Private Kasich, friend of consultants

THIS MUCH CAN be said about Gov. Kasich's daily vow to create jobs in Ohio: He's a specialist in adding jobs for those folks who already have jobs.

His latest gambit is to hire a third - a third! - consultant to lay out the path to privatizing the Ohio Lottery Commission. The latest move by Private Kasich's team is a search for a gambling consultant to assure a smooth transition from public to private. Or as Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols explained it to the Plain Dealer a few days ago, to provide "top-to-bottom strategic review of the agency to ultimately determine whether privatizing should be considered and how to maximize the asset to the fullest."

Maximize the asset to the fullest? I wonder if that's how they talk among friends after hours when they want everyone to understand them.

The PD tells us that Team Kasich is already paying a Los Angeles Investment firm, Moelis & Co., on gambling taxes and fees. Then, too, it is paying another out-of-state firm,

Spectrum Gaming Group of Linwood, N.J., to "advise the governor on such things as whether Ohio should allow additional gambling beyond the lottery and the four casinos approved by the voters in 2009."

Consultants don't come cheap these days and it's possible that more money will be flowing out of Ohio for these companies than will come in as additional profits if the lottery is finally privatized. One thing is sure: From everything we've seen with Kasich's modus operandi so far for deep-pocketed political contributors and job-enriched cronies, them that have can expect to have...more.

A contract that served as Vick's salve

UNDERSTATED HEADLINE OF THE YEAR:

From the Huffington Post, referring to Eagles Quarterback Michael Vick's new $100 million contract:

Vick thankful for new 6-year contract

But Rushbo's lunacy does measure up

The headline in the Burlington (VT.) Free Press told us:

From Waterbury to Wilmington, Vermonters shocked by Irene's Destruction

And the story began:

Vermonters will need weeks to recover from Tropical Storm Irene that killed at least three people and left a trail of devastation from St. Johnsbury to Bennington. That sentiment is reverberating across Vermont, echoed by everyone from Gov. Peter Shumlin to shell-shocked homeowners victimized by the torrent.

Got that?

But here's the expurgated version from Morbidologist Rush Limbaugh, whose secluded studio suffered nary a drop of floodwater:

"I'll guarantee you Obama was hoping this was going to be a disaster as another excuse for his failing economy. If he's out there blaming tsunamis, blaming earthquakes, this one [was] made to order, but it just didn't measure up."

And across the land a couple of million Dittoheads gleefully nodded in approval. .

Nevertheless, from me, via self-acclamation, he will get the non-coveted Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award - as always, with Rushbo derangement, uncontested.

UPDATE; Northern New Jersey has worst flooding in 108 years; hundreds of thousands without electricity; much of Passaic cut off. As a political commentator, you're doing a heckuva job, Rushbo.

FURTHER UPDATE (FROM WEDNESDAY NEW YORK TIMES): "Hurricane Irene will most likely prove to be one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in the nation's history, and much of the damage might not be covered by insurance because so much of it was caused not by winds but by flooding, which is excluded from many standard policies. Industry estimates put the cost of the storm at $7 billion to $10 billion..."

Of hurricanes, locusts and Michele Bachmann

THE REPUBLICAN presidential candidates and their kin have been constructing their own Tower of Babble since Annie Oakley arrived from Alaska to lay waste to the Obama Administration. Sarah Palin and her wondrous reflections on everything not verified by textbooks have sort of been orbiting on the fringes of the current crop of carnivores, but it does lead you to wonder whether there isn't some truth to the peril of peaking too fast.

Meantime we've been treated to the grapes of wrath from everyone else carrying the banner of God, Jefferson Davis, Glenn Beck and Grover Norquist. (I've left some others out, but you surely get the idea.)

Some samples of this political theater of the absurd: The President will declare martial law (Mentioned prez candidate Sen. Jim DeMint, South Carolina Republican) ; The federal government should be "inconsequential'', hotshot (hot flash?) meteor Rick Perry; Obama is overreaching by encouraging children to exercise (Fox & Friends, presidential "advisors".) Obama is only interested in creating class warfare instead of jobs (House Majority leader Eric Cantor) ; Obama is a Communist, socialist and elitist because he put Dijon mustard on his hamburger. (Ready choir?)

And just now, candidate Michele Bachmann has plaintively lamented in response to the hurricane: "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians."

If you don't mind, Michele, I presume we still have to get to the frogs, lice and locusts. I don't even want to wait for the movie.

Steve Jobs: No focus groups for me

IT WAS GOOD to read that retiring Apple genius Steve Jobs dismissed focus groups as the source of his success. As reported by the New York Times, Jobs said "his own study and intuition, not focus groups, were his guide. When a reporter asked what market research went into the iPad, Mr. Jobs replied: 'None. It's not the consumers' job to know what they want.'"

