Fisher, Portman to face off in Toledo

The two major-party candidates for U.S. Senate will face off before Election Day during three televised debates, including one in Toledo, both campaigns announced Wednesday.

Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Lee Fisher, who are vying Nov. 2 for the seat now held by Republican George Voinovich, will debate in Toledo, Cleveland, and Columbus. The debates will be hosted by the state's eight largest newspapers.

The dates of the Toledo and Columbus debates have not been set, but the Cleveland debate will be held Oct. 8 at the City Club of Cleveland.

Stephen Brooks, associate director of the Ray Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, said Toledo was a reasonable choice for a debate location.

"That portion of Ohio tends to be a bit more competitive," said Mr. Brooks, an expert on local and urban elections. "In a highly competitive race, which this is, the winner may be determined up there, so that is why they would want to be up there."

The one-hour debates will be televised by the local TV partners of three of the eight newspapers sponsoring the debates, as well as by ONN, the statewide cable news network. The debates in Toledo and Columbus will be studio debates, without a studio audience present. The City

Club debate will be held before a public audience, as is tradition.

The campaigns accepted the proposal from the newspapers that a panel of four newspaper reporters pose questions at each debate, and that the debates be moderated by a journalist affiliated with one of the partnering TV stations.

Mr. Brooks said candidates generally try to stay on message or steer answers.

"Both candidates have in their minds exactly what their main talking points are, what they feel the strong points of their campaigns are, and will try their very best to answer those questions with their answers," he said. "They can't have total control of the message, but they try really hard [and] the suspense is if someone is going to move off message or not answer as expected, then that becomes the focus of the debate."

Fisher spokesman Holly Shulman said: "Lee Fisher is excited about the opportunity to discuss his plan to create jobs at the debate in Toledo as he has been doing across the state in his Ohio Jobs First tour."

Ms. Shulman also said the election "is a very clear choice between the economic architect of the failed Bush trade policies that shipped Ohio jobs overseas and Lee Fisher, who has been on the ground in Ohio working to keep and create jobs."

The Portman campaign again Wednesday highlighted Ohio's job losses.

"In the last three years while Lt. Gov. Fisher was Ohio's point man for economic development, the state has lost nearly 400,000 jobs, including 16,000 jobs lost in Lucas County," said Portman spokesman Jessica Towhey.

"The debates will provide Ohioans the opportunity to watch Ohio's failed jobs czar continue to search for a fictitious bogeyman to blame while ignoring his own embarrassing record."

The sponsoring newspapers, all members of the Ohio Newspaper Organization, are: The Blade, Repository in Canton, the Plain Dealer of Cleveland, Dispatch of Columbus, Cincinnati Enquirer, Dayton Daily News, Akron Beacon Journal, and Vindicator of Youngstown.

"We are thrilled that Toledo was one of the locations selected for the debates because often, northwest Ohio is an afterthought," said Kurt Franck, executive editor of The Blade. "This way, area residents will get to see the candidates firsthand and see what their agendas will be if elected to the U.S. Senate."

The newspaper organization also will host two debates for the major-party candidates for governor.

Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, and Republican John Kasich, a former congressman, will debate Sept. 14 in Columbus at COSI and Oct. 7 in Toledo at the Driscoll Alumni Center at the University of Toledo. The Toledo gubernatorial debate will be broadcast live on WTOL-TV, Channel 11.

While the one-hour debates are closed, requiring a ticket for admission, audiences will be present.

The same format will be used for the Senate debate as is being used in the gubernatorial debate.

Contact Ignazio Messina at:

messina@theblade.com,

or 419-724-6171.