Ohio papers lay out welcome mat for Kasich

It's been a terrible year for mainstream establishment newspapers. They  have faced endorsement options of death by   hanging or  by firing squad (Trump, Cruz) or by a happy wanderer (Kasich)  who  is the son of a mailman who has been trying to part the waters with his vision of the Pearly Gates.

So with  Tuesday's Ohio primaries approaching,  the Beacon Journal and Plain
Dealer (as well as a majority of the other Buckeye papers) urged Republican voters to support Gov. Kasich  with hospitable home state praise while ignoring many of his  warts.

I know.  They will argue that they had little choice, which, in this instance ignored the option of endorsing nobody.  The PD editorial writers  described their man as "an experienced leader who understands the art of compromise"  and a "compassionate conservative".

 Not really. Particularly for things  that matter the most to women,  gays, Planned Parenthood, schools, urban  budgets and climate change. Etc.

The BJ was a tad testier.

Although  conceding that  the  governor's hyper-self serving vision of his state "departs in many ways from  reality,"  it credits him with being "more the problem solver"   and concludes that he would be the "best candidate now in the mix to emerge  in July at the national party convention".

Aside from his squishy attitude toward climate change, moving back and forth on the topic, there's also his absurd views on public education.  He has said that since Ohio's charter schools, which are among the worst in the nation,  have worked so well, we might consider "charter  universities".

Please.  The University of Akron already has more problems than it is willing to admit.

Now I ask: Should "no endorsement" be an option rather than trying to create something from nothing?

The Dispatch endorses Kasich for reelection!

The Columbus Dispatch, the bellwether of conservative chatter in Upper Arlington and other spiffy  Republican enclaves, sent a Happy New Year greeting  to Gov. Kasich on Sunday that could easily pass for an endorsement for  the guv's reelection campaign of 2014.

You might ask, "What's the hurry?" Well, in the Dispatch's case, it's never too early to safely  ferry home its politician of choice in a major editorial -  long before anybody even knows the name of his eventual Democratic opponent.

Actually the paper's  enthusiasm for Kasich,  the fellow it endorsed the last time, covered so many positives that we can only conclude that it would take the Wright Brothers to invent any new ones that would rise to greater heights.   Rather than wade through a series of exclamatory compliments in the Dispatch's stargazing passages, you  can quickly get the point in the opening paragraph:

"For Ohio and the governor, 2012 has been a transformative year.  John Kasich sped through his second year with his trademark zeal for getting done the big and difficult things, hardly skipping a beat after  his 2011  reforms stabilized the state."

Also,

"The man who once balanced the federal budget, line by line, took a scalpel to the Buckeye spending plan and erased the deficit without raising taxes.  He launched reforms of Medicaid, prisons and job-killing red tape."

It goes on with goose-bumping accolades for Kasich's  education reforms and initiatives for roadbuilding, job growth and balanced budget.

On that last point it was never mentioned the teeniest that part of the balancing act was the  convenience of stripping the school budget by more than $1 billion and, reports  Plunderbund, cutting 50 pct. of the local government fund in his 2013 budget. Public school cuts in teaching staffs, and local school tax levies,  have become commonplace.

Finally, the greatest excision from the governor's  fanfare for his jobs record is acknowledgement of any credit to a growing  national economy and the Obama administration's revival of the auto industry that saved  saved thousands of jobs in Ohio.

The Dispatch did concede  that none of the governor's good deeds rank as highly as the fact that his "most critical accomplishment...rests in the hearts of the many Ohioans who again have hope"  that happier days are here again.

Is it gross to mention that the Dispatch also endorsed George W. Bush and Mitt Romney?

Kasich's silent jobs role in JobsOhio campaign

If you happened to see the full-page ad in Sunday's Beacon Journal  that trumpets a thriving economy  in Ohio, you can safely assume  that even though he wasn't mentioned, Gov. Kasich is off and running  for reelection.

The message appearing in a seven-figure campaign in newspapers and on TV  throughout the state is quite clearly a feel-good benefit for Kasich that is underwritten by the Kasich- inspired JobsOhio, the private non-profit outfit that now serves as the state's development department.

Not much else is known about JobsOhio inasmuch as its records remain in private hands and not available to public scrutiny.

In fact, JobsOhio is not even mentioned in the current ads.  Rather, readers and viewers  are referred to ThriveInOhio.com, which urges them  to respond with stories of business success that "changed your life" in the state.

"Right here in Ohio, we're making things better. Faster. Smarter," the ad boasts.

 "In the past year alone, Ohio businesses have created more jobs than almost every other state."

The timing is perfect  for Kasich's reelection launch.    Mitt Romney is no longer hanging around the swing state complaining about how much President Obama has destroyed the economy  - an annoyance for the governor who was offering  a much more optimistic outlook under his command.

Secondly, there's a better than average chance that as the economy continues to grow natioanally, the Obama Administration will upstage the governor on recovery in America.

