After her win in Ohio yesterday, Hillary Clinton made the claim that no candidate who has lost their party’s Ohio primary has gone on to win the Presidency.
Is she right ?
Well, sorry Hillary, it ain’t necessarily so:
Ohio held its first primary in 1912. On the Democratic side, Ohio Gov. Judson Harmon beat New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson. But Wilson won the presidency, disproving the Clinton theory of Ohio politics almost a century before she came up with it.
Fast-forward to May 1932. Favorite son George White wins the Democratic primary with the expectation that he will support former secretary of war Newton Baker, but Franklin D. Roosevelt goes on to become president.
Ohio historian (and Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist) Thomas Suddes also pointed to the May 1952 Ohio primary when the GOP at-large delegates were all pledged to Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who eventually won the presidency, was not on the ballot.
In 1960, Ohio’s Democratic primary was won by a favorite son, Gov. Michael DiSalle, who eventually pledged his delegates to Kennedy after arm-twisting from the Kennedy brothers. Favorite sons also won both parties’ 1964 and 1968 Ohio primaries.
In 1968, for example, Gov. James A. Rhodes controlled all 58 delegates to the GOP convention, withholding his votes until it became apparent that Richard M. Nixon would win the nomination. Rhodes later achieved a degree of notoriety by ordering the National Guard to suppress antiwar protests at Kent State in 1970.
Clinton “has taken a little bit of a liberty here,” said Herb Asher, a professor of political science at Ohio State University. “Maybe what she meant to say was as far back as she can remember.”
Or, being a Clinton, maybe it depends on what the meaning of the word “Ohio” is.
