Former Ohio governor, senator dies at 79

Former Ohio Gov. and Sen. George V. Voinovich died overnight Saturday at age 79.

Voinovich died overnight in his sleep, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

Voinovich, who served in the Senate from 1999 to 2011, was known as a more moderate member of the conference, at times bucking his party.

He voted against Republican-sponsored tax cuts and was one of the first members of his party to call for a withdrawal from Iraq, a position that prompted a near brawl with fellow Republican John McCain of Arizona during a closed-door meeting in 2007.

In late 2008, Voinovich also broke with his caucus and joined a bipartisan group of senators from states with significant domestic auto production in pressing for an automaker bailout, which ultimately failed. He earlier voted in favor of a $700 billion package to shore up the financial services industry.

Voinovich was a longtime member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and also served for a time as chairman of the Ethics Committee.

His father was an architect, his mother a schoolteacher. Until Voinovich was 16, he wanted to be a doctor. But, he said, “sciences and I didn’t get along, and I like other stuff better, like Boy Scouts.” He became president of his high school class and was voted most likely to succeed. Friends from that era say he predicted even then that he would someday be mayor and governor.

He made it, and then some. After an early political career that included four years in the state House and four more as Cuyahoga County auditor, he was elected lieutenant governor of Ohio in 1978. The next year, he unseated Cleveland Mayor Dennis J. Kucinich (a future House member) after the city went into financial default under Kucinich.

Voinovich lost a 1988 Senate race against the Democratic incumbent, Howard M. Metzenbaum, by 14 percentage points.

“I was damaged goods,” he said. “But we have a tradition in Ohio. You can’t win statewide until you run and lose.”