At least one of Kasich's potential opponents is having none of such claims in the Ohio ads.  Democrat Ed FitzGerald, the Cuyahoga County Executive,  has challenged the jobs campaign as a "waste of taxpayer dollars" to elect Kasich.

For the guv's opponents, it's a start.

Kasich: From bluster to, eh, humble servant

WHEN JOHN KASICH stormed into the governor's office last January, he wanted to leave no doubt that Ohio was at the dawn of a Brave New World. He had long studied the state and decided it was not good. A swashbuckler to the core, he warned anybody that dared stand in his way that " If you think you're going to stop us, you're crazy. You will not stop us. We will beat you. ...If you are not on the bus, we'll run over you with the bus. And I'm not kidding."

He also described a cop who arrested him on a traffic charge as an "idiot" Bellowing it a couple of more times for Kasich-style emphasis. Oh, and he demanded an apology from teachers unions - calling for a full-page ad - for what they said about him during the campaign.

It was pure performance art by a blustering new kid on the block who was acting as though he had won the job by acclimation rather than a slim plurality. Having spent the previous 7 or 8 years as a managing director of Lehman Brothers - which tanked - Kasich, a Republican, could not dissociate a steely Wall Street can-do no-questions-asked culture from his new role at the top of the state's political heap.

So it is laughable - a giant political miscalculation , really - that what was good for the Wall Streeters and Fox News, where he had his own show that could not be held accountable for facts, that he is now down on his knees calling for a compromise with a lot of folks who challenged his bus. Yes, a compromise with this guy?

Kasich and his cohorts in the legislature, brazenly stuck a dagger into the heart of public unions without expecting a roaring reaction. With all signs pointing to the November repeal of Senate Bill 5 , the law that severely sheared public employe unions, Kasich is now a humble servant, calling for a compromise before the voters get a crack at 1t. Her said he was only being reasonable for the sake of the state's sanity. He also noted that he was influenced by editorials in the Columbus Dispatch and Cleveland Plain Dealer calling for compromise.

Both papers endorsed his candidacy and were quick to give his appeal heavy coverage. Surprise, surprise.

The governor's second miscalculation was to bring up the subject now. The law's opponents, We Are Ohio , have stood fast with 1.2 million signatures on their petitions to repeal the law. There would be no point in giving him a face- saving escape hatch. As Joe Green, the Hall of Famer of the Pittsburgh Steelers, once explained the route to victory:

"When you got your opponent down, you gotta keep him down."

And Mean Joe wasn't kidding either. But with him, it's not boasting if you can do it.

13 million? Soon we will be talking about big money

13 million...Dollars that is.

Remember that number and paste it on your refrigerator.

13 million.

Add the figure to your song in the shower.

13 million.

Stick it in the beginning, middle and end of your evening vespers.

13 million.

Repeat it to the clerk at the checkout counter.

13 million.

Write it on a blank greeting card to your Republican state senator.

13 million.

Enter it on your Facebook page.

13 million.

Post it on the door of the headquarters of your Republican county chairman.

13 million!!!!

That's the quaint payoff by Team Kasich to a New York consultant to close the deal in cash-poor Ohio on those casinos in Ohio - a deal, which the slickest of governors described as a "win for all involved". However, I would caution you that it was a deal that seems to have involved no sweat equity. Although the figure has been reported in the press many times, it was Brent Larkin's column in today's Plain Dealer that again reminded us of its folly . It was the sort of work, Larkin wrote, "that a bright , well prepared fifth grader could have performed as a homework assignment."

13 million.

Once you move beyond Kasich's boasts about the brutal budget-balancing slashes in the state budget, there's an entirely different universe out there. In Ohio it's known as megacronyism in which no expense is spared to serve the opportunists who show up at the governor's door each day.

Even the casino deal enriched the four casino owners at the state's expense as they were given more than they were prepared to argue for. That, too, brought puffy huzzahs from Kasich. It's how they add two and two to get five on Wall Street, where the governor spent too many impressionable years.

In early Rome, tradition called for honoring military heroes with something called The Triuimph, in which the honorees often in bejeweled robes and fancy headresses were paraded through the streets for two days to the cheers of the citizenry. A few more boastful triumphs by Kasich and the hour will be upon us to watch him paraded through downtown Columbus to the cheers of his personal melange of beneficiaries.

And when one of his friends steps forward to propose a marble statue on the statehouse grounds, there will soon be a statue.

In his own gruff way, Kasich is nothing if he can't boast of phony triumphs - this from the fellow who is trying to convert a small plurality in last November's elections to victory by acclimation.

13 million.

I can't explain it; maybe your Republican county chairman, who is reaping the rewards of being an enabler in Team Kasich, can.

But be sure to mention...

13 million.

P.S I neglected to mention that you can be a charter member of my 13 Million Club. Unlike the schemes of the money-changers in Columbus, this transaction won't cost you a dime.