toledoblade.com --

COLUMBUS - Tom Noe has outraged and angered the governor of Ohio, caused the President to return his campaign contributions, and his $50 million state-coin funds are in disarray.

But the Maumee coin dealer's biggest political victims might be Attorney General Jim Petro, Auditor Betty Montgomery, and Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell - who are competing to become Ohio's next governor.

The three Republican officeholders running for governor have all received campaign cash from Mr. Noe and have been criticized for their slow reaction to the growing coin scandal.

Now they find themselves on the defensive, quickly distancing themselves from the prominent Republican campaign fund-raiser, who is facing multiple investigations, including a probe into whether Mr. Noe violated campaign-finance laws by laundering money into the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. All of the candidates say they have known Mr. Noe for years and they returned thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from him and his wife, Bernadette, last week.

Emboldened Democrats have launched an assault on the GOP trio, saying they dragged their feet after The Blade reported on April 3 that the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation had sunk millions into the rare-coin venture with their campaign contributor since 1998. Now, at least $10 million of the state's assets are missing, igniting a scandal that has engulfed Ohio Republicans and put in doubt their hopes of keeping the governor's office next year.

"This is a major scandal," said Herb Asher, a political-science professor at Ohio State University and a former member of the state Ethics Commission. "We don't know the full scope of it yet, but I think one can guess how serious it is by the rapidity of the response from the various Republicans, such as distancing themselves from Tom Noe."

The growing scandal could give Democrats their best shot at winning a statewide executive post for the first time since 1990, experts say.

"The three leading Republican candidates are in varying degrees culpable; at least there is a perception they are," said Robert Adams, an associate professor of political science at Wright State University.

Mr. Adams said Ms. Montgomery probably is the biggest potential target for the Democrats because she has been the auditor since 2003.

"Petro is not off the hook, but I don't see Blackwell hurt by it much at all," he said.

Democrats say Ms. Montgomery waited too long to call for a special audit. They say Mr. Petro should have intervened sooner on behalf of the state. And, they say Mr. Blackwell belittled the gravity of the situation in comments made soon after The Blade's first report on April 3.

Mark Weaver, a GOP political consultant who works for Ms. Montgomery, said the record will show that Ms. Montgomery responded promptly to questions about the rare-coin investment.

"The Democrats would like this to be a scandal that affects every Republican officeholder. It's simply not. In fact, it's the Republican officeholders who are investigating it and will eventually resolve it," he said.

Mr. Petro said he monitored the coin situation and carefully considered the legal options because he did not want to jeopardize the case by rushing into court with no purpose.

"I chuckle over lawyers, perhaps from the other party, who say you could have sued them immediately," he said. "There's something called a cause of action. You actually have to have a cause to sue them."

Mr. Blackwell, after initially minimizing concerns, has opened an investigation into Mr. Noe's campaign contributions on the local and state level. He's also cited measures he promoted as state treasurer in the 1990s to create more oversight for bureau investments and more transparency in state politics as examples of his efforts to stop scandals like this one before they begin.

"Was that the save-all to political and public sector corruption? The human mind is very, very creative. I am sure that the corruption would have raised its ugly head someplace else," he said.

So far, the candidates have refrained from criticizing each other. Last week, Mr. Blackwell noted that during the Republican's annual Lincoln Day Dinner in Lucas County in mid-April, Bernadette Noe made a presentation in which she thanked Mr. Petro and Ms. Montgomery for their support - but Mr. Blackwell was not mentioned.

"Bernadette Noe got up and thanked Jim and Betty for always being there for her and Tom, and afterward everybody thought that it was a shot at me," Mr. Blackwell said. "But it was a welcomed shot because I was not always there for them."

In politics, timing is everything, said Mr. Adams, the associate professor of political science at Wright State University. And a major question is whether the rare-coin investment scandal has occurred too early - 17 months before the next statewide election in November, 2006, Mr. Adams said.

"If this had broken in six to 10 months from now, that would have been an ideal circumstance,'' he said, adding Republicans have had a lot of time to work on "damage control" unless there are more major developments.

Bob Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, has not met with the candidates to tell them to refrain from attacking each other, state GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said. Rather, he said, Mr. Bennett has focused on how to "fix the problem."

David Mark, the editor-in-chief of Washington-based Campaigns & Elections Magazine, said if voters have lost trust in Republican candidates because of the coin scandal, it will create serious obstacles for whoever gains the GOP nomination for governor.

"It's not really a hint of corruption, it appears to be outright evidence of corruption for the controlling party," he said. "There's really nobody else to blame when you're in charge."

Except, perhaps, political opponents in the primary.

"It's almost mutually assured destruction," he said. "As soon as one levels a charge at the others, there's plenty of fodder they can use against each other."

Contact James Drew at: jdrew@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.