Pennsylvania, because of its position in the original colonies, has been nicknamed the keystone state. But for the Republicans, the keystone has always been Ohio. No Republican has entered the White House without Ohio's electoral votes. Ohio provided both the style and substance of 19th century Republicanism.

For sometime there has been a kind of folk political wisdom that the two parties have almost switched places – with the Republican Party of the present becoming the neo-confederate Christianist party, and the Democratic Party the party of industry and export. Tom Schaller has taken this folk wisdom and applied a political scientists edge to it, most recently with his New York Times piece on why Strickland, the candidate for governor, should be seen as part of a pattern of strong incoming Democratic executives.

It is no exageration to call Ohio the keystone of the Republican Party since its inception. Ohio was the birthplace for Grant, Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Garfield, McKinley, Taft and Harding - 7 of the Presidents of the Republican domination of the office in the late 19th and early 20th century - were born in, and in most cases rose through the political ranks, of the Buckeye state.

In the present however, it fills a very different role from its earlier one as "father of Presidents". Instead it is part of the eastern island of conservative heartlandism, a kind of away from the coasts ethos which fills a swath that runs through Ohio, parts of Kentucky, Indiana, and the eastern side of downstate Illinois.

This is why stories like today's hotline blog entry that shows that the RNC is reduced to making small buys of a highly questionable charge. If Ohio crumbles, then a key piece that holds together the southern and western wings of the Republican party, and provides them with their majority in the House, goes away.

The 19th century arch was rooted in New England and industrial New York, and arched across the north tier of states, to be anchored on the other side in the west with California as the home of progressive Republicanism. The Union was a live issue in that time, and a single national economy represented by railroads, strong dollars and a single civic religion was the harmony within which individual strains of Republican melody were heard. It was the party of old money, and the party of new money. Those who had and those who grasped unified into one political force.

Ohio was at the arch of industrialism, an advanced state that was, more than most, held together by the canals of iron – the railroads, and profited from its central place between waterways and transit. Ohio lacked the large immigrant entry ways which became the home of the Democratic Party's slow return to viability, if not respectability. Hence its politics and culture, even if skewered by Sinclair Lewis and Cole Porter, formed a kind of solidity that exemplified what American's meant by "Main Street USA"

However, this role for Ohio is long since in the past – the last Ohio Republican who sat in the White House died in disgrace, and the last serious Republican contender from Ohio was pushed aside for Dwight David Eisenhower – and even this was appropriate, since executive generals had been a Republican forte. Gerald Ford, from a similar political and social climate in Michigan represented the last, the very last, gasp of the politics that brought US Grant to the top of America's greasy pole.

Instead, the state of Ohio, unlike neighboring Indiana, is not the glue that holds two wings of the party together – it is not where ideas and industry meet money and markets – but instead is the beach head which keeps the moderate Republican in the party. Without Ohio, the Republican Party becomes the party of radicalism, reaction and Johnnie Reb. Not the kind of party that most sensible, sincere and solid citizens should support. This is, to no small extent, why the Republican Party has invested so heavily in giving Ohio Republicans leadership posts, and is working hard to hold on to scraps of viability after being rocked by coingate and the scandals of the Republican congress more generally.

These scandals have not played as loudly nationally as they have locally in Ohio, in no small part because they rub against the grain of Ohio political culture. In their view it is Big Democratic Cities have Corrupt Machines – not sound sensible burgs in Ohio. To them it is urban politics, with its host of undereducated underemployed voters which is the source of the political infection. Swindles are the result of unrestrained boom and bust thinking, of the kind that Las Vegas produces, as far from Main Street Ohio as one can get. The scandals involve figures better known to people in Ohio than outside. To the bicoastal media, Dennis Hastert is a cipher, an almost non-entity who is ignored in favor of the more colorful characters in the Republican House Leadership. In Ohio, he is recognized as "one of us". That Ney, Pryce and Hastert – all "us" to the Ohio heartland world view – would cover up the kind of behavior that would get ordinary people fired – is worse than a crime, it is a sin.

