John Kasich has been taking an increasingly aggressive tone regarding the Democratic campaign strategy here in Ohio’s Gubernatorial race, and though it’s too close to the election to tell if it’s making a difference, Kasich definitely has a point. Highlights from the story below:

“In my entire political life I have never seen the kind of negative, smearing, lying stuff that these Democrats have done and brought on the people of this state,” [Kasich] told a crowd of Republicans in this Columbus suburb. “Shame on them! Do they have one good positive decent idea in their brain? I don’t think so.”[…]
Both campaigns, along with their out-of-state allies, have funded negative television and radio ads. Polls suggest the race is a toss-up as it heads into its final week, a closing stretch that will see Ohio campaign stops from President Obama, Vice President Biden and former President Bill Clinton.
Kasich spent much of the speech criticizing President Obama’s “big government” agenda and said the White House is paying so much attention to Ohio in order to protect Obama’s re-election hopes in 2012.
“Barack Obama comes into this state and all he talks about is, ‘They’re going to take us backwards,’” he said. “Well you know what? Backwards into the 90s is a heck of a lot better than what he’s given us since he’s been president.”
He called Ohio “the eye of the tiger” this election season and claimed the whole world is watching what happens in the Buckeye State.
“This is our chance in this state, in ground zero, to have our say, to stick up for what we believe in,” he said. “We can be a role model for the rest of this country, and then we move forward to 2012.”
For all his bombast about President Obama, Kasich made no mention of Strickland. He instead issued ominous warnings about how the Democratic Party may try to steal the election next Tuesday.
“They will try to buy this election from top to bottom,” he said. “They are going to use the policies of fear, every left-wing organizer in this country, to come in here and scare our people and try to drag people away from the polls. They don’t want you to vote. They are going to tell a lot of lies.”