Politics & Policy

Ohio Morning Roundup

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  • Bloomberg reports on Ohio’s increasing disgust with federal programs:

The electorate has grown so angry and disillusioned that even a federal project delivering jobs has become the object of ridicule in a county where as many as 3,000 people were thrown out of work when the local DHL unit of Deutsche Post AG shut down last year. That’s a bad sign for Democrats seeking to retain control of the U.S. Congress.

Gubernatorial Race

  • The Fix has a poll by the Columbus Dispatch showing both John Kasich and Rob Portman dominating their races:

Former Rep. John Kasich (R) leads Gov. Ted Strickland (D) 49 percent to 37 percent in the gubernatorial race. In the Senate race, former Rep. Rob Portman (R) leads Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher (D) 50 percent to 37 percent.

In few places is the debate over the economy hotter than in Ohio, where the state unemployment rate of 10.3% is ninth-highest in the U.S.

Mr. Strickland, 69 years old, has responded by praising Mr. Obama’s stimulus package and auto-industry bailout. He has crisscrossed Ohio—visiting projects paid for by stimulus money, such as job-training centers, steel mills and solar-panel manufacturers. …

Mr. Kasich, 58, has seized on the same program as a classic case of government overreach. “We don’t have the money to operate it,” he said, “we don’t have the money long-term to fund it.”

  • On the same note, The State Column reports that Haley Barbour will join John Kasich on the campaign trail.

  • Strickland repeats an attack that is — by this point — months old:

Ted Strickland delivered a blistering attack on his Republican challenger John Kasich, labeling him a “Wall Streeter” and an “out-sourcer” of jobs.

Senatorial Race

  • CQ Politics gives a helpful rundown of how Rob Portman has begun pulling away from Lee Fisher:

Looking back, the end of June was a turning point in the race. Through the second fundraising quarter, which ended June 30, Portman had nearly $8.9 million in the bank to Fisher’s $1.3 million. The cash advantage has allowed Portman to run a handful of statewide TV ads.

House Races

GONYEA: That’s Democratic Congressman John Boccieri, a father of four with one more on the way, an opponent of abortion rights and a former Air Force pilot, who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. That moderate profile allowed him to carry a district that for more than 50 years had been solidly Republican.

At the fair, Boccieri gets question after question from voters on the economy. He says he understands the frustration. …

GOP challenger Jim Renacci was at the fair this week, too. He’s an entrepreneur, a self-made millionaire, who made his money in nursing homes and other investments, including an arena football team. He was also mayor of the small town of Wadsworth, Ohio.

  • The Youngstown Vindicator shrilly editorializes against the US Chamber of Commerce for its opposition to John Boccieri and Lee Fisher:

Put another way, the “Party of No” is being bought and paid for by the “Republican Chamber of No.”

The party, supporting freshman Rep. John Boccieri, D-Alliance, said the site is devoted to giving voters the facts on Renacci’s “pattern of lawsuits, elitism and ethical challenges.”

There is already documentary evidence of Kilroy’s having had sympathies with socialist and radical left-wing groups in the past. In 2008, Kilroy’s opponent, Steve Stivers, criticized Kilroy for having been the editor of a socialist newspaper. Kilroy gave the limpest of defenses, offering only that she’d won an award for journalism for her work. Inexplicably, the line of inquiry was never followed up.

And as it turns out, Stivers didn’t give Kilroy enough credit. Not only was the freshman Democrat the editor of a socialist newspaper, she was also eventually its publisher, a frequent reporter and columnist for it, and a partner with none other than the head of the Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio, himself an unsuccessful candidate against then-representative John Kasich in 1992.

Ohio’s First Congressional District covers the majority of the city of Cincinnati. It includes some western suburbs as well as farm country near the Indiana state line. Most Democratic votes come from inside the city of Cincinnati. But the suburbs and rural areas are solid Republican territory. In fact, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) ceded part of his home county to Chabot after the 2002 census. It was an effort to make the district a little more Republican. 

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