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NEWS
Governor races may influence presidential outcome
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Democratic and Republican governors’ groups are raising record amounts of campaign cash for their candidates, and say a strong turnout for supporters at the state level can only help their parties’ presidential candidates.
That could be slightly better news for Democrats, since governors from their party outnumber their GOP counterparts 28-22 this year, an edge Democrats gained two years ago after being in the minority since 1992.
Both parties say they haven’t coordinated any turnout efforts with the campaigns of Barack Obama or John McCain, which would be illegal.
“I readily admit that we want to turn out Republican voters,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, told The Associated Press. “What they do at the presidential election, we’ll leave up to them.”
The RGA was meeting here in conjunction with the National Governors’ Association, which wrapped up its annual summer gathering held this weekend.
The RGA isn’t releasing midterm figures until Tuesday but had $15 million cash on hand after the first quarter when it raised $7 million.
The Democratic Governors Association raised $11 million through June, more than twice the amount it raised for the same period last year. The group also has $13 million cash on hand, four times the group’s normal midyear figure.
Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, chairman of the Democratic governors’ group, said the money he’s raising for governors could indirectly affect the president’s race by increasing Democratic turnout. But enthusiasm for the Obama campaign could also increase turnout for Democratic gubernatorial candidates, he said.
“I’m sure that the money that they spend in my state would help hopefully the Democratic ticket,” Manchin said Monday. “Pretty much that’s the whole partisan part of politics.”
Governors often play a bigger role than the federal government in how Americans live their lives, particularly in areas such as health care and schools.
With their homegrown fundraising machinery and grassroots organizing, governors can also play a big role in helping presidential candidates.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland was credited with helping Hillary Rodham Clinton in her eight-point thumping of Obama in the state’s March primary.
It’s a point not lost on McCain. “Governors matter,” he said last week as he rode through Ohio on his campaign bus.
McCain also argued that a candidate ultimately wins votes himself.
“It helps to have them support you,” McCain said. “At the end of the day the voters usually choose because of the individual qualities as they assess the president particularly as we come closer to the election.”
An edge in the number of governors is by no means a clear indicator of which party will win the presidency. George Bush won in 2000 and again in 2004 with Republican governors in the majority, but Bill Clinton won in 1996 when GOP governors also had the edge.
In Pennsylvania in 2000, Republican Tom Ridge was a popular governor but the state still went for Democrat Al Gore.
“It doesn’t guarantee anything, but it’s certainly a help,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour called governors’ influence a mixed bag.
“If the governor’s weak or not popular, then the party’s not as likely to be strong, and the party will be less helpful to anybody on the ticket that year, including president,” said Barbour, the RGA’s finance chairman.
In North Carolina, Gov. Mike Easley won re-election in 2004 while fellow Democrat John Kerry lost the state.
“Ultimately, Obama has to sell himself,” said Easley, who backed Clinton in the primary and is barred by term limits from running again. His support for Clinton didn’t help Obama from cruising to a 14-point victory in the state’s May primary.
“What I can do is introduce him to the people who voted for me four times and try togive him some sense of the transition taking place in North Carolina,” Easley said.
The Obama campaign invited Democratic governors to Chicago in June for an economic summit. With some of the 11 governors who supported Clinton in attendance, there was also a bit of bridge-building on the unofficial agenda.
“That was a really important meeting,” said Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine, an early Obama supporter. “The campaign wanted to say to all the governors, ’Whoever you supported, we gotta be together to make this thing happen.”’
