John Kasich, the centrist ...not

Sandy Theis, the executive director of ProgressOhio, sent along a perfect cameo  of Gov. Kasich's Orwellian newspeak that captures his  huge reliance on cognitive dissonance in responding to the delicate issues of the day. Campaigning in New Hampshire, he described Roe v. Wade as the law of the land that we must live with. But the day before in Iowa,  he returned to his pro-life mode in a conversation with a woman:

Woman questioner: "In Ohio, I know half of the abortion centers closed.   Can you do that in the country if I vote for you?"
Kasich:  "We'll do our best, okay."

Not okay, guv.  It 's going to be a tough uphill presidential campaign anyway so you might as well come clean on your dedicated pro-life  position.  After all,  cheerleaders  who know you best, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and Ohio Right to Life boss Mike Gonidakis  have already called you the greatest pro-life governor  in America, boasting  that some of the state's toughest abortion restrictions have been signed into law by you. It has been, and will continue to be, in all of the papers as myth collides with reality.

And I didn't even mention your opposition to Planned Parenthood.

All of this leads me to a comment by Kent State University political science professor Danielle Sarver Coombs, in a speech this week at Akron Roundtable in which she referred to Kasich as a "centrist"  who could be the "last man standing".  Good grief.    A centrist who is in born-again lockstep with the Republican presidential field on most issues, calls for boots on the ground in Syria, opposed the stimulus package and auto bailout, is a charter school loyalist, ridicules public school  teachers and waffles mightily  on climate change.

On the latter, he says he  believes there is a problem but  doesn't think we should "overreact" to it, whatever the hell that means.  At the same time, he is part of a the group taking legal action against the EPA.

But as an "on the other hand" candidate, it has earned him plaudits from the gallery that on some hazy days  may be hard pressed to figure out what he really is at any given moment and settles for "centrist".

UA's Scarborough: Will he face immovable object?

Although one may be impressed with the recent arrival of University of Akron President Scott Scarborough as the new sheriff in town, his stern warnings to the management folks  might well develop into an irresistible force against an immovable object.

Telling an Akron Roundtable audience that he expects his  top people to show up at meetings on time, be positive in their work and pick up trash projected his role as a disciplinarian  running a sprawling well-paid and deeply entrenched team.

It's not uncommon for  a new face to lay out a change in the trajectory of what they inherit, but in this instance, challenged with debt, declining enrollment and the constant buzz on campus that there are too many long-term managers  settled into their posts at six figures, it can easily be inferred that the new prez was not happy with the first-team campus-scape that he found - and we're not talking about new buildings and trees.

It will be awhile to see whether it  works, no matter his needed Draconian call for teamwork and pride in a day's labors among the slow-moving parts.   But if you don't find some of the high -level campus operatives  picking up an empty  beer bottle on the way to their offices, it will tell you there are still miles to go for the irresistible force to triumph.

LaRose/Celeste civility crusade faces huge odds

Civility in  politics.  That's the laudable  goal of  two men who have engaged the subject with earnest hopes of  ending  the toxic trash talk by some politicians  and their dobermans within hearing range.

State Sen. Frank LaRose, the Copley Twp. Republican ,  and Ted Celeste, a Democrat who once served in the Ohio legislature, recently delivered  their ongoing bipartisan message to Akron Roundtable to lay out their vision of a gentler political class.

While commending them, I think the idea has as much chance of working in the real world as Rush Limbaugh confessing that he's a closet socialist.

Having worked the trenches of  political combat for more years than I care to remember, I bring to the witness stand no evidence that political discourse is anywhere near  the Sunday pulpit.  I can also report that it's  even worse in the back rooms and there's not a damn (Sorry!) thing anybody can do about it.  The stakes are too high, the partisan grievances too aflame. And since a black man entered the White House,  the notion that all men are created equal is too besieged to survive pervasive racism in the souls of some combatants who can't contain their primitive biases. I should add from all of that there are too few profiles in courage from wannabe achievers .

Has it ever been different?  Not really.  Should we  remind ourselves that in May 1856 Sen. Charles Sumner, Massachusetts Republican who opposed slavery, was savagely  caned on the Senate floor by Rep. Preston Brooks,  a  South Carolina  Democrat.

A half-century earlier in 1804, Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel (wouldn't TV have loved that one today?) In Fiorello LaGuardia's day, it was not uncommon to see his enemies quoted in the press assailing him as a "little Wop".   And much later, didn't Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican, erupt with a
"You lie!" as President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress?

Or how about Rep. Steve King's  reference to  Latino children with calves as  big as cantaloupes swollen with smuggled drugs.  Or Limbaugh calling a young woman a "Slut" because he knew he could.  Damn right he did.

Even as the congressional denizens refer to each other as "the distinguished senator  from...."  they  are already in gear to consign the colleague to hell.

