Plain Dealer: Kasich Looks Nearly Unbeatable
by Jake3BP • December 31, 2012 • Uncategorized • 20 Comments
It may be nearly two years until the 2014 elections, but a lot of focus has already centered on Ohio’s gubernatorial contest. As we’ve said, incumbent Governor John Kasich and his reelection bid are sitting pretty, thanks to his strong record on fiscal accountability and job creation.
That’s tough to beat. Not to mention, the only reason an unnamed Democrat polls remotely close to Kasich is just that–he’s nameless. Ohio Democrats have an extremely weak field to choose from for 2014, because each one has a record he can’t run from, most notably the walking, talking economic recession known as Ted Strickland. And that’s exactly what the Cleveland Plain Dealer took notice of this weekend:
Strickland does not lack motivation to run: His disdain for Kasich is palpable. And Strickland would enter the race with two significant assets other Democrats lack.
Of all the potential candidates, only he has near-universal name recognition. And he is also the only potential candidate with the semblance of a statewide base.
But what Strickland also has is a record as governor. That’s a problem. And it’s gigantic.
The state of a state’s economy is always the major issue in an election for governor. And though governors often get too much credit or blame for that, it’s undeniable that Ohio’s economy went south on Strickland’s watch.
In late October, Strickland feebly tried to embellish his role in keeping Ohio’s economy thriving, but the key statistic he used in making that claim was graded “false” by a Plain Dealer fact-check.
Twenty-two months can be an eternity in election campaigns. But barring a mammoth change in Ohio’s political climate, history would not repeat itself. In fact, a Strickland-Kasich rematch wouldn’t be especially close [Emphasis mine].
Yep. That just happened. The Cleveland Plain Dealer basically just slapped the 2014 Democrat gubernatorial frontrunner.
But even more interesting is their advice to another potential candidate, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald, telling him to wait this one out. Fitzgerald might have potential down the road, assuming he can avoid Cleveland-style ethical dilemmas, but he’s far from being a polished statewide contender. And who are the other potential challengers to Governor Kasich?
Congressman Tim Ryan? He’s too busy meditating on how to avoid being drunk in public.
Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman? Given the fiefdom he currently controls, and, as the Plain Dealer noted themselves, he’s not interested.
CFPB Czar Richard Cordray? He’s not only required to remain apolitical in his current position, but he’s also been shunned by ODP Chairman Chris Redfern.
That’s it for the Democrat A-list (if you can call it that without laughing). And without a B-list to speak of–candidates like former Rep. Ted Celeste or former Lt. Governor Lee Fisher bring decent Name ID, but would welcome a defeat not seen since Rob Burch in 1994–who else is there?
Of course, that’s not to confuse desire with realism–Strickland would like nothing more than to make another run at it–but there’s a reason he’s actually pausing to consider the move. He’d get slaughtered, and he knows it. Strickland’s getting older, his health is in question, and he doesn’t have too many elections left in him. Does he really want a lopsided statewide defeat to mark the end of his electoral career?
Not exactly a legacy worth remembering, though his record doesn’t speak any better.
It’s no wonder the Plain Dealer agrees with us–it may be almost two years down the road, but from where we’re sitting, Governor John Kasich looks nearly unbeatable come 2014.
I hope he runs a better campaign in 2014 then he did in 2010. I recall a bunch of us still sitting at the phone bank in Terrace Park at 7 pm election night still calling potential GOP voters and asking them to get to the polls yet if at all possible. Good thing this was going on as his victory was mighty slim given Strickland’s sad record or compared with Portman’s 20% margin ( or whatever it was).
If you recall Strickland used much the 2009 Federal (Obama) stimulus money to prop up public employee union pension plans. The unions bosses and the public employees then returned this money in contributions and /or used it to put boots on the ground for the Strickland campaign and on corralling voters on election day. They came close to saving Strickland’s job..
