially encouraging news as both Strickland and Brown are lesser known than both their Republican opponents. Loony-right vote stealer J. Kenneth Blackwell is Ohio’s Secretary of State and the GOP nominee for governor, while Strickland has never held office outside of his current gig in the U.S. House. Nevertheless, Strickland leads Blackwell by twenty points, 47%-27%. Sherrod Brown is a former Ohio Secretary of State but hasn’t held statewide office since 1990, when Brown was ousted by current Ohio Governor/Convicted Criminal Bob Taft. Nevertheless, Brown leads incumbent Republican Senator Mike DeWine by a margin of 45%-37%.

The upshot? Ohio voters are sick of their Republican “leaders” failing them with corruption, incompetence and mismanagement. Ohioans are ready for real change!