Why is API spending money on this guy?

KEEP AN eye on Sen. Rob Portman, the so-called Republican "moderate" from Cincinnati, who is swinging hard to the right with the aid of outfits like the American Petroleum Institute, the mega lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. The API has been plugging Portman in TV ads that say he won't raise taxes. Read: He's on API's side on energy issues.

Why would it be spending money being goody-goody to a senator who still has 5 years remaining in his term? Could Portman be API's inside choice for the GOP s national ticket, say, at least as veep. Of course he could. You don' spend a lot of money on a guy who isn't running for reelection for years. In other words, he's a perfect fit for API's interests.

As one high ranking Democrat told me: "Portman wants to be the vice presidential candidate so bad that he can taste it." There is also the Kasich gambit. Gov. Kasich has been trying to position himself for the party's national ticket since the first day he stepped into the governor's office. It put him at serious odds with Portman. But Kasich has seen his fortune diminish as quickly as a candle in a windstorm with his clumsy move to destroy collective bargaining by public workers.

Portman, meanwhile, continuës to reinforce his attachment to the party's right wing, voting down the line with his GOP colleagues. His name is buried in the roll call but his vote is solidly anti-anti-Obama on every issue - this, from a guy who was George W. Bush's budget advisor.

Of late, he's been declaring his opposition to the proposed appointment of Richard Cordray to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - another target of the right. The plan to the GOP convention is unfolding. But let's see no more references to Portman as a "moderate."

Latest poll: Kasich would lose by 25 pts!

THE LATEST poll numbers indicate that buyer's remorse has locked on Gov. Kasich. The survey by national pollster PPP (Public Policy Polling) are so dismal for the governor that it would require a turnaround Federal bailout to rescue his effectiveness as the state's chief executive, bombastic sheriff and scowler. Life, I'm sure, was so much simpler for him in the shadows of his Wall Street days.

Now for the numbers: The pollster said that if Kasich were to run against former Gov. Ted Strickland, he would lose by 25 points - 59 pct. to 34 pct.. Of course, he won't be running against anybody but himself for another three and a half years so all of us will be forced to share the burden of having him around to witness his behavior. But Kasich's instant meltdown could have serious effects on other Republicans in the state who choose politics as a means to make a living.

Faced with a rising tide of dissent among Independents and Democrats (and even those disenchanted Republicans who are suffering in silence these days), Kasich is unlikely to change course and refine his blustery style. May I remind you that he's the guy who called a cop an idiot and threatened to run the bus over anybody who disagreed with him?

I will now await any charge from a Republican who believes that I've just wrongly thrown Kasich under the bus. C'mon, you helped put him in office. Shouldn't you now circle the wagons?

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More bad news re Planet Kasich

OUR VOW TO keep you up-to-date on news re Planet Kasich comes to you today via the Columbus Dispatch. Although Gov-elect Kasich is not yet Gov. Kasich, he's already cost the state thousands of jobs and $400 million. The paper reports that Gov. Strickland has received word from Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood that money designated for a high-speed passenger rail system in Ohio has been has been shifted to several other states in the wake of Kasich's avowed opposition to the plan.

Kasich says he will pursue his own job-creating agenda, which he never defined in his campaign and still doesn't. Said Strickland of the setback to Ohio's struggling economy: : "Today is one of the saddest days during my four years as governor."

Kasich's behavior is looking more like the bull in the China shop. No surprise there.

Whirlpool: Sorry Indiana, we're off to Mexico

WHILE ARIZONA IS engaged in a zealous full-court press against illegal Mexican immigrants, Whirlpool will close its refrigerator plant in Evansville, Ind., tomorrow (Friday) and move the operation to a new plant in....Mexico. Meantime, the move will cost 1,100 Whirpool workers their jobs in Evansville, where the plant had been operating since 1956. The company said it was " uncompetitive from a cost standpoint." Critics of the move have pointed out that Whirlpool had received $19.3 million in stimulus money to strengthen its, eh... resources. A thought: If enough U.S. companies follow Whirlpool to Mexico, will we have found a solution to the immigration problem, if not the U.S. unemployment problem?

Bonehead-of-the week is Rob Nichols, GOP gubernatorial candidate John Kasich's press secretary, Rob Nichols, who said this of Gov. Strickland in a press release:

"Not until Ted Strickland feared needing their votes did he give urban Ohioans a second thought. Having grown up in a chicken shack on Duck Run, he has all but ignored our cities economies and their workers."

Yes, the governor did spend some of his childhood living in a chicken coop because of family poverty. But even though Nichols' perspective is the view from Wall Street via Kasich, he's still worth a Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) Award. Or should it have gone to Kasich, himself, who said he was "not part of the chorus" in northern Ohio who wants James to stay in Cleveland.

