The Examiner reports:

[I]t was disclosed Wednesday that Sept. 14 and Oct. 7 will be the two dates Ohio voters will have a chance to see the incumbent Democratic Governor and his Republican challenger take each other on over the many issues they don’t see eye to eye on.
The September debate will take place in Columbus, Ohio’s capital city, while the October debate will move to Toledo, a city in northwest Ohio hard hit by job losses.
Strickland, a Democrat elected in 2006, wants Ohioans to rehire him for a second term despite many who say his performance has been lackluster. Kasich, a Republican who left his Central Ohio congressional seat nearly a decade ago, is not well known statewide but his message of reducing taxes and regulation and recalibrating government to work for rather than against business has won enough support that he is basically neck and neck with Strickland, who has been the state’s CEO for years, but has done so under challenging circumstances his supporters say is not of his making.

This is going to be interesting. It’s a bad year for Democrats in the first place, and given that Strickland has to contend with a widely known reputation, strong opinions about him, and an increasingly disengaged progressive base, he will certainly have to defend himself aggressively and go on the attack.