Michael, it's time to row your boat to shore!

JOHN KASICH as been running around the state challenging Gov. Strickland to pledge that he would never-never-never-never raise taxes. It seems to me that Strickland's handlers need to inject some imagination into his non-response to Kasich's dare. (1) He could tell Kasich that he will come forward with a pledge, ridiculous though it may be, when the former Wall Street Republican self-defined gofer releases his 2009 income tax. (Did he get an even bigger bonus from bankrupt Lehman Brothers than in 2008? Don't know.) (2) He could respond cryptically by saying he would do what previous Ohio Republican governors have done in times of need. (3) He could simply say, "Read my lips" and be done with the pestering. Taxes? What, in the meantime would you call increases in state university tuition and the many fees being tacked on to high school students for activities and materials that once came with the territory? If that's all Kasich has got, he might have to be careful about what he is wishing for.

THERE ARE MOMENTS when I think Michael Steele is running the Republican National Committee like Harry Houdini. There are moments when I think he is as crazy as Glenn Beck without the tears. And then there are moments when I think he is a sly old street fox who is out to humiliate all of those rich white guys in the Republican Party. I'm not sure which of those were in play when he reportedly invited the right-wing hit man Andrew Breitbart to co-chair a reception for a RNC fund-raiser on August 12 in Beverly Hills. (Breitbart has just added another victim to his bloody toll - Shirley Sherrod - who was fired from the Ag Dept. by a grossly inattentive and shamefully soft-spined bureaucrat in the Obama Administration.")

It's torpedoes like Breitbart who are blowing hole in the Republican brand. On the other hand, it's possible he is, in fact, now the Republican brand.