Forget the elitist tinge to that remark. When someone was as impressive in his work as Steve Jobs, there's no point in raising silly questions about something as trivial as focus groups.

Allow me to speak from personal experience. In their search for a life raft to the next generation, the media have been inviting groups to sit around in conference rooms to tell the editors how newspapers should do their jobs. It's all very collegial and home-townish that, for all of the confidence in unprofessional newspaper readers, it hasn't changed a thing other than to make editors, for a brief moment, at least, feel like they've done something very positive to connect the paper to the community.

Back in my newspaper days, I made the anti -focus group argument more than once, only to lose it every time. Maybe it came down to ego. I never thought that a group of well-meaning readers could tell me more about my business than a person with a backache could tell a doctor how to treat it. Such special, if never perfect, knowleddge of our trade is why we showed up for work in the news room each day rather than at the local bank or shoe store.

Besides, the focus group's advice was largely anecdotal and we had heard it all many times before: too much bad news , biased political coverage, the paper wasn't always delivered to your doorstep on time, etc. etc. etc. Editors thought it best to hear these complaints at intervals to persuade our invited handfuls of guests that we really cared about what they wanted, even when they often disagreed among themselves about what it was that we should be doing to satisfy them. Largely, it was a feel-good approach with fleeting benefits.

The only daily clue to a newspaper's mission lies in its first four letters: news.. Today the media don't need a focus group to remind anybody that as the papers shrink so do the number of news room employees who are supposed to cover the news. It is a dead-end practice that no focus group can change. Unfortunately there is no Steve Jobs around to be of any help.

Everybody but the candidates are on the dole

IF YOU'VE been following the herd of Republican presidential candidates on their appointed rounds, you might conclude from their words that the only people in America who aren't on the public dole are the candidates themselves, their families and a lot of their cronies. If they all weren't self-made success stories bred in log cabins, they at least understood the virtues of rejecting a helping hand from the government and rose by their own undeniable wits and work ethic, by God, while the rest of us stood in line to eat cake.

Mitt Romney seemed to speak for the others in the field when he declared,

"Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. It's time to stop the spread of government dependence and fight it like the poison it is."

As a proven flip-flopping tongue-twister on the stump, Mitt takes a risk every time he utters more than a word or two to demonstrate how responsibly presidential he is.

As J.D. Salinger's dippy and depressed young man, Holden Caulfield, regularly referred to whatever was happening around him, the GOP/Tea Party dialogue is all "crap". And it is being spread around by some people who, whether they win or lose the party nomination, will never miss a meal if their own set of wealthy benefactors have anything to say about it .

This leads me to the latest phenom in the cast, Rick Perry. Here's a fellow , the great denouncer, who may yet find a way to declare the Texas drought to be an Obama creation now that fervent prayers haven't worked down there. Perry has declared Social Security and Medicare and a lot of other Federal stuff to be unconstituonal and, like Romney, believes the money is ill-spent to foster dependency. It is all part of his grand scheme to make the federal government "inconsequential".

A word or two about dependents: As the New York Times editorially pointed out,

"There are nearly 600 boards, commissions, authorities and departments in Texas, many of which are of little use to the public and and should have been shut down or consolidated. They are of great use to the governor, who more than any predecessor has created thousands of potential appointments for beneficent backers and several pro-business funds that have been generous to allies."

In return for Perry's generosity to his friends, they have given "more than a fifth of the $83 million " he garnered for his gubernatorial campaigns. Call it what you like, but I'd say he's living quite handsomely on these princely doles.

And let's not ignore Ohio 's role in cutting the government pursestrings from the people most in need. The most flagrant esxample of late is Gov. Kaisch's dismissal of $176 million in

federal stimulus money to expand unemployment benefits. Kasich, of course, wants you to believe that he is the David facing up to Goliath in his commitment to creating jobs. But as it has been reported more than once, many of the state's new jobs have been awarded to the governor's friends in his cabinets and on boards and commissions (as well as lobbyists).

Meanwhile, while Kasich boasts of his no-tax spirit, the problems of sustaining local services and school districts have taken on a dismal life of their own. In Northern Ohio alone, there will be 112 tax issues on the November ballot alone. That will pit the irresistible force of local costs against the immovable object of the Kasich era.

Unfortunately, nobody has figured out how to pay for the services that people want - but aren't convinced that they should pay for them.

But oil companies don't want to drill-baby-drill!

