Kasich, DeWine create jobs- for themselves!

IF EVER AN election was preordained - or God's will, as some of the victors will call it - Tuesday's results will do nicely for a class in Politics 101. For some time, the national pundits had been convinced that life, as the Democrats once knew it, was over. The economy, a bottomless supply of campaign money, Tea Party hysterics and a determined assault on President Obama's policies from the board rooms of powerful corporate interests were a deadly brew for the party in temporary power. It was even worse in Ohio, where Cuyahoga County woke up each morning to more evidence of Democratic corruption, Gov. Strickland was burdened with a serious recession not of his own making in a state where manufacturing jobs had already been vanishing back in the years when Republicans had long controlled everything in Columbus but the course of the Scioto River..

As a so-called swing state, Ohio also finds a way to eat its young, as it did in the defeat of Atty. Gen. Richard Cordray, one of its most promising younger voices, to a bland Republican

retread, Mike DeWine, who came along for ride because as a once-defeated U.S. senator, he needed a job. (And so much for the unanimous scintillating major newpaper endorsements of Cordray!)

At the national level, it does discourage optimism for the nation's future when John Boehner says, yeah, we'll work with Obama but only if we don't compromise any Republican principles. It sounds like the comment that has often been attributed to Nikita Khrushchev that "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."

Or how about Mitch McConnell's pledge that the GOP's top priority was to make Obama a one-term president - this from the Senate minority leader who couldn't even get his own man nominated in Kentucky's Republican primary.

Well, it's now up to the Republicans in Ohio and across the land to see what they can do to turn the economy around by reducing the budget deficit and cutting taxes at the same time. If they seriously believe it can be done that will qualify them for the White Queen's boast to Alice in Through the Looking- Glass that she could believe six impossible things before breakfast.

FOOTNOTES: There was one bright spot in Ohio on Tuesday: Democratic Rep. Betty Sutton's convincing defeat of Tom Ganley, the conservative auto dealer who once had boasted that he would put up $6 million of his own money for his campaign. The moral: Even successful businessmen make bad investments ....

Some talk around town centers on Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's future now that he will claim to be a preeminent force ($$$ ) in Kasich's election. Some say that Arshinkoff will have less of a chance getting a job in the new administration than getting appointed to the University of Akron Board of Trustees, a position he once held. If so, it will be fun to watch how that plays out.

Scary signs of the times: Tea Party Republican Carl Paladino's snarling appearance before his crowd with a baseball bat after he was thrashed in the New York gubernatorial race by Democrat Andrew Cuomo. Paladino , a wealthy real estate developer, vowed he would return, and waved the bat that would serve as his weapon.

GOYAesque: The squareoff between Sutton and Ganley

THERE WAS quite a contrast between two p0litical events in our area last week, the Summit County Republican Finance Dinner staged behind closed doors at the Akron West Hilton and a wide open fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton at the United Steelworkers Local 21 Hall on Kelly Ave. The first event charged at least $250 per plate for the hundreds of local GOPers who attended; the latter at the union hall asked for $25 and featured bottled water and boxed pizzas. Talk about breeds apart!

The two events clearly defined the opposites that will be projected in the contest between Democrat Betty Sutton, a favorite of organized labor, and Republican Tom Ganley, the wealthy auto dealer who is blanketing the 13th District with his TV auto ads for his 32 dealerships.

In his speech to the Akron Press Club last October, Ganley reminded his audience that he was an ordinary guy from a middle class family in Cleveland whose father was a mechanic and mother a waitress. It was his way of taking a little of the shine off his personal Midas-like bankroll, more than $6 million of which reportedly will be spent on this campaign. Sutton, a lawyer, grew up in Barberton in a family whose father was blue-collar. She won't come close to matching her opponent, dollar for dollar.

So the greater issue in the hall was how much impact Ganrley's money will have on the campaign. Moreover, will the Democrats get out their people to vote this year. They aren't taking chances, several of the union speakers headed by USW International President Leo Gerard bluntly called out the troops in the indelicate language that was current in the days of URW President Pete Bommarito and continues to ricochet in the rafters today.

If Sutton is to win, he declared forcefully , then those in the hall must "GET OFF YOUR ASS."

It's the sort of indelicately blunt talk that has long resonated in the union halls and brought cheers from the listeners. In this instance, the audience included Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, Summit County Executive Russ Pry and Sen. Sherrod Brown, as well as a number of labor leaders from northeast Ohio. Informality was the standard for the evening.

There was some mention of Sutton's leadership in the Cash for Clunkers program that Ganley trashed while showing a multimillion dollar profit from it. I suspect there will be more of that theme as the campaign progresses. For now, there will be the repeated reminders to GET OFF YOUR ASS and work for Sutton.

Come to think of it, that demand serves perfectly as the acronym for the Spanish painter GOYA. He painted some troubling scenes including one large series of prints that he captioned "The sleep of reason produces monsters." He was a great artist, but how could he have imagined what we're witnessing in campaigns from coast to coast?