Without these voters, the Republican Party is in trouble – count the Senators who come from non-southern, non-western ruralism and small city thinking: Collins, Snowe, Sununu, Specter, DeWine, Voinavich, Hagel. The slow eradication of the Northern/Midwestern moderate Republican parallels the virtual extinction of the conservative Southern Democrat. The Republican senate is really based on the fact that the realignment in the South was a half generation ahead of the realignment in the North and Midwest. Without these Senate seats – and without Lieberman, Santorum, Smith and Chafee who are helped out by these votes – the phants are down 55-45 in the Senate, and facing tough pressure in the Southwest – where the shift of a few tens of thousands of Californians out to the desert Southwest would flip 4 more senate seats. A moderate/progressive alliance in the Democratic Party would have a sweeping majority.

However, to form this alliance requires a realization that there are very different groups of "moderates" out there, this is why no "moderate" party has formed – because the 30% of the non-aligned vote really represent several distinct populations, and only by identifying and realigning, different parts of those populations, can a governing majority be formed.

One group are the "socially conservative/fiscally liberal" voters – these are people who like big government, so long as they are getting the benefits of it, but do not like the cosmopolitan culture that comes with it. Through a series of congressional campaigns, the DCCC and the DNC kamikazeed into the deep south trying to convince southern fried ethnic whites that the Democrats wouldn't give away the store, and wouldn't take away their guns or raise their taxes.

The reason this did not work very well beyond Clinton himself is that that there is a contradiction here. To squeeze government means to cut social security and the defense budget – the two basic industries that employ many of these voters. It also involves a constant "kick the base" rhetoric which generates animosity. To some extent Hillary is the target of the hostility many people felt for Bill, but could never quite place upon his shoulders – his jovial demeanor and success at governing made him untouchable as a target. Hillary, in this as other things, is left to deal with the aftermath of her husband.

However, the last two election cycles a different cut at the moderate electorate has been coming into focus – these people are as much the children of Bob Rubin's successful navigation of the shoals of the strong dollar. This is not unClintonian in origin – Bill is, after all, a policy wonk, and Hillary is, after all, a stone hearted fiscal conservative – but it is unClintonian in politics – these voters don't respond to "strong and wrong" George Bush, they don't see voting for Iraq as being a forgiveable sin of political viability. They are to the left of Bill Clinton on such issues as the Bankruptcy act and Health Care. They want working "bubba" voters in, but they do not want bubba representing them in Congress. Soon to be Senator Casey of Pennsylvania is a good example – there is an eye rolling among this kind of moderate suburban woman about how men just don't "get" reproductive freedom. In either direction.

These moderates are not really moderate in substance so much as moderate in tone and style. They don't want a party that has already made up its mind. These are people who decide for a living, and they want - no, they crave the sense that every issue is being decided on its merits. They aren't anti-ideology, but they fear, in a gut level way, the idea that a party is controlled by activists that have already made up their minds on hot button issues. Their sense of the Democratic Party is that, all too often, it has. They are souring on the Republican Party precisely because they feel that the Republican Party is a lockstep, rubberstamp, closed door operation. When Charlie Bass belches forth hate and venom in private to get his troglodyte base to turn out – confirming to them he is a down the line Republican - and then has to run ads about how "no party decides how I'll vote" – it is clear that the fundamental bald face lie that the Republican Party has told to its rock ribbed moderate voters has erupted to the surface.

The code words for this – exploited in dozens of ads, is "George W. Bush" and "Iraq". These mean very different things to the northern moderates. George W. Bush stands for lock step from the top directives – and the scandals in Congress confirm this, that the Republican Party isn't the party of sensible do something mavericks, making their own way – which is, ironically, a better description of the Democratic Party – but instead is a group of peons and ciphers who are there to sell used policies as new. Iraq is the other code word, this group of voters was supportive of Iraq – in fact, they were wildly supportive of Iraq for two years. To explain why the huge falling out of bed has happened, it is important to look into the moderate psyche on this.

To the moderate, political virtue is defined as "integrity" and integrity is shown by "making up your own mind". This can be demonstrated in words by proving that one is obstinant on certain issues. But to earn ones integrity Main Street-cred, you need to go against your party on a big issue. Thus Shays got Main Street cred for being the House sponsor of McCain-Feingold. McCain of course, got much more. Iraq seemed, to both moderates and the politicians mining their votes, to be a golden chance for Democrats to vote against their peace wing – a "Sistah Souljah" moment. It was also a golden moment for their own moderates to prove that Republican government was about "more" than simply low taxes and being good for business.

