Will Democrats blow it in Ohio?

Andrew Zajac

An exquisitely sleazy scandal in the Ohio Attorney General's office could ripple through the November election with potentially disastrous consequences for the Democrats' national ticket.

The tawdry unfolding story involves Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann and a pair of close associates who share an apartment in Columbus.

The three men all are married and also have residences in Youngstown, which is three-plus hours from Columbus.

There are several tentacles to the saga, but the core of it involves alleged sexual misbehavior on the part of Dann's chief of administrative services, Anthony Gutierrez.

At least two female employees in the AG's office claim that Gutierrez pressured them to date him, with one of the women saying that after a night of bar-hopping with him she woke up partially undressed on his bed in the Columbus apartment.

Dann, himself, invited the woman over to the apartment for pizza in the midst of her pub crawl with Gutierrez, according to a police report she filed.

Dann put Gutierrez on paid leave and has insisted that his office keep control of the investigation rather than farm it out to a local prosecutor or the state inspector general. The sluggish pace of the inquiry has allowed fresh details, like Gutierrez' record of alcohol-related driving offenses and frantic text messages from one of Gutierrez'
alleged victims, to dribble out.

The beauty of this, from a Republican perspective anyway, is the accessible, tabloid nature of the scandal.

There are no post-dated stock options, no Enron-style "special purpose entities", no offshore tax shelters.

Just a boss hitting on underlings, binge drinking, leering, a car crash or two and an obstinate pol whose office seems intent on minimizing or covering up what happened.

The whole escapade has reinforced the notion that Dann, who was elected to a four-year-term in 2006, may be out of his depth as a statewide officeholder.

But this is bigger than Dann.

Ohio, under the best of circumstances, is a tough state for a Democratic presidential candidate. Ask Al Gore or John Kerry.

It may be even tougher if the nominee is Barack Obama, given his difficulty so far winning over white working class voters, of which Ohio has many.

One can readily imagine a scenario in which Dann continues to dither, more juicy tidbits emerge, and Democrats find themselves on the defensive against 'culture of corruption' charges.

Given the razor-thin margins of recent elections in the Buckeye state, that's not the kind of baggage Democrats want to carry heading into November.