OH-05: Last Day Before The Election

It's been a wild ride. What's going on this morning:

Weirauch Greeting Workers - Robin Weirauch (D-Napoleon) is meeting morning shift workers at the Bowling Green manufacturing plant of Cooper Tire & Rubber Company. She is talking about "ending outsourcing and finally moving away from the Taft-Noe way of doing business."

WaPo Story - A short piece in the Washington Post yesterday by Chris Cillizza and Shailagh Murray is notable for confirming that "private polling suggests that Democrats could pull off a huge upset" and for reporting that both parties are playing down expectations, a sign that nobody is really sure what may happen tomorrow. The authors write that Weirauch "has tapped into a strong protectionist sentiment in this northwestern Ohio district," but if I had to distill her campaign down to a single theme I'd say it is change vs. more of the same. As Weirauch says over and over, "it's time to shake things up in Washington." I think that's the message that is resonating.

Blade: "Brown is Proof That Democrat Can Win" - Today's paper reports on yesterday's campaign appearances by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Avon) with Weirauch in several towns across the district:

"If you each get five people, it will actually matter in this race," Mr. Brown said. "Go out and find five people each in the next 48 hours, and we're going to have a new congresswoman."

Mrs. Weirauch and Mr. Brown were singing from the same choir book yesterday, with their emphasis on issues of job insecurity, worry about lack of health insurance, depressed wages, and a rising tide of foreign-made products drowning out American products.

"We're not going to keep sending people to Congress who fight against the middle class," Mr. Brown said.

Mrs. Weirauch said she is not a career politician, and she made a point of speaking of her desire to bring American troops home from the war in Iraq, and the need to plan carefully for their return. ...

"I will not write a blank check for an unending war," Mrs. Weirauch said.

GOP House Members Angry - James Lambert at Swing State Project has this quote from subscription-only Roll Call:

Although the candidates and party committees weren't releasing any polling late last week, both sides agreed the race could be fairly close - and many Republicans were flabbergasted.

"The [GOP] Members are running around saying, 'What just happened?'" said a Washington Republican with knowledge of the district. "To put it bluntly, they're pissed off. People are angry that Bob Latta hasn't devoted himself better on the campaign trial to connect with northwest Ohio voters and given an opportunity to an opponent who was so far off the radar and actually made it a race." [...]

"It's like the Latta campaign is trying to write a handbook on how to lose a Congressional campaign in 60 days or less," said the Republican.

Big Spenders - In that same post, Lambert says that the RNCC has spent at least $428,000 and the DCCC has spent at least $243,000, and that's not counting direct donations to the candidates.

GOP Volunteers Motivated by Fear of Liberal Policies, Not Love of Latta - Confirming what has become pretty clear at this point, Sandusky County GOP Chair Adam Greenslade told the Toledo Blade that "Weirauch's rise has mobilized members of the party there" and "I think people here are afraid of the liberal policies Mrs. Weirauch supports." It's all about fear, but I'm wondering if that kind of negative motivation will generate the big turnout that Latta needs.