Isn't it too early?

Ted Strickland, for those who don't know, is a Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio. The two Republican candidates are Ken Blackwell (current secretary of state here in OH... had a rather unfortunate role to play in the last prez election so you may have heard of him) and Jim Petro (OH attorney general... doubt you've heard of him). Strickland is polling ahead of them both; and his lead over both is growing.

Interestingly, Blackwell seems to be doing slightly better than Petro. Not sure how I feel about that. As awful as I think they'd both be for this state, there is no doubt in my mind that Blackwell would completely destroy the state of OH, whereas Petro is a bit more of a question mark to me. I don't think he'd be good for the state, but I don't know how bad he'd be for it. Would he destroy it like Blackwell would, or would he "just" make it lots worse? I don't know.

But... I think Blackwell might actually be easier for the Dems to defeat. Given all of his recent and current issues, he may make for an "easier" opponent. As just two examples of his "issues": the last prez election ('nuff said right there!) and all the SSNs posted on the secretary of state's website that he has refused to have removed (they actually have legislation currently pending that would require that particular office to remove those thousands of SSNs from their website; what a waste of our legislature's time (!!), but they have to do it because he's refusing to remove them).

And then there's Sherrod Brown, Democratic candidate for Senator. He's up against Mike DeWine (probably... DeWine does actually have a couple of Repubs challenging him at the moment). DeWine already has a tv ad out there. Hello? Really? It's March, people! Well, it's April, but the ad started in March. That's early.

It's going to be a very long and very ugly ramp up to the elections this year, I fear.

And given that the Official Dems have ticked off an awful lot of Democratic Ohioans... well, it's just not going to be a pretty political season. Here's to hoping Strickland and Brown (yes really; I'm mad, not stupid) both win. The country and the state should have more mixed leadership. This one party thing is simply not working.

Oh! My point! I had one when I started, really I did. People are all excited about these recent gubanatorial poll numbers that have Strickland so far up (10 pts over Blackwell; 13 pts over Petro). But isn't it a bit early to put much stock in that? There are 8 months left. I really don't think we should be getting cocky or overconfident in April about an election that isn't until November.

I'll probably have an ulcer by election day...