The same thing happened in 2012 — the author of new book Shadow Bosses, Mallory Factor said that the unions put thousands of workers on the ground in this State on November 6th with minivans just to drag voters out of their houses and to the polls. It has already been suggested and there are plausible stories that many these voters were paid for their Obama vote. Whatever, it was a massive GOTV effort that blew away the much bally-hooed “most massive GOP ground game in history” in Ohio. If you believe that claim by the Ohio GOP I want to sell you my share of the Brent-Spence bridge.
I can’t prove this exactly but I feel in my gut that the GOP ground game for Romney in Ohio was a farce. I worked for that effort as volunteer at the Romney Victory Center for 2 – 7 hours a day,everyday, for nearly 2 months. Mostly I worked on the door-to-door effort of firing up the potential voters. I had this nagging feeling that the entire process was a sham, or at the minimum inefficient and poorly run.
The lists voter addresses that we were to contact each day were SUPPOSED to be “undecided & independent”. But many were long time GOP voters who had never voted anything but republican and they wondered why we were contacting them. I wondered the say thing. Preaching to the chior? So the voter database the Ohio GOP was using seemed questionable or out of date? Worse the culling system to refine down the contact lists seemed mal-functional or maybe non-functional.
When a voter was actually contacted the individual (voter) was coded, e.g.,” a = already for Romney”, or “b = for Obama” or “c = still undecided”. Any voter who was a “decided” was supposed to be taken off the contact list so the effort could be directed to those still persuadable. But the system did not work. Many times I found myself being directed back to houses that i knew I had visited only a few weeks (days) earlier — often times the same person would answer the door. I was sent back to a house with Obama yard signs three times. So the screening system did not work — wasting volunteer time. Sometimes I found other individuals from the Romney victory center on the same street as I was — any point on going the the same house twice in one day? Or weren’t there enough houses to go around for the many volunteers? (sarcasm) .
The Romney “Victory Centers” I happened to visit were all run by young people (early to late 20 somethings) who seemed to know little about ground game politics. Their main interest seemed more on was generating contact data to prove they were doing their job and less on how the campaign was actually going.
There is a good reason why Obama carried Ohio — despite his abyssal record. The Ohio Republican party is essentially incompetent — in my opinion. It is run by RINO types who do NOT want to get down into the mud and fight and who are essentially ashamed to be seen as conservative. It is not cool, it’s not “bipartisan” and it’s too “confrontational”. Can’t we all just get along? (more sarcasm).
I think the results by the Ohio GOP “campaign machine” this fall shows that I’m not just blowing smoke. I’ve seen this operation close up and it is not pretty or efficient..
So Kasich had better start paying attention to who will run his re-election campaign and exactly how it how is run because Strickland and the public employees unions won’t be incompetent, they won’t be staffed by volunteers (it will be paid individuals and government workers taking a day off while on the payroll to do “public service” (i.e., electing democrats). And these workers won’t be using out dated methods, old maps and poor voter demographic information.
Fargo44 wrote: “If you recall Strickland used much the 2009 Federal (Obama) stimulus money to prop up public employee union pension plans. The unions bosses and the public employees then returned this money in contributions and /or used it to put boots on the ground for the Strickland campaign and on corralling voters on election day.”
Fargo, I don’t think you understand what the public employee pension plans are. Employees, whether union or not, receive the same pension. What exactly is a public employee union pension plan? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Also, I’m not sure how “employees” are going to return their pension to the Strickland campaign. If they are employees, they’re most likely not receiving a pension yet. Did you mean retirees?
The Ohio Republican Party had little to do with the Romney ground campaign. The Victory effort you were apart of was run by the Romney campaign an the RNC.
“Governor John Kasich looks nearly unbeatable come 2014.” Brought to you by the same folks who wrote just two months ago that Romney had already won Ohio.
Modern lies again.
I wrote it as a question. Even the headline is phrased as a question. Pure speculation on the data put out at the time.
Compare that with “Kasich WILL lose by 20+ points”.
Nice try, though.
