Casino ground game raging before vote

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Supporters and opponents of Ohio's fifth gambling ballot question in 20 years are making a final push to get their voters out on Tuesday, an off-year election in which the turnout of specific voting blocs is especially important.

Conservative voters in southwest Ohio are being blanketed with robo-calls featuring the voice of former Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a prominent conservative who is asking Ohioans to defeat a gambling ballot issue for the fifth time.

"Issue 3 is a monopoly written into our Constitution to benefit a handful of wealthy, out-of-state gambling interests and political insiders," Blackwell says in the calls. "It's a great deal for them -- but a bad deal for Ohio taxpayers."

Issue 3 would authorize casinos in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo. Supporters, led by the Ohio Jobs and Growth Committee, promise 34,000 jobs and $650 million in annual tax revenue, primarily for local governments. Opponents say the proposed 33 percent tax rate and $50 million license fee for each casino is lower than in other states.

Former Attorney General Betty Montgomery was also voicing robo-calls against the issue, and a mailer went out to Democratic voters featuring U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Gov. Ted Strickland, who have both come out against the casino plan.

State lawmakers opposing the casino issue, including state Rep. Lou Blessing of Cincinnati and Sen. Tim Grendell of Chesterland, are doing radio shows.

Casino backers took advantage of support from organized labor to help with a door-to-door campaign and telephone calls to voters in Ohio cities -- the traditional centers of support for gambling.

"We have what may be an unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort" for a ballot issue, said Ohio Jobs and Growth Committee spokesman Bob Tenenbaum. "We think turnout will be really important and we've got people really juiced up to work all weekend and even Monday and Tuesday."

A poll commissioned by the state's eight biggest newspapers and released a week ago found that 57 percent of registered voters support Issue 3. Thirty-nine percent oppose the plan and four percent were undecided.

Opponents aren't taking another victory for granted, however. The Ohio Roundtable, a conservative-leaning public policy organization that has opposed every gambling question in recent years, was coordinating with churches across the state to spread the word about the casino issue. President and Chief Executive Dave Zanotti said churches were putting up 15,000 signs opposing the casino plan, and preachers were preparing to ask their congregations to vote against the plan during Sunday services.

Another ballot issue mobilizing voters is a proposal to create a state board to oversee the care of livestock. The Ohio Farm Bureau, concerned about outside groups setting Ohio's policy, has been communicating with its 235,000 members. Over the weekend, volunteers were out in major cities dropping off literature on doorsteps supporting Issue 2.

"It's just been really exciting to see the immense enthusiasm from the farming community on this issue," said Ohio Farm Bureau spokesman Joe Cornely. "I've been in this business over 30 years and I've seen farmers fired up about things in the past -- but nothing like this."

The Humane Society of the United States, which believes the board will protect the interests of agriculture and ignore animal rights, has hundreds of thousands of people in Ohio on its mailing lists, said Chief Operating Officer Michael Markarian. It has been urging them to vote 'no.'

"We're not putting a lot of money into this effort because we expect that if Issue 2 passes we will just follow up with our own effort to just achieve some basic humane reform for farm animals," Markarian said.