From Dispatch Politics:

The stakes are high in this year’s race for secretary of state, the winner of which will not only oversee Ohio’s election system but also hold a vital seat on the five-member state Apportionment Board that will redraw legislative districts in 2011.

Democrat Jennifer Brunner won the seat in 2006, but rather than seek re-election, she made what ended up as an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate.

Asked to size up Brunner’s job performance, Democratic contender Maryellen O’Shaughnessy of Columbus, the Franklin County clerk of courts, called it a “masterful job of taking a pretty miserable circumstance and turning it around for the better in less than four years.”

However, she sees room for improvement, noting that Brunner, a former judge, “tends to do directives from on high.” O’Shaughnessy said she will work to make sure directives are not seen as punitive by county boards.

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