Wrong (again): That's what this space was for predicting that former Florida Gov. John E. (Jeb) Bush would be 2016's Republican presidential nominee. Big-picture result: Donald J. Trump, sometime donor to the campaigns of Democrats such as as Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, might become the GOP's nominee.

Wrong (again): That's what this space was for predicting that former Florida Gov. John E. (Jeb) Bush would be 2016's Republican presidential nominee. Big-picture result: Donald J. Trump, sometime donor to the campaigns of Democrats such as as Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, might become the GOP's nominee.

Given the seething mood in flyover country (the part of the United States national news anchors and Hollywood producers know only from airplane windows) Trump is no imaginary threat to GOP rivals, though when Republicans last ran a virtual Democrat for president, one-time Akron lawyer Wendell Willkie in 1940, that didn't work out.

GOP Gov. John R. Kasich won re-election in 2014 with almost 64 percent of Ohio's vote (a sweep aided by a politically weak Democratic challenger, former Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald).

Kasich now wants to be president, and Ohio's primary is March 15. But a Quinnipiac Poll released Tuesday said "Kasich falls behind (frontrunner Trump) 31 percent to 26 percent among Ohio likely Republican primary voters." Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was at 21 percent, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at 13 percent. (Among Ohio likely Democratic voters, Clinton leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 55 percent to 40 percent, the poll reported.)

As to Trump's appeal, Ohioans struggling to make ends meet in Northern Ohio and the Miami Valley don't live on Easy Street. Paydays prompt decisions tougher than "cappuccino or latte?" Those voters don't need position papers. They want change, or its possibility. And it's not like mavericks and demagogues can't woo Ohio voters.

In 1968, Alabama race-baiter George C. Wallace drew 11.8 percent of Ohio's vote, his best percentage in any big northern state; Wallace got one in four Warren County votes, one in five in Butler County.

In 1936, William Lemke, proxy candidate for Detroit "radio priest" Charles E. Coughlin, got more votes in Ohio than in any other state. (Coughlin didn't run himself because he was Ontario-born, though Canadian birth doesn't seem to impede Cruz, who was born in Calgary, Alberta.)

And when socialist Eugene V. Debs got 6 percent of the nation's vote in 1912, he got 8.7 percent of Ohio's, including nearly 18 percent of Montgomery County's votes, 11.4 percent of Clark County's and - attention, RINO-hunters - 21 percent of the vote in John Boehner's Butler County. (In Cuyahoga and Franklin counties, respectively, Debs drew about 10 percent of the vote.)

Upshot: Given the possible candidate mix, Campaign 2016 might offer Ohioans rides as wild as any at Cedar Point or Kings Island. Trouble is, amusement parks are supposed to entertain. But a presidential prospect is supposed to do more than that, given what's at stake.

Footnote: Last week's column, previewing 2016's Ohio Supreme Court election, should have reminded voters about JudicialVotesCount.org, the nonpartisan Web site that offers Ohioans biographical information on candidates for Ohio judgeships. This year, besides Supreme Court justices, Ohioans will elect 27 judges for the district courts of appeals, 115 common pleas judges and a number of judges for county courts (in some counties, a kind of rural or suburban municipal court). This year's primary is March 15; absentee voting has begun.

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, a greater Cleveland Republican who was once Summit County's prosecuting attorney, spurred the creation of JudicialVotesCount.org. Collaborating with O'Connor in the nonpartisan undertaking are the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, which hosts and maintains the site; the League of Women Voters of Ohio; the Ohio State Bar Association; the Ohio Newspaper Association; and the Ohio Association of Broadcasters. JudicialVotesCount.org is voter-friendly and voter empowering - a true public service.

Thomas Suddes is a former legislative reporter with The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and writes from Ohio University.