USA Today on Ohio's Race

From USAToday

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Two years after the 2004 presidential election, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell still faces accusations that he made it hard for Democrats to vote. Here at a public housing community center, however, black ministers — many of them Democrats — are showering him with applause, laughter and amens.

The Republican candidate for governor, an imposing 6-foot-4 in this small, packed room, is sharing his experiences as a black person in America. His father was a meatpacker, he says. He grew up in public housing, selling peanuts and helping at a funeral home. He worked in the civil rights movement, and he challenged the lending practices of white bankers in Cincinnati.

He did not, he says, try to suppress minority turnout in 2004. ("Do you think Mrs. Blackwell raised a dumb child? Why would I suppress the black vote when I understood how well I do in the African-American community?") In fact, he says, a record number of blacks voted in Ohio in 2004.

When he's done, several Democratic pastors say they might vote for Blackwell for governor this fall over Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland. Henry McNeil, pastor of Alpha & Omega First Baptist Church, says Blackwell closed the sale. "I didn't come with a made-up mind. It was made while he spoke," says McNeil, who backed Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004.

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