A WEEK TO GO and LeBron is keeping the sports media and fandom on edge about his plans. Heavens. (I think he should remain here.) The tension seems to be increasing as free agency day nears. What will the hitherto mentioned sports media do for news in July other than another Browns training camp filled with optimism? Back to LeBron: It's like the countdown moments when the Russian ships were heading to Cuba against President Kennedy's blockade. Will the story end happily? Or will the Cavaliers be doomed?

President Obama appears to have gained a few points (some grudgingly) as a man of action in firing Gen. McCrystal, following in the footsteps of Lincoln (Gen. McClellan) and Truman (Gen. MacArthur). The same can't be said about Congress, where Republicans and half-hearted Democrats have yet to find a substantive issue that they can't butcher to death. And these guys and gals are paid well to be dysfunctional, including plenty of cash from lobbyists.

GOP's Kevin DeWine: A tidy partisan talk

AS POLITICAL SPEECHES GO these days, Kevin DeWine's talk at the Akron Press Club was a rather tidy affair. The Ohio Republican chairman was in a mood to keep his comments on the safe side of today's outrageous rhetoric from his GOP teammates on Capitol Hill, offering the standard party talking points to the smallish audience in the Martin Center, maybe half of which were Bliss Institute students, the co-sponsor of the uneventful event. Considering the fact that he didn't call President Obama a Nazi or a socialist, who could be put off by his routine partisanship in this election year?

Still, some thoughts:

Like many of his GOP brethren, he resorted simply to criticizing the health care reform law as a $1 trillion initiative. I would bet there are many Americans who hear that astronomical number and shiver. Trouble is, many of these same folks may also believe that the trillion will be spent next month when, in fact, it is spread over ten years, matching the cost of the Iraq war. Indeed, the Bush Administration preferred to keep that cost on a separate budget, out of sight of a nosy taxpayer or two.

He may be dreaming when he says the Tea Partiers and the Republican Party have much in common and he would welcome them into his party. At the moment, it may be more accurate to wonder whether Tea Partiers would ever welcome Republicans into their ranks. Nevertheless, DeWine said nothing that would rankle the TPs.

Insisting that Obama's poll numbers have fallen two years before the mast, he might have been reminded that so did Ronald Reagan's at the same point in the recessional early 1980s. I think Reagan's approval rating was 42 pct. When the economy is sour, so are the voters.

Finally, as he is paid to do, he gingerly defended John Kasich's notion to eliminate the state income tax, which provides 40 pct. of the state revenue, saying Kasich didn't mean that he would do it immediately but instead would look at the entire budgetary limits first. If not immediately, then when? Indeed, Kasich isn't very clear about where he would cut the budget to avoid deficits.

Oh, there was a call for Republicans to return to their core values and support lower taxes and smaller government. He did turn to repeated use - in case you missed it the first time - of the term "skyrocketing taxes". Whatever happened to plain old "taxes" to arouse the voters?

He also predicted a big comeback for Republicans in November. No surprise there. What's a party chairman for?

Ohio: Half-full, or half-empty?

AN EMAIL from a former Ohioan now living in Virginia as an official of Virginia Tech:

  "You know, I love Ohio and I love my fellow Ohioans, but sometimes not so much.  This is embarrassing, just embarrassing."

   She had just witnessed a filmed account of some of the snarling attacks on Obama at a recent McCain rally in Strongsville.  I, too, cringed when I saw one young woman in particular tipping the balance to insanity (not the idiotic one who complained to McCain that his opponent was an "Arab"!) Well, as the cleaned-up saying goes, Life happens. 

    As a so-called swing state, Ohio has  made the difference in presidential campaigns to such an extent that Republicans insist that if they lose Ohio, they lose the presidency. But its political character rests so much on a deeply divided electorate that it isn't likely to resolve itself in the November election.  This was confirmed by a  newly published statewide poll by a  consortium of state newspapers that gave Obama a comfortable lead in the northern northern tier of the state but but a double-digit advantage for McCain in southwest Ohio.   The split, which I encountered for years as a political writer venturing down to the Ohio River with candidates,  is best viewed as one of social identities:  The lower half of the state continues to share the Appalachian culture of its  neighbors, Kentucky and  West Virginia.  They are inseparable. Include in the mix a thriving Christian conservative  Southern-style ol' time religion and, well, you can ask what chance does a middle-of-the-road to liberal politician have? Not much.  So do not ask for whom Ohio votes, ask instead where it votes and hope that at the end of the day  your side outnumbers theirs.  

      If Ohio goes for McCain, it will again stupefy the experts on how a state with a marooned economy and silent factories can't turn the page in the voting booth to look for new possibilities.  I'm not an expert, but I will be stupefied, too.