By Publius

As we roll into the campaign season for the upcoming fall elections, Ohio is taking on added importance as the national political parties seek to make the Buckeye State a scrimmage for the upcoming Presidential campaign season. With Presidential hopefuls making the photo-op rounds at the Iowa State Fair, nervous eyes are cast upon Ohio, and it isn’t because the Buckeyes are pre-season consensus #1 in college football.

The last month has seen my mailbox, and voice mailbox, fill with increasingly frantic pleas from local, state and national Republican operatives. “THE DEMOCRATS ARE COMING!” While the Ohio conservative could take issue with their 11th hour pleas on many long abandoned grounds (e.g. low taxes/fiscal conservatism, anti-corruption etc. - Taft/Bennett long ago abandoned anything resembling conservative policy) I will limit myself to explaining the abandonment of the conservative Ohio gun owner in an attempt to do my part in getting the party ready for 2008. Maybe, just maybe, we can recover from the whipping we are going to be handed this November in time to improve our chances two years from now.

One hint I would like to pass on to GOP party at the outset: Ohio has passed far more gun control in the past 16 years than gun rights. So you can save all of the “you are hurting the party/you’ll be worse off with Democrats” whining. The Ohio gun owner is interested in gun rights as their identifying issue, not whether there is a “D” or “R” after a candidate’s name.

The Toledo Blade outdoor writer Steve Pollick is
covering the just-ended National Rifle and Pistol Matches at Camp Perry near Port Clinton and at the Clay Target Championships in Sparta, IL (the Grand American World's Trapshooting Championships, held in Vandalia, OH for 81 straight years, were forced out last year by Dayton airport expansion).

From the story:

Ohio shooters have made their marks in the target shooting world this summer...

Ken Potter, a Toledo police patrolman for nearly 16 years, was crowned national high-power rifle police champion after firing a score of 2333-73X out of a possible 2400. The X-score refers to tie-breaking center-shot bull's-eyes.

In the same matches, Jack G. Jones of Akron was named senior champion by firing a 2363-81X...

Earlier in the matches, Paul Gideon of Gambier, Ohio, won the .22 rifle prone championships, and Chad Cleland of Swanton won the .22 rifle rim fire sporter/optical-sight title.

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