Ohio Senate Roundup

A couple stray items about the Ohio Senate race. Chris Cilizza, Washington Post political reporter and blogger covers the Senate in this week's Friday Line -- his weekly assessment of the seats most likely to change hands. This week Ohio moves up a place to #4. Says Cilizza:

Although we still believe Republicans will have a field day with Rep. Sherrod Brown's (D) voting record, we also can't ignore polls. In a July Columbus Dispatch survey, Brown had a 45 percent to 37 percent lead over Sen. Mike DeWine -- a VERY dangerous place for an incumbent to be with just a few months left before the election.

The question presented in this race is whether Brown's consistently Liberal record is more poisonous than DeWine's generally Bush-friendly one.

Cilizza also notes that help is on the way for DeWine. Arizona Senator and once-and-future Presidential hopeful John McCain is coming to Ohio today, staying through tomorrow night when he will be here in Akron for a Party dinner.

Cilizza works though political calculus behind McCain's work on behalf of DeWine. I'm more interested in what he isn't doing -- stumping for Blackwell whom he endorsed in the primary. Is it just a RSCC thing, or are national figures steering clear of J.Ken?

Finally, I neglected to mention that Karen Kilroy attended the Sherrod Brown event, took down some video and posted it on Akron.TV. Be warned that it froze up my laptop when I tried to play it, but we're pretty low-end here.