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".

Kasich's hidden basketball trick

No one executes the hidden ball trick - no one - more often  than Gov. Kasich.  From his swift demolition  of former  Ohio GOP chief Kevin DeWine  to bring in  an eco-friendly  crony (Matt Borges)...to Jobs/Ohio...to his friendly appointments to state boards without fanfare, the governor has shown there's nothing too politically sticky that can't be explained by his K-squad.

The latest example arrived by way of Plunderbund, which noted that three of his appointments to the Ohio State Medical Board are avidly anti-abortion with some anti-genetic counseling tossed in.  We're not entirely clear on what Kasich would say, for example,  about the so-called heartbeat bill because he has yet to take a position.  He also was no more than a shadowy figure in the run-up to the anti-union vote on House Bill 5.  In that instance, however, he was said to be  exchanging strategy  with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who left no doubt about his opposition to public unions. As we wrote earlier, the GOP high command  is urging sponsors of right-to-work  legislation to remain silent until after next year's election. Cool.

Did I mention genetic  counseling?  It is the purely neutral expert counseling to couples  about any genes in the couple's history that could lead to problems to a newborn. The pro-life people see such counseling as the gateway to abortions, expertise or no expertise. Ohio Right to Life chief Mike Gonidakis, a Kasich appointee,  even wondered during a board meeting whether such counselors could scare couples into making bad decisions.

Meantime, the neutral governor has presided quietly  as the legislature busily engaged in more abortion restrictions.

Kasich's problem is hidden ball tricks are rarely  used in baseball anymore and are not very successful.  His ball is an outsize baskteball that should be apparent anybody paying even casual attention these days.

Pols posing as doctors may force medical school closure.

Let me begin the week by forwarding the troubling word that with so many Ohio Republican lawmakers posing as physicians in advancing their bizarre medical certainties on abortion,  the Ohio State University College of Medicine has suffered a severe drop in enrollment and may close.  Officials say that so many young people  now believe that if you can play doctor in the Ohio legislature,  why spend all of that money on a formal education?

The GOP CAN keep them down on the farm

A few people (probably Republicans) have  wondered why I frequently refer to the
GOPers running the Ohio legislature as "rustics". Being old-fashioned enough to believe that a picture is worth a thousand words, I again refer to the official photo logo adorning the top of every official press  release from the Ohio Republican Party as the symbol of the party of regressives.   I don't see a single skyline of an Ohio city nor an urban thoroughfare.    Simply a barn and silo.  Tell me that "rustic" doesn't befit the ordinary Republican politicians, even the ones who live in Upper Arlington or Hudson.

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Speaking of the Ohio legislature, the GOP sausage machine that   ground out the new budget also produced some of the  oddest defenses that edge out the best of  Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert,  today's gold standard of loony  utterances.   There was Rep. Ron Hood, the Ashville, Oh. Republican who introduced an abortion bill in mid-June that was augmented in the final hour as a  budget amendment.  Referring to the American Cancer Society's  rejection of the notion that abortion leads to breast cancer, Hood said he didn't think these issues needed to be stated as fact. Only, he said, as a possibility. Or not.

Then along came Rep.  Terry Boose, the Norwalk Republican, insisting that a state budget is a statement of numbers, not top-heavy policy.  But Democratic Sen. Tom Sawyer of Akron would have nothing to do with that kind of talk that stresses  numbers over policy.  "He doesn't know what he's talking about," Sawyer said. "The budget is 80 pct. policy and 20 pct. numbers".  Right.  Working from the same column of numbers, the budgeteers will find a way to inject their own policies. (Remember the adage that figures don't lie, but liars do figure!)

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Dear me. My copy of the Beacon Journal arrived Monday morning without a single word about the budget that Gov. Kasich signed (as a guy thing, no less) on Sunday evening.    The Plain Dealer, however, nicely filled the vacuum with a long piece that topped the front page.  So how much longer can the BJ sustain its motto of Informing Engaging Essential?  I'm not awaiting a reply.

Gonidakis wins the non-sequitur award for the Great Budget of 2013

The murky logic that attended  the governor's signing of the Great Budget of 2013 in Columbus Sunday night made it  somewhat of a challenge to isolate the best non-sequitur for posterity.  But we finally settled on this one from Ohio Right to Life's leader, Michael Gonidakis:

"It took great compassion and courage for our governor and pro-life  legislature to stand up to the abortion  industry that blatantly pressured them."

C'mon, Mike.   I would blatantly remind you that as a buddy of the governor who appointed you to the Ohio Medical Board,  you've been quoted  in  everything but the Major League box scores on your  aggressive support of the Draconian anti-abortion language  in the budget, even to the point of scary tactics about the cancerous illnesses  -not medically supported - that accompany abortion. Now that you