FROM A READER comes a report via Politico that Michelle Bachmann is promising to lower the cost of gasoline to below $2. Of course, that's her facile way of blaming President Obama for today's gas prices as she she trots around her carefully managed ecosystem as a fully clothed Lady Godiva in pursuit of the presidency.

It was her right of passage into South Carolina's conservative audiences, which were made aware of her unyielding support of domestic oil drilling. But as my source noted:

"Why does Bachmann think the oil companies are interested in investing billions just so they can LOWER the price of gas a buck & a half a gallon? The companies already own thousands of leases on land they're not drilling. For a free market capitalist she has no idea on how things work. Moron.''

Bada-Bing!

Meet Rick Perry, the "miswriting" author

WHEN SEN. JON KYL wrongly accused Planned Parenthood of spending more than 90 pct. of its money on abortion services, he was roundly booed. After all, the Arizona Republican IS a senator and should be expected to know what he is talking about. To make matters worse Kyl's press aide insisted that his boss's words "were not meant to be a factual statement ". As for Kyl, he conceded that he "misspoke" and wanted to move on.

That comes to mind as Texas Gov. Rick Perry is taking another route to distance himself from his pre-candidate book, Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington. It wasn't that long ago that he was out there autographing it for his fans.

His communication aide, desperately reaching for damage control on Perry's treatise, said the book was "not meant to reflect the governor's current views."

Life is short, so I haven't read the book, nor do I intend to. But from others' accounts, I am told that Perry slammed many of the New Deal programs - including child labor laws and Social Security - as being "unconstitutional."

Well, is he now prepared to disavow that? Or has he added a new twist to political missteps by wanting us to believe that as an author, he "miswrote" his vision of what ails America?

Tsk. Tsk. I would say that as a candidate he should soon learn that many folks will soon tire of his illogical rants. But that would assume that he is capable of any logic at all.

After all, he IS a governor.

Is the Ohio right-to-work debacle only old news?

MORE THAN a half century ago, the anti-union establishment in Ohio (do I have to name it?) decided it was time to end closed union shops by adding a right-to-work amendment to the state constitution. With an arrogant dismissal of organized labor's bread-and-butter proprietary claim to guard its membership rolls, the pro-right-to-work team propelled the issue to the November ballot.

The result was - or should have been - a defining moment in labor relations in Ohio. The proposed amendment was swamped by more than a million votes (63-37) in what was described by the Plain Dealer at the time as the widest margin of defeat that any ballot issue had ever suffered in Ohio.

The consequences were even more severe for leading Republican officeholders. Among the losers on the November ballot were the governor, Bill O'Neill, who actively supported the amendment; and presumed unbeatable conservative icon, Sen. John Bricker, who opposed it as political suicide. That, too, describes the late Ray Bliss, then-Ohio Republican chairman who saw it as a death warrant for the GOP ticket. (Such political wisdom is absent today in the governor's office as well as at the county level, where the party is managed by alleged Bliss disciple Alex Arshinkoff, a Kasich soldier to the core.)

The defeat of right-to-work was one of the GOP's darkest days in Ohio's political history.

That was 1958. I was a young reporter for the Columbus Citizen and as the results came in there were worried glances among the paper's top editors, and then shock over the overwhelming size of the issue's defeat. Within a day or so, Jack Keller, the managing editor, sent a memo to the city desk calling for greater coverage of the city's unions, from hard news to features. It was a damage-control concession that the paper had been less than attentive to the voice of labor. Other than occasional reports that union membership has shrunk, the media remain indifferent to the workaday world of a unionist on the national TV news panels and the local business pages. (Have I overlooked evidence to prove me in error?)

Well, here we are in 2011 and if the polls are wildly correct, Kasich & Co. - even with enormous resources ready to be tapped from anti-union treasuries from across the land (think, the Koch

brothers) - can expect to lose a rousing battle. The governor is counting on his two favorite newspapers, the Plain Dealer and Columbus Dispatch, to orchestrate the narrative in the coming months in which we will be frequently reminded that it's hurtful to the state to go forward with the Senate Bill 5 repeal campaign after the governor offered a compromise. Lost in the dire warnings is the simple truth that it was the Kasich union-busting culture that created the whole mess in the first place. Whatever else it might have been, it was bad politics. What could he and his legislative buddies have been thinking?

Really, folks - would a brash and self-centered cowboy like the governor be talking about a compromise if he expected the repeal to be a loser in November? It's possible, of course, that he never really expected the leaders of the public-union repeal to the public at large. Or so it might be argued. But, as expected, it's the repeal advocates who are now being accused of playing politics. Please.

A long time ago, a savvy Ray Bliss had it right and his warnings went unheeded. Is there nobody in the governor's office today who comes close to having it right?

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.