Lol, I remember Modern blogging that in 2009.
He literally said that kasich would lose by 20 points. What a blow-hard.
Nick, you’re a joke. You can’t say you were using a rhetorical question as a writing device and then when you thesis blows up in your face on election day run to punctation to deny your hubris.
Yeah, I was wrong when I wrote that in 2009. Just like you are wrong for saying the same thing with FAR WORSE polling numbers now about Kasich.
OK, well who was running Josh Mandel’s campaign then?
You say: “Ohio Republican Party had little to do with the Romney ground campaign”
I don’t think that is correct actually. The ORP had a LOT to do with it. The national campaign depends of data bases and logistic support from the State organizations, They have to and they’d be crazy not to. If not the duplication of effort would be immense and wasteful.
Sure the Presidential campaign and the RNC supply money, and staff to the State organizations — like the ORP.
I don’t know if you participated in any on-the-ground aspects of the last campaign or not — but if you did you could not have missed the fact that all the GOP candidates — statewide to local — were represented in the Victory Centers.
And just to be clear I don’t ONLY blame the ORP for the mess. the Romney campaign was equally responsible for the debacle — a decent man he was OK. But what total disaster as a candidate — the unforced error was his trademark. He had the perfect storm AT HIS BACK and still blew it. Pathetic old John McCain at least had the excuse that he was running in a horrible political climate facing a blank slate as an opponent.
To call the Romney campaign, the candidate and the “team” more than pathetic itself pathetic. The term “Romney campaign” is an oxymoron as far as I am concerned. Here was a man who has been running for POTUS of a good chunk of his adult life and still seems the have the political instincts of kid running for student council in high school.
.
With sole exception of about 90 minutes in the first debate his entire campaign was just disgusting — at our house we were freshly outraged daily for 4 months. Romney and his “team” engaged in a 5 month walking surrender tour. We have been SCREWED by the PROFESSIONAL REPUBLICANS for two consecutive cycles.
To add insult his oldest son, Tag Romney notes, that Dad did not really want to be President anyway. Really, well what the hell was he wasting our time and money for then?
In my opinion it is fair to call most of the professionals (at least the leadership) of the republican party essentially useless — either because at heart they are really just “democrat-light” in their philosophy or don’t even HAVE a philosophy rather and only are concerned that the party raises enough money to fund their pay check and retirement.
Sad to say, I put the crowd in Ohio is at the head of that pack. But look at the good side, here is an area where Ohio leads the nation!.
No, really. The ORP had relatively ZERO to do with the Romney grassroots effort. They TRIED, but the Romney team pushed them out.
It’s a fact.
Steve said: “The ORP had relatively ZERO to do with the Romney grassroots effort. They TRIED, but the Romney team pushed them out. It’s a fact.”
Well that discussion is a side bar to the topic at hand so I guess we should drop the matter. I don’t know where you were this fall but I was on the ground every day for 2 months working doors. You say its a “fact” that the ORP was ignored — but from my vantage point I didn’t see it. I’m not defending Romney’s pathetic “campaign” but some examples backing your point would have been good
You need to understand that there was a major coup at the Ohio Republican party and the Romney folks put themselves at a disadvantage by pushing the new folks at the ORP away.
It was all quite childish, really.
Ted: I assume by major coup you mean the expulsion of Kevin DeWne (a good thing, IMO) I would say what does that have to do with anything? A veteran ORP man took the helm didn’t he?. Three people have now claimed that the ORP either had “nothing do do with the Romney effort in Ohio” or that the the Romney folks “took advantage” of the ORP. But not a single example has been offered. Lots of excuses for a dysfunctional state party me thinks?
For the love of God and all that is Holy, please stop writing on a blog if you can’t tell the difference between what a single columnist wrote and the paper itself. A newspaper speaks through its editorial board, not Brent Larkin, columnist.
