By Roldo Bartimole
Are Ohio Republicans in a suicide mode?
The ability of the Republicans to design Congressional districts to benefit its candidates certainly helped them here and elsewhere to retain control of the U. S. Congress.
However, those Congressional districts do not apply to offices of the State of Ohio. You have to run state-wide, not in a district conveniently created for you. A bit harder for statewide candidates. It demands candidates that identify with more than true believers.
And I believe this 2012 election in Ohio did great injury to Republican state office holders.
Ohio Republicans are damaged goods.
They did it to themselves. It’s always bad when you think you’re better than you are.
– Treasurer Josh Mandel – despite all the money thrown against Sen. Sherrod Brown – went down in flames. Outside corporate sources spent $31 million added to Mandel’s $12.6 million, say reports. More than $43 million. To do what? To lose.
Mandel didn’t seem to serve but a short time as Ohio Treasurer before wanting another job. Greed is not becoming. Voters remember.
Mandel’s brashness – a quality of these brassy Republicans – made one want to slap him soundly. A wise ass without the standing to justify such behavior.
– Secretary of State Jon Husted – despite court rulings telling him to back off – continued to try to deny Ohio voters access to the voting booth. Voter suppression became a futile attempt by Republicans in many states to block those they considered Democratic voters. Voter suppression backfired on Republicans. It has a lasting odor I’m betting.
Do you think voters won’t remember? Do you think there won’t be forces to remind voters of Husted’s behavior? He was doing the opposite of what his state job suggests he do? Husted’s duplicity won’t be forgotten.
– Gov. John Kasich – despite hiding in the tall grass of late – set himself up for opposition by his brash beginning. He’s has backed away some but his record as a union-buster now indelibly marks his tenure. Voters will be reminded again and again come 2014 when he must run for re-election.
Kasich’s push of Sen. Bill 5 blew up in his face. He seemed to think that his 2010 election gave him the mandate to do as he pleased. His push to break collective bargaining rights “awakened a giant,” one labor leader told the Huffington Post. Another said a poll suggested 70 percent of AFL-CIO workers would vote for Obama. That’s payback.
It’s like poking a hornet’s nest. You must expect blowback.
Kasich epitomizes that wise guy quality of today’s Ohio Republicans. He may have thereby encouraged Mandel and Husted. It becomes infectious.
It gave Kasich free rein to be a smart ass. As when he called a policeman who gave him a ticket “an idiot.” This brashness reveals much of someone’s personality. Better to hide it.
Kasich’s attack on public workers awakened a rather languid and beaten labor movement here. Labor lashed back by putting Kasich’s move against public workers on the ballot. Let the voters decide. They soundly defeated Sen. Bill 5. (Interesting that President Obama took both Ohio and Wisconsin where its governor acts similarly toward workers.)
Kasich has been damaged goods since.
Kasich has made a practice of stealing revenue from every city and town – not to mention school systems. This makes for an issue that should come back to haunt him. Do as you please governing.
It’s a very good campaign slam on Kasich that while he builds a huge reservoir of money at the state level (for a tax cut for the rich?) he forces local communities to put new taxes on residents – regressive taxes on ordinary earners. I can’t see that not being an issue in 2014 when he has to run again. That’s a very close time as political campaigns go these days.
These brash young men of the Ohio Republican Party overstepped what they considered their mandate. And the voters have slapped them down.
But they keep doing it.
The voter suppression of Husted puts him on very weak ground.
Despite all his efforts to limit votes for President Barack Obama, he and the Republicans lost that one, too.
Kasich now better watch himself on the give-away of the turnpike. That may be the decision that turns off lots more voters. Again, time is running out for him with the 2014 election so close.
Ohio Republicans should examine how they are playing the political game. They seem to think they’re invulnerable. We all know what happens when that disease sets in.
Roldo Bartimole has been reporting since 1959. He came to Cleveland in 1965 to report for the Plain Dealer where he worked twice in the 1960s, left for the Wall Street Journal in 1967. He started publishing his newsletter Point of View in 1968 and ended it in 2000.In 1991 he was awarded the Second Annual Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in Washington, D.C. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Professional Journalists, Cleveland chapter, in 2002, and was named to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, 2004. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]
10 Responses to “ROLDO: How Badly Has the Ohio Republican Party Damaged Itself”
Roldo Bartimole
Thanks for the comment Dick. You’re right Kasich joined in and deserves “credit”
for his treachery too.
Also worried that he’s about to give away the turnpike and use
that to give tax breaks to those who don’t need it.
Roldo
Cindy Meyers
Roldo quit pointing out what the Repubs are doing wrong. They might be listening and correct themselves on the surface. Lets just get rid of the bastards.
snarky
I sense that many of these downstate dirtbag gop horder are now taking their tail whipped clod kicker arses over the bridge to KY , where that garrulous gluten bag Mitch McConnel roosts having had the jowls of former Ohio politician surgically implanted on his mealy mouth.
Roldo Bartimole
You do have a way of putting things Snarky.You have a good idea Cindy.
Anastasia P
I agree that the steep Kasich tax increases across the state as communities are forced to pass levies to replace money the state has stolen from them will be a big issue for the governor.
But there’s another huge landmine you don’t mention: women’s reproductive freedom and the Ohio GOP’s naked contempt for women. Our legislature (with the governor supposedly in full support) learned nothing from the thumping anti-choice candidates took coast to coast, and have rushed back into session to rehear two terrible bills which strip women of their autonomy and push them into poverty: the defunding of Planned Parenthood and the “Heartbeat” bill. That these legislators don’t really give a damn about the so-called “pre-born” is transparent in their failure to support pregnancy prevention bills and amendments to provide maternity health care (to say nothing of their failure to fund schools for these unwanted kids that will be born into poverty, since affluent women can always get contraception and abortions).
Maybe the legislature is too gerrymandered to punish the lawmakers, but angry women will be looking for someone to strike back at. These GOP clowns — especially Josh “The Empty Suit” Mandel, who hardly took positions on any issues except those attacking women — make great targets for their wrath. And women make up the bulk of the volunteer army. We’re spittin’ made and ready to go — to go after these people who think freedom to own guns is the only freedom worth defending.
snarky
Roldo , far too much strong hot beverage.
McConnell and Rhodes both share that porcine profile , and the majority of downstate republicans do know what a trough is , and how the bristly hogs snort and put their feet into something wet around feeding time.
snarky
The malaprops that ooze from the politicians mouths are mirrored in my prosaic attempts to capture the true spirit of politics in Ohio.
Roldo Bartimole
Thanks Anastasia. This wasn’t at all meant to be an exhaustive look
at the wrongs of Ohio Republicans. You point out another area of
ills of Ohio Republicans.
Maybe Cindy has the right idea: leave them to the self-destructive
path they seem eager to take.
snarky
Surreal is real in Ohio politics.
Roldo Bartimole
Benjamin: You are right that working class as such wasn’t much present. Obama talked about the middle class, which I think is supposed to be taken as the working class. Romney essentially put them in the 47 percent.
Worse, low income or poverty got even less attention – you might say none.
That’s not entirely the fault of candidates or politicians because we don’t talk much about it.
The news people have essentially ignored the problems of the poor. It’s only when the poor themselves, as, for example, part of the civil rights movement, act themselves.
Finally, I think the Supreme Court made money the major voice of the Presidential campaign and that sucked all the oxygen out of debate via TV commercials, hardly the vehicle of any good discussion.