CRITICAL VOTE IN OHIO – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:  As Americans pay attention to Michael Jackson's doctor and Herman Cain's hands, a critical vote is taking place today in Ohio, and our side may well lose, with substantial implications for the 2012 election.  Ohio is a bellwether state, a swing state.  From Business Week:

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- After efforts across the U.S. this year to rein in government-worker unions, Ohioans today will decide whether Governor John Kasich and Republican lawmakers went too far.

Voters will consider a referendum on a law Kasich signed in March that was billed as a way to cut costs by limiting collective bargaining. Polls show the law may be headed for repeal, which would give Democrats a victory in a debate with Republicans over government’s scope heading into the 2012 presidential race.

The outcome “is going to have a lot to do with where this country goes politically,” Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, said during a Nov. 5 rally outside the main fire station in Warren, Ohio. “In every way you can measure it, this is really a national election.”

If the law is struck down by a large margin, it will boost Democrats and unions after defeats in 2010 that brought Kasich and other Republicans to power, said Paul Beck, a political- science professor at Ohio State University in Columbus.

“Momentum clearly was in a Republican direction through the 2010 elections and into 2011,” Beck said in a telephone interview. “You can almost think of this as an interception and touchdown off the interception by the other side that could simply turn the game around.”

COMMENT:  Kasich has a low approval rating.  Support for retaining the law stands at only 32% in the polls.  The hangup seems to be that most people favor collective bargaining as a right, and yet surveys also show that some parts of the law, requiring greater contributions by government employees to health care, for example, are popular. 

Unions have poured vast sums into this fight, while the other side kind of slept, which is what Republicans often do. 

I am certainly not anti-union, being a member of a union myself.  The problem is that public-service unions present a unique challenge.  The people of the state are management, and governors can be put in power by the very public-service unions with which they then must negotiate.  There is an inherent conflict of interest. 

Today's vote will undoubtedly be seen as a victory for the Democrats, and it will be.  It is important for national Republicans to analyze everything that's been done in Ohio, and how a Republican governor lost public support.  Part of the problem, of course, is that Republicans are seen as anti- the little guy.  Unless that perception is changed, we may have a very depressing election day in 2012.

November 8, 2011