As for the “Ohio Model,” taxes under Strickland were cut substantially more than they have been under Kasich (who has enacted ZERO income taxes/Strickland 24% reduction.) Regulations? Strickland repealed thousands more than Kasich. Budget balanced? Ohio has a constitutional balanced budget amendment. Strickland left Kasich with a nearly billion surplus.
Larkin’s entire piece is based on the notion that entire race is based on the economy. Yet Strickland nearly won re-election in 2010 before most Ohioans began to realize the extent of the recovery that began in February 2010. Ohioans just re-elected Obama despite the fact that Kasich (and you) have claimed that he’s held Ohio’s economic recovery back. And 36% of Ohioans right now believe that Kasich deserves re-election. His job approval rating is well below 50%.
Yeah, he’s a political juggernaut alright. That’s why his oil/gas tax for income tax cut has yet to pass an entirely controlled GOP legislature all year.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/15/news/economy/ohio_kasich_budget/index.htm
There was no surplus from Strickland. There was an 8 billion dollar deficit. Plugged without a tax increase
Strickland was nearly re-elected, because of the union ads, and the NRA endorsement.
Um, Kasich’s own OBM reported that the State budget that ended on June 30, 2011 was nearly a billion in the black.
Ohio has a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
http://www.plunderbund.com/2011/07/07/what-deficit-kasichs-obm-confirms-what-we-predicted-stricklands-budget-ends-with-nearly-billion-dollar-surplus/
($8 billion deficit) – ($1 billion surplus) = $7 billion deficit.
And that’s using your number.
Sorry, Modern. Your math is worse than Strickland’s.
Unless you’re willing to admit that Strickland left Ohio with an $8 billion debt, you can stop with the “billion dollar surplus” nonsense. That still left our state with a $7 billion debt, and not even you can spin that fact.
I swear, it’s like talking with the lead character from Clueless: “I saved $50 at the mall! And only had to spend $500!”
Debt and deficit are two totally different things. I’m not sure how much debt the State was carrying in terms of bonds, but I know Kasich has addded to it. Regardless, Kasich, you, this site has never attacked Strickland over the amount of bonds the State carries, and that’s probably because Kasich can’t.
His turnpike proposal is based entirely on having the Turnpike Commission issue bonds (debt) to cover the costs of transportation projects in other parts of the State.
Kasich’s JobsOhio is dependent on leveraging the State’s liquor profits to generate $100 million from bonds (debt.)
My conservative teacher friends do NOT like Kasich; I have to say some of the new guidelines coming out of Columbus are difficult, like teacher incentive pay. The problem with that is that the good ole boy network will still determine who gets raises.
But I’m glad to hear that Kasich is doing well statewide. No doubt the union thugs will be out in full force; they’re working on it in Michigan, too, but the Michigan Supreme Court significantly favors conservative ideals.
I’m sure your conservative friends they are still angry over SB5. The heavy-handedness and naivete of Shanon Jones and John Kasich in the way they handled that entire matter leading to the debacle of Issue #2 (2011) was a lesson in how NOT to do accomplish things in government. That ill-considered legislation alone alienated thousands of conservative public employees (e.g., police and firemen) and poisoned the water for Ohio republicans on the ballot in 2012
Many on the republican side tried to warn them that they were over-reaching and and cruising for a bruising. Bill Cunningham told Governor Kasich to his face it would be thrown out by the voters — and “…you’d need a search warrant to find a republican”. It was to no avail. John Kasich’s response was to arrogantly kick uncooperative republicans off the key legislative committees. So all the legislative discussions and the committee votes came to a big nothing and lots of embarrassment for the party was a bonus. It made the republican brand look ridiculous — thanks Shannon Jones and John Kasich.
All they’d have had to have done was something like Michigan did — make union due paying optional. It would have cut off the gravy train and it would have been a measure having strong public support and Ohio would today be a right to work state. What’s more republicans could have entered 2012 a winners not as a bunch of clowns who’s butt was just handed to them by the voters.
No, I don’t for one minute think John Kasich is a shoo-in for a second term.