Ohio

...Last May's primary was literally a field day for aspirants...

...The difficult tasks of identifying the unregistered...

...Not one major industrial state can today boast a Democratic governor...

...And the candidacies of the two top Democratic contenders, Howard Metzenbaum for the U.S...

...Gilligan views a victory as the start of a trend that will sweep Democrats of his stripe—intelligent, progressive—into various statehouses and, even as early as 1972, into the White House...

...Even the Independent Voters of Ohio, a small but extremely effective band of liberals, conducted its own register-and-vote drive...

...And Democratic candidates, while they want to remain beneficiaries of the youth vote, are anxious to woo the older vote, including the backlash segment as well...

...They were more often under the microscope...

...and Gilligan endeared himself when he led the "peace plank" fight at the 1968 Democratic National Convention...

...Senate, and John J. Gilligan for governor, would appear to have provided just the incentive needed to whip up a massive and unified registration campaign...

...But this year in Cleveland and the other seven major metropolitan areas, early estimates indicated that only about half the adult population was registered...

...A 4-percent "finder's fee," amounting to a juicy $480,000, was paid by the state for the loans to a firm headed by a man who was very recently the first assistant attorney general of Ohio...

...It also seemed clear that nine out of ten registered in these precincts would vote "right" on Election Day...

...The state leadership of the Democratic party, energized by the disarray of the Republicans, seemed ready for the supreme effort...

...Calabrese is an oldtimer who has had a very special reputation in the General Assembly...

...If new records are set in Ohio, it will not be because candidates, students, labor, Democrats, liberals, and blacks came together to mobilize an effective campaign...

...assigning target areas...

...Perhaps it was J. Edgar Hoover's indictment of the National Guard in the Kent State killings, or simply a lack of money, but the vaunted student crusade that was to register an antiwar electorate just never came off...

...A candidate who is actively identified with student groups has attributed to him, like it or not, an "end the war now...

...Metzenbaum, in his primary battle, supported the militant student demand for immediate U.S...

...It is also true that during the summer, when the tough work had to be done, students were not by and large onstage in Ohio...

...That combination has at other times in our history given us valuable presidents, governors, mayors, and senators, without however altering significantly the basic power distribution...

...Spot checks by the Ohio AFL–CIO revealed a worse record among union members...

...In past years, register-and-vote drives usually brought together labor, the Democratic party, liberals, and civil-rights organizations...

...This year, where student groups have functioned as such in Ohio, they have pursued their separate routes as have the components of what once was the liberal-labor-left coalition...

...Labor's political operation this year seems symbolic of the way it is in Ohio: each to his own and with his own...

...The collapse of Bernard Kornfeld's Overseas Investment empire also shook the GOP house in Columbus...

...Backlash against students can be felt everywhere in this state...

...Each of the eight large cities of Ohio was to have a paid student coordinator who would direct student activists in a registration drive, and also work with other groups in the community...

...Tony Calabrese, a state senator from Cleveland, emerged as the primary victor for lieutenant governor...

...Systems of permanent or door-to-door registration are unacceptable to Republicans and even some influential Democrats...

...Except for a single day each year in mid-September when all polling places are opened for regis tration, the prospective voter must travel downtown to the Board of Elections office and appear between the hours of 8:30 AM and 4:30 PM if he wishes to register...

...But the registration job is not an easy one...

...This man later made a $15,000 contribution to the virtually uncontested primary campaign of the state treasurer who sought the nomination for secretary of state...

...The stakes are high for him, and as he sees it, for the party nationally...

...position...

...driving for the follow-up —all require a degree of planning that never took place...

...Suffice to say that should both Gilligan and Calabrese win, Gilligan would be morally compelled to serve out his full four-year term...

...senator...

...Similar canvasing by Ohio chapters of the A. Philip Randolph Institute produced the same pattern among blacks...

...The Kornfeld loans, which ran the overall total to $62 million, were approved by the state treasurer and later reviewed by the state auditor...

...withdrawal from Southeast Asia...

...The State of Ohio has loaned some $12 million to Kornfeld enterprises, money that under state law may be loaned out of current income only for short periods to "safe" concerns and at a total amount never to exceed $50 million at any one time...

...The state organization adopted a hands-off policy in deference to the assorted favorite sons put forward by the eight big-city machines that normally dominate the Ohio party, and which, almost at will, can and have rendered it immobile...

...John J. Gilligan, former congressman and Cincinnati councilman, is an imposing figure as he reaches for the governor's seat...

...Ostensibly nonpartisan, such campaigns were understood to have as their target precincts with relatively low-income families, white and black...

...Perhaps it will be so in Ohio in 1970...

...AT THE TIME THE POLITICAL POT should have been stoked, summer was cooling the campuses of Ohio and soothing its streets which, if not exactly safe, at least in the main were without barricades...

...Senator, has his hands full coping with a tough opponent, Howard Metzenbaum, and at the same time disassociating himself from fellow Republicans who had been caught up in the loan scandal...

...Robert Taft, the late Senator's son and the Republican nominee for U.S...

...Although totals will not be known until shortly before Election Day, all the signs point to a record registration and vote in Ohio...

...The dilemma of Ohio Democrats is that of Democrats nationally: how to construct a platform upon which to ride into office but not necessarily stand on after election...

...But, Gilligan aside, the real Democratic party stands up only with difficulty...

...No coalitions...

...The scandal that last spring saw the GOP gubernatorial nominee demanding the ouster of two fellow candidates has generated a confidence among Democrats that is hardly justified by the stature of most of their candidates...

...Nothing much has changed in Ohio, other than the fact that the Republicans grew careless and the Democrats have outstanding candidates for governor and U.S...

...It is shared and/ or politically feared by politicians, candidates, and labor leaders who much prefer other issues on which to base their campaigns...

...Because the deadline for voter registration comes early in Ohio, new voters had to be signed in by September 24...

...Certain candidates may have turned off the students by imposing dress codes and behavioral standards...

...The Ohio Democratic party, because it smells victory, put together a low-threshold platform accessible to practically everybody...

...Gilligan, not noted for reticence in his previous campaigns, has this time sought to ride in on the mistakes of the opposition...

...keeping the records...

...University presidents in Ohio were kept busy reporting to the state legislature the exact number of students suspended and expelled during the previous academic year by way of proving that they had not really "capitulated" entirely to student demands...

...The other Democratic candidates are no more inspiring...

...When the Democrats controlled the Ohio General Assembly a decade ago, their Cleveland contingent killed a door-to-door measure on the premise that Democrats were in charge in that city, and why take chances with new voters...