The collapse of Iraq cuts in the other direction – these are voters who wanted, and expected, their Republicans with Integrity – up their with The Ladies Who Lunch in the pantheon – to stand up to their own President. That is what Integrity is about. That their own Republican members of Congress not only did not do this, but instead were cheerleaders for failure.

In otherwords, the very project of Rove and the rest of the people at the center of the Republican apparatus, has backfired with these Republican leaning and Republican voters. They make up about 20% of the electorate, and their willingness to flock back to the Republican standard whenever there was a tax cut or to run in fear of black inner city criminals, was one reason the Republican party could focus on the base. Republican strategists knew that while these voters might flirt with Dukakis' technocratic competence, or be wooed by Gore's middle class populism – that when push came to shove, a brooding black mug shot and a whiff of tax increases would whip these voters back into line.

The underlying dynamic is that Republicans haven't really delivered on tax cuts. These people are paying the same in taxes as before, and their wages have stopped going up. Burdened by housing costs and property taxes, they are capable of looking at the total tax burden. The other underlying dynamic is that the 1965-1990 crime wave, which was economic and demographic, has been receding into the distance. The "death penalty" no longer seems an urgent issue – particularly since many of these people had to slog through implementing it, and found it to be unworkable.

Iraq, then, for the moderates, now looks like pure calculation, a blunder. A Bad Decision. Good deciders don't cover up Bad Decisions, they deal with them.

Ohio is one of the hot beds of such people. People who value consistency over imagination, long term relationships over seduction, surety over speed. For a long time the Republican Party, with its steadfast defense of church and status quo, middle brow over high and low, and small business anti-worker bias, seemed their natural home. For the doctors among them, it still is. For the fast food franchise owners among them, it still is.

But for most others, particularly those who hare competing against big corporations that have seen easy profits – the Republican Party seems off the mark. They are not yet to the point of rejecting Republicanism, many of them will embrace McCain when the time comes – but they have rejected radical Republicanism, and they have rejected the neo-conservative economic and political agenda. They aren't quite to the point of not being moderates any more, but they want a moderation of the Republican regime.

The challenge will be to convince them 2 and 4 years from now, not to run back to the other side of the boat looking for a tax cut. To meet this challenge requires the kind of executives that these voters like. Executives who exude "integrity" and that means an internal compass of deciding. Schwarzenhagger will survive by taking left, and proving he is not owned by the right - while a host of faceless Republicans, who played being independent and decisive because of their extensive knowledge of hair care products, are going down to defeat or facing close scrapes.

On the left, each wave of Great Moderate Hope has not panned out. Dukakis was the first, but not the last. Obama is a rising Great Moderate Hope. Granholm, now back against the wall fighting DeVos 2002's model. Jeanne Shaheen - power house of New Hampshire Democrats - was the one before that. Throw in McGreevey as an off year variant. Each one has not panned out, because what seemed on the campaign trail to be willingness to "work with Republicans" turned out, in office, to be wishy washy lack of committment to anything, and willingness to say anything to anyone. Supporters felt betrayed, and moderates saw them as losing "Integrity".

This group is different from the all out conservative Democrat like Warner and Bayh. Warner and Bayh never pretended to bridge the gap between progressive and conservative, but told progressives to get in line as junior partners in the coalition, or things would be a great deal worse. Part of the disappointment in the Great Moderate Hope, is that they often turned their backs on the left, and then found themselves besieged in trouble. Gray Davis of California is perhaps the best example in recent years - but John Kerry was also the victim of this perception.

This is why Spitzer and Strickland are different. They are often going to cross their progressive base, they admit it, and embrace it, because they both present it as being part and parcel of what makes them effective and able - the ability to target problems and get to the root of them. At the same time, they tap the progressive desire to improve the quality of life for people, by proposing and underlining improving the economy, and opening the golden road of education. Tough, but caring and fair. These traits are catnip to the moderate, and are far more reliable that splitting the difference, or even than spitting on one's own party.

Stickland is attempting to establish a beachhead to turn around one of the most important deficits that the Democratic Party has - in executive talent, or to be more exact, in the perception of executive talent. And crucially, he is doing so in a state which, should it become lost to the Republicans, will virtually seal them out of the White House for as long as it is in Democratic hands. Which means that, should he accomplish this, he will have to be on anyones short list for a future cabinet position.

Or more, should the electoral winds blow that way.