CLEVELAND -- Ohio's Republican primary vote will not be complete for nearly a month, but its 66 convention delegates are a magnet strong enough to pull Newt Gingrich away from the states that are voting in February.
Gingrich spent two days on a bus rolling through Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus and Cleveland to try to drum up support as Ohio's early voting gets under way, with the primary scheduled for March 6. His chances of victory appear slim, but he could draw a sizable chunk of those proportionally allocated 66 delegates.
Ohio is the second biggest prize -- aside from Georgia’s 76 delegates -- on Super Tuesday, when 10 states hold their primaries and caucuses, and the fortunes of the campaign to challenge President Barack Obama could swing.
In a memo last month mapping out Gingrich’s path to the August GOP convention in Tampa, the campaign’s national political director, Martin Baker, did not mention Ohio, arguing that the favorable states for Gingrich on Super Tuesday would be Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma. (Virginia, where Gingrich now lives, would have been hotly contested, but he did not garner the required 10,000 verified signatures to get on the ballot there.)
Aside from his time, Gingrich is committing resources to Ohio. He hired a state director and opened an Ohio office Tuesday -- a major feat for a campaign that has made a habit of being disorganized.
“We’re having a great time in Ohio and I think have a real chance of winning Ohio,” Gingrich said Tuesday in a CNN interview. "It’s exciting to be here.”
But Mitt Romney's campaign has organization in Ohio left over from his presidential run four years ago. In a memo Tuesday, campaign political director Rich Beeson laid out the road ahead for Romney against his remaining foes -- Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul -- and declared that Ohio offers Romney an advantage.
“Competing in the March states will take resources, a national organization, and broad-based appeal that Speaker Gingrich, Senator Santorum and Congressman Paul simply do not have,” Beeson wrote in a memo. “This is exactly the sort of operation Governor Romney has been building from the beginning of this campaign.”
Romney’s funding and organization are unmatched in the field, and Ohio is another example of that, said Robert T. Bennett, a former state Republican Party chairman who has not endorsed a candidate in the presidential race.
“Ohio is comfortable with moderate conservative Republicans,” Bennett said. “So they’ll be very comfortable with Romney.”
The conservative western part of the state could be more favorable to Gingrich, and the former U.S. House Speaker from Georgia made stops Tuesday in Cincinnati and Dayton.
At the time, his opponents were in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota, which held their votes that day.
Gingrich chose to largely ignore the three contests, as his campaign stressed the fact that no delegates were at stake. Missouri’s vote was only a “beauty contest” before its caucus next month, while Minnesota’s and Colorado’s delegates will be pledged officially at later party meetings and conventions.
But Santorum's surprise victory in all three contests gave him new ammunition for the argument that he, not Gingrich, is the best conservative alternative to Romney.
Gingrich, meanwhile, indulged his love of history, stopping off to tour Orville Wright’s home in Dayton, as he used the Wright Brothers’ story to underscore his quest for a moon colony.
Gingrich told a crowd of several hundred in Dayton that the Wright Brothers’ rise from bicycle mechanics to world renowned inventors “captures what entrepreneurial pro-growth conservatism is about.”
Gingrich argues the same can be said of his space plans.
Campaigning in Florida last month, Gingrich detailed his plans for a moon colony in a speech near Cape Canaveral that was widely lampooned by his opponents and the media -- including a "Saturday Night Live" sketch: “Newt Gingrich, Moon President.”
The Republican criticism has been aimed at the cost, though Gingrich said his plan will not increase NASA's budget. He said he plans to reorganize the agency to cut bureaucracy and give out prize money to private entrepreneurs who come up with innovations.
Gingrich envisions “a newly revamped, a newly redesigned NASA. A NASA whose job is to arouse and empower the American people, to encourage adventurers, to encourage entrepreneurs, to encourage bicycle mechanics.”
In Cleveland Wednesday morning, Gingrich toured metals manufacturer Jergens Inc. and spoke to a few dozen employees about manufacturing -- a major topic in industrial northeast Ohio.
Gingrich said his plan to allow businesses to write off 100 percent of equipment purchases on their taxes and reduce the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent “will help companies like yours compete anywhere in the world.”
But the area is not the friendliest for Gingrich: Northeast Ohio Republicans tend to be more moderate and Santorum is from nearby Pittsburgh. Santorum also has proposed to eliminate all corporate taxes on manufacturers.
Columbus-based Republican strategist Terry Casey said Santorum’s appeals to fellow Catholics and blue-collar voters could help him with those two crucial groups in Ohio. After winning the three contests Tuesday, Santorum also could see a fund-raising surge, Casey noted.
But Casey said the Ohio front-runner is Romney, as his financial advantage is all the more potent in a state that looks like a Midwestern Florida -- large and diverse, with several expensive media markets. In Florida, Romney won by a wide margin.
“Does Newt have a chance? In theory, but you've got to have money to be on TV, to have mail, to campaign and do things in Ohio,” Casey said. “People in Columbus don’t follow what’s going on in Cincinnati. Cleveland people don’t follow what’s going on in Toledo. Each area is very different.”
University of Akron political science professor John Green said the key attribute of Ohio Republicans is pragmatism, and they are likely to pick whichever candidate looks strongest in the general election. It is Romney for now, “but that can change,” Green said.
He anticipates a surge of campaign activity in the coming weeks.
“This is a big prize,” Green said. “Not only a lot of delegates but it’s a swing state and [winning the primary] shows an ability to win in the fall.”
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