When John Kasich first went up on TV back in July, he mentioned Ted Strickland and his poor record on jobs.
Since then he’s ran a series of positive ads focusing on the issues that matter to Ohioans – jobs and education.
Finally, the Kasich campaign is getting tough again by, heaven forbid, mentioning the Governor and his record by name. The humanity!
The ad is the definition of what’s known as a comparative ad, with the Lt. Gov candidate concluding: “It’s your choice – the same old with Strickland, or move Ohio forward with John Kasich.”
While the RGA has been doing their part to help inform the electorate of Strickland’s record, we had yet to see anyone so directly call out the Governor as Taylor does in this ad. And the timing is right for it.
The Kasich campaign seems to be following a variation of the advice I gave Strickland way back in May.
Back then, Strickland suffered from poor approval numbers (and still does), so I recommended he start positive to improve his own image before attacking his rival. He didn’t and look where we are today.
With Kasich, he didn’t have much of an image to worry about. Nobody knew him. The campaign took their time and rolled out a series of commercials that introduced a positive message without obsessively calling out their opponent with dark overtones and gloomy music. That enabled the campaign to come out with what they did today – a comparative ad that hits Ted while he’s down – not with doom and gloom, but with a clear choice.
For months Kasich supporters have been calling for their guy to start hitting Ted harder for how he’s left Ohio. While this commercial may not satisfy that appetite, it does provide the electorate with a clear choice.
Ted’s predicament? He can’t change his record. And there’s no time to hope for a magical turnaround. In fact, the most recent jobs report showed the number of employed Ohioans actually shrinking and the number of people giving up on trying to find work reaching a level it hasn’t seen since January.
That leaves Ted with no decent talking points on the economy for an entire month.
Your move, Ted.
