Three weeks ago, before the vote for ORP Chairman, we told you that Lt. Governor Mary Taylor had actually not endorsed Matt Borges, even though she had been listed as one of his endorsers.
Borges ended up losing that vote and the chairmanship. Now, the governor’s staff and close supporters want to take it out on Mary Taylor. WOIO’s Paul Orlousky has obtained a leaked strategy memo which details a plan to ruin Taylor’s possible run for the governorship in 2018.
marytaylorIts not known who the author is, but he accuses Taylor of “double-crossing Kasich in his most vulnerable moment” and says “she is no friend of John Kasich’s”.
Unfortunately, this episode fits a pattern of bullying from the governor’s office. After sticking up for John Kasich for years and defending him at every turn, she actually chose to make her own decision for once. That’s all that was needed for them to put her on their enemies list.
Team Kasich’s hatred for Secretary of State Jon Husted is also on display in this memo. It appears that their biggest fear is that Husted could be Ohio’s next governor, somehow threatening Kasich’s legacy.
They need to realize that Kasich has already written his legacy. What will people remember him for? Forcing Medicaid expansion on Ohio, declaring that anyone who opposed him was destined for Hell, a failed presidential campaign that he wouldn’t quit, being absent at the GOP Convention being held in his home state and trying to convince a new Republican Congress to keep his precious Medicaid expansion.
Jon Husted told The Plain Dealer’s Henry Gomez that the memo evidenced backroom discussions that are “a very disrespectful way to treat Mary Taylor, the sitting lieutenant governor.”
The most ironic part of the memo states that “they are already using the party as a weapon”. This is from the team who engineered a bully campaign to take over the party shortly after Kasich’s first election, for the sole purpose of turning it into a campaign organization for his secretly planned presidential run.
It will be interesting to see if Governor Kasich follows through on his allies’ recommendations for retribution.