In the past few weeks, the Kasich campaign has rolled out three policy initiatives.
- Privatization of the Ohio Department of Development.
- Regulation reform.
- Job Training.
All have had a primary focus: Jobs.
The Governor’s response to each one?
“Me too! I did that! That’s soooooo me.”
I’m beginning to think if Kasich proposed a resolution calling for the Governor to shave his head, Strickland would say he already did it.
Every time the Kasich campaign has released a new proposal, it’s diverted the Strickland campaign for, at the minimum, a full day as they try to push back against Kasich. It’s a losing battle. When has “me too” ever been a convincing argument to a voter?
With just 53 days to go until election day, every day counts. Every time a day slips by without the Governor showing leadership and working to improve that horribly bad approval rating is a day wasted. And they’ve wasted a lot of days.
What is the Strickland team focusing on? Yelling “Me too” and bragging to reporters about well placed google ads. [DJ note: the Kasich campaign has been doing the same thing for months….but I imagine the Kasich guys just have other things to talk to reporters about]
The Strickland campaign is a disaster.
They have no message besides attacks against Kasich. And as I’ve said from the beginning, that won’t work.
It’s the exact same strategy Jon Corzine enlisted against Chris Christie. As the Corzine team rolled out attack ad after attack ad over the summer before the election last year, the New York Times had this to say:
The ad blitz seizes on a huge opportunity for Mr. Corzine: Despite Mr. Christie’s seven-year tenure as United States attorney for New Jersey, he remains an unknown quantity to much of the state’s electorate. So Mr. Corzine is trying to define him for voters before Mr. Christie defines himself.
Sounds familiar, eh?
And by now we all know how well it worked.
Has Lis Smith and the rest of the Strickland communications team learned nothing? Or are the orders to attack coming from the ODP that seems to control the Governor’s purse strings?
Either way, since the attacks were initiated by Strickland and his allies in May, things have gone from bad to worse for the Governor. Check out this graph that aggregates every poll since April. Notice what begins to happen once the Democratic attacks begin in May?
Their Me Too campaign isn’t showing any leadership. Their scorched earth campaign is turning off voters.
It’s the definition of a flailing campaign.
Maybe that explains why the DGA has already begun to count them out.
