State Senator John Boccieri is the Dem running here.

http://johnforcongress.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/06/11/cq_2873.html?pagewanted=print

The district in which the two seek to run is located in northeast Ohio and includes the city of Canton. Though the region has a long Republican tradition, it is not quite an overwhelming GOP stronghold these days. District voters favored President Bush in 2004, but his 54 percent to 46 percent edge over Democrat John Kerry was fairly modest.

Boccieri appeared Monday in North Canton alongside Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, a friend and political ally, and other state Democratic leaders. This party backing practically ensures Boccieri of an easy path to the party nomination in a primary election next March 4.

Boccieri’s personal background includes his current service as an officer in the Air Force Reserves. He has been deployed to the Middle East in four rotations to fly C-130 aircraft.

Boccieri told CQPolitics.com on Monday that the Bush administration should work with congressional leaders to devise a strategy that will bring U.S. troops home from Iraq “safely, honorably and soon.”

“Having been there and served, I know that we have to do all that we can to make sure that our troops — when we send them off to battle — have the appropriate equipment, training and expertise they need to come home soon and safely,” Boccieri said.

He continued with a call for better treatment of injured Iraq war veterans, with an oblique reference to the scandal caused by substandard conditions endured by some at Walter Reed Army Medical Center: “When they do come home and if they have been injured, that we’re not sending them to rat-infested hospitals where they have to pay for their own meals. I think we can demand more for our veterans who have given up so much for us.”

Trade policy is an abiding concern for Boccieri, an officeholder in a state where the vital manufacturing sector has struggled for decades. He kicked off his House campaign near a local facility of vacuum cleaner manufacturer Hoover Co., which is shuttering its North Canton campus this fall.

Boccieri said the 16th’s next congressman should “protect all of our workers’ jobs and make certain that the decisions we make in Washington aren’t going to ship the manufacturing jobs overseas.”

Ohio Republican officials have noted that Boccieri does not live in the 16th District, though House members are required only to live in their states and not necessarily within the boundaries of the districts they represent.

Boccieri was, in fact, considered as a House prospect in a different district last year. Strickland — as he left his House seat open to launch his winning campaign for governor — advocated Boccieri as the candidate to succeed him in the 6th District, which encompasses Boccieri’s hometown of New Middletown. Boccieri eschewed that race, though, and Democrat Charlie Wilson went on to easily win the 6th District seat.

But Boccieri described Republican criticism over his residency as “unfounded” and said that he had been representing the interests of northeastern Ohio for his seven years in the state legislature. “They want to talk about residency; I want to talk about results,” Boccieri said.

Schuring, meanwhile, told CQPolitics.com that he is forming an exploratory committee “so that a candidate and an organization can be in place in the event that [Regula] doesn’t run.”

Schuring noted that the Ohio primary is in early March and the filing deadline is in early January — less than seven months away — and that national Democratic officials already are working to elect Boccieri.

Schuring said Regula has given his OK to begin preparing a campaign and that the congressman does not have a timetable for announcing a decision. Schuring said he would wholeheartedly back Regula if the congressman chose to seek re-election.

Congress is a logical next career step for Schuring, who has served 14 years in the Ohio legislature — almost 10 in the state House and more than four in the state Senate.

“My approach, in 14 years at the Ohio statehouse . . . has been one where I’ve been a person who is accessible to people in my district,” Schuring said. “I’m responsive to what’s going on in the district, and I would do the same in Congress. I’m a person who believes that we need fresh ideas to solve complicated problems.”

“That’s the same type of approach that I would take in the U.S. Congress, if elected,” Schuring said.

Schuring noted that his state Senate district takes in nearly all of Stark County, which includes Canton and is the population hub of the 16th. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat Kerry carried Stark, though he lost in Wayne County and in the portions of Medina and Ashland counties that are in the 16th.

Both Boccieri and Schuring are coming off election victories last November. Boccieri was unopposed in his state Senate campaign. Schuring was re-elected with 56 percent of the vote in what overall was a terrible year for Republicans nationally and in Ohio.