You could fill a book.  And fill another book with  the incivility of politics that has become more than empty lore.

Now, up in Michigan,  the Republican national committeeman, Dave Agema, a nasty  human being to put it kindly,   continues to stir up his GOP nest with repeated sliming   of gays and Muslims, accusing gays of being "filthy" and the critics of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson's anti-gay remarks "LBGT Gestapo speech police."

Michigan's GOP National Committeeman said that?  

If LaRose/Celeste really want to dig into the problem with a living  target,  do you think they should invite Agema to lunch?  A very long lunch.

Sherrod Brown quickly out of the starting gate

SEN. SHERROD BROWN was in a campaign mode when he spoke at Akron Roundtable earlier this week. The luncheon audience packed the vast Quaker Station dining room with more than 500 Roundtable members and political guests. Seated directly in front of the dais were Democratic Reps. Betty Sutton and Tim Ryan, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, County Executive Russ Pry and FirstEnergy chief Anthony Alexander. It was the sort of turnout that would quicken the pulse of any campaigner.

From the podium, or working the crowd before and after, Brown didn't let the moment pass unheeded as he sets out to seek a second term in 2012. As elongated campaigns go these days, there's not a minute to take for granted.

The speech was largely from the hip, and stressed the accomplishments of the Obama Administration and Democrats during the lame duck session, with no harsh words for the Republican opposition. One of the criticisms of the Democrats was that they did an awful job of boasting of their successes. An unwavering liberal, Brown consistently and without apology supported the health care reform bill, the bailouts and the stimulus packages as well as a range of social issues that are anathema to the political right.

At 57, he retains a jauntily casual raspy-voiced approach to others that often belies the fact that he's dead serious about things that matter the most to his constituents.

In 2006, against the judgment of some of his supporters, he decided not to seek an eighth term as congressman from the 13th district. Instead, he challenged Republican Sen. Mike DeWine in what could have been a fool's errand. Brown won in a landslide. There's conjecture in the political campsites that the GOP will put up Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor for Brown 's senate seat, but others may want a piece of the action, too.

Republicans are on a roll this days and Brown can expect to be slammed with the usual right-wing trash talk. But even so, it would be premature to suppose that the Yale-educated blue-collar favorite is out of fashion. In politics, each day can be different from yesterday - and from tomorrow.

E.J. Dionne: Good news and bad news

E.J. DIONNE JR., the first-tier Washington Post columnist  with markedly  progressive tendencies,  brought good news and bad news to the lectern at the Akron Roundtable luncheon Thursday.  He was quick to remind one of the larger turnouts in the airy ballroom of the Tangier the economy is as bad as most of us know it is, but the happier side of great crises is that they often bring out the best in all of us.  In his opening remarks, he reflected on something that former  Defense Secretary William Cohen, a Republican who served in the Clinton cabinet during the span of the second term, once said about the unshakable  critics of government: "Government is your enemy until you need a friend."   

(What is it about those folks from Maine -  which Cohen  once served as a U.S. Senator - to be ahead of the Republican curve, as are Sens. Collins and Snowe, who are already being branded by some of  their GOP colleagues as adulterers?)  Speaking to an audience made up mostly from  business people and professionals,   many of whom would not be expected to show up at a Democratic dogs 'n suds event, Dionne was gentle in his circumspect criticism of the Republican congressmen and their very conservative outlook in using President Obama as a king-size dart board in these days of horrible national stress.  "I hope,"he said, "we will have a little more partisan respect..." in dealing across the aisle.

That, of course, remains to forever  be seen.   The bombast from  the Republican pols on the stimulus package cast them as little more than foolish cranks guided by  the cantankerous eruptions of Rush Limbaugh, whose legacy to broadcast journalism  is laced with such x-rated notions that Parkinson's Disease can be a put-on, or Glenn Beck, who dismissed autism as  99 pct. fakery.  Yet few of their disciples on Capitol Hill have had the courage to denounce such nonsense. Instead, we can all remember the dreadful Georgia  congressman who abjectly begged forgiveness from Limbaugh.  At the same time, another congressman,  Republican House whip Eric Cantor,  doesn't hesitate to throw rose petals at Limbaugh's feet. 

On a more clinical level by a keen political scientist, Dionne did say he was puzzled  by something that occurred in John McCain's presidential campaign.  He said he didn't understand why McCain left the campaign to head back to Washington to work on the economic crises.  "In so doing,"  Dionne noted,  McCain simply put his campaign "in the hands of a congress controlled by Democrats."    For Dionne, it was a failed decision that probably cost the Republican senator any hope of winning.

But to witness McCain's caustic attacks on Obama now, you'd think he was still hoping for a recount.   It doesn't make any sense to me.  He's trying to lay down a bunt after the other side just enjoyed a grand slam.