Ohio lags the nation in job creation. Taxes have been increasingly shifted from the wealthy to the middle class and poor. Public school money has been cut and awarded to failing for-profit charter schools with minimal accountability. Local government funds have been slashed, triggering a slew of expensive levies. Clean energy standards, once an overwhelmingly bipartisan policy, have been frozen, potentially costing Ohio tens of thousands of jobs. Women’s rights are being rolled back. Labor rights are under attack. Ohio’s Department of Development became the privatized JobsOhio, spiriting hundreds of millions of tax dollars off limits to public scrutiny — and apparently not creating even a fraction of the promised jobs.
That’s Governor John Kasich’s record. In what world would a governor with such a terrible record be reelected?
Oh right — one in which big corporate money and nonstop personal attacks dominate and a state media colluded with the Republican Party to make the campaign, in the words of Kasich’s Democratic challenger Ed Fitzgerald, “as superficial as possible.”
So the last several months have been about FitzGerald’s lapsed drivers license, not about the well-being of Ohioans, with coverage so heated, persistent and innuendo-laden it suggests that FitzGerald is an irredeemably bad person. Kasich’s record in office and his stunning arrogance in refusing to attend any debates or give straight answers to questions about key issues haven’t received similar scrutiny.
On October 22, the City Club of Cleveland held what should have been its traditional debate but only FitzGerald and Green Party candidate Anita Rios attended. Their substantive discussion of issue, policies and records — despite the attempts of moderator Robert Higgs from the Plain Dealer’s digital affiliate the Northeast Ohio Media Group to create a “gotcha” moment — made it clear the unserious candidate is Kasich. If there were any justice — and an unbiased state media — voters would be weighing the choice between FitzGerald and Rios.
Both advocated for the interests of the ordinary working Ohioans over those of the wealthy, which has been the theme of FitzGerald’s campaign. Fitzgerald even mentioned the needs of the poor, a political rarity. But the strength of FitzGerald’s record and the clarity of his focus and vision shone through. He displayed a more thorough grasp of issues ranging from education to immigration to protecting Lake Erie than Rios and offered more realistic courses of action. Rios had the right goals, but jailing legislators is not a reasonable response to their failure to address school funding and civil disobedience won’t solve unaffordable higher education.
FitzGerald’s record speaks for itself. He came into a county racked by scandal with a government padded by duplication and deadwood and took on the daunting task of fixing it, which was sure to create enemies among those who benefited from the old system. The strongest evidence that muttering about his failure as county executive is nonsense is that the Plain Dealer didn’t cover it when it would have been a stronger indictment of his qualifications than the drivers license and other trivia they’ve been flogging.
When a candidate speaks as clearly and powerfully to issues that affect most peoples’ daily lives as FitzGerald did and yet his loss is considered a foregone conclusion, something is drastically wrong with our election system. Both candidates addressed that when Higgs asked them how they would deal with Republican control of all three branches of state government. Rios’ suggestion to replace the two-party system with many small parties may be in her interest but doesn’t really get at what’s poisoning the electoral system. FitzGerald’s did: get the big money out of elections and rely on small donations and some form of public financing — and end gerrymandering.
It’s been suggested that we endorse Rios because the Green Party needs two percent of the vote to remain an official party. That’s difficult to do since Rios, though clearly a well-meaning and right-thinking person, would be over her head as governor. That an established party like the Greens (or Libertarians whose candidate for governor the Republicans got removed from the ballot) has to keep jumping through hoops to be on the ballot is another thing that needs to be changed.
Ed FitzGerald is the only candidate in the field truly qualified to be governor — and he’d be a fine one. Governor FitzGerald would focus on strengthening the economy for everyone, not just making the rich richer. He’d fight the for-profit charter school interests to which Kasich is beholden. And he would be able block the more extreme ideas of a legislature that, thanks to gerrymandering, is too tilted toward one party and often controlled by its radical wing. Realizing that FitzGerald would veto attempts to ban abortion or permanently repeal clean energy standards, the legislature might spend less time contemplating such measures and look at things Ohioans would really like to see happen — like fixing education funding and creating more living-wage jobs.
One Response to “ENDORSEMENT: Ed FitzGerald for Governor”
Bob Fritz
I knew you were an ultra-leftist but this is ridiculous. Did it ever occur to you that the reason why the legislature blocks all your “progressive” schemes is because the voters want it to do that????
Kasich has had a very successful first term. Kasich was a shoe-in even before Fitzgerald turned out to be a scofflaw. Thank goodness Fitzgerald will drop out of public life tomorrow.