Republicans face clash over union rights

Frank Szabo, vice-president of the Cleveland Fire Fighters Association, says his members have traditionally voted Republican in much higher numbers than other unions.

But after working to defeat an effort by Ohio’s Republican governor last year to restrict union bargaining rights, Mr Szabo thinks the 2012 presidential poll might be different.

“I think it had a permanent impact in the way I look at candidates,” Mr Szabo said. “It will change the way they vote,” he said of his members.

The Republican nomination battle moved to Ohio this week, bringing with it the personal vituperation and attacking advertisements that have characterised the fight so far. But as well as fighting off attacks from each other, the candidates will also have to navigate running crises within the state Republican party.

The backlash from voters against John Kasich, governor of Ohio, and infighting within the party threaten to undermine Republican chances to win the pivotal state in the November election.

Ohio has long been a swing state – the winner has taken the White House in every election since 1964 – and the Republican candidates are all ploughing money into the state before the primary on March 6.

Newt Gingrich boasted in Cleveland this week he would win Ohio. But he is likely to struggle against a resurgent Rick Santorum, who shook up the race with his three-state sweep on Tuesday, and Mitt Romney, whose fundraising advantage will count in such a large state with multiple advertising markets.

The man they wish to unseat has Ohio in his sights too. Barack Obama is positioning himself as the president who restored manufacturing and a viable middle class along with it, a message aimed squarely at the state’s disgruntled blue-collar base.

Cleveland and the surrounding area in northeast Ohio was once a global manufacturing centre, with many car and auto parts plants and steel mills, as well as rubber factories in nearby Akron.

Many plants have closed or shrunk over the past three decades and the once-loyal Democrats who worked in them have been peeled off by Republicans.

Blue-collar workers, who are nearly all white, voted in record number for Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections and Mr Obama is battling to win them back.

Mr Obama is unpopular in Ohio and his standing in the state fell last year by more than five points to 42 per cent, according to Gallup.

But Mr Kasich, who squeezed into the governor’s mansion with a narrow win in 2010, is looming as Mr Obama’s secret weapon.

The governor’s decision to push through a bill restricting collective bargaining rights for public sector employees provoked a furious response and was overwhelmingly overturned in a ballot late last year.

A chastened Mr Kasich is now one of the most unpopular governors in the country, with an approval rating of just above 30 per cent.

Mr Szabo is no unalloyed fan of Mr Obama, but the Republican effort to restrict union bargaining and sackings of his members over the past decade is changing his perspective.

“For many years, the concept of lay-offs was something that did not really happen for firefighters and police,” he said.

Working in the Republicans’ favour is the dispute over Mr Obama’s decision to force Catholic medical institutions to offer employees insurance coverage for contraception.

The industrial workers in Cleveland are predominantly Catholic and they have heard sharp criticism of the decision in sermons at Sunday mass in the last fortnight.

However, the Catholic hierarchy does not have the authority it once had. Mr Szabo says his wife disagrees with the decision, but not because of what the Cleveland cardinal says.

On many issues, he says Catholics “will take in what the priest says but reply ‘Father, I disagree’”.

To add to Republican woes, Mr Kasich and the Republican state chairman have been conducting an unseemly public brawl.

To prevent being thrown out of his position by Mr Kasich’s allies, Kevin DeWine, the state chairman, pushed through a rule last week restricting the types of party members who can vote in his re-election.

The change disenfranchises newer party members, such as Tea Party activists, who are furious at what they see as an establishment trick. “The Tea Party is in uproar,” said Scott Sedlak, a local activist who also works as a DJ.

Still, the likes of Mr Sedlak, whose main focus is the size and scope of government, are unlikely to shift support to Mr Obama. He calls the 2012 poll “the most important election since 1860.” “This is where we decide once and for all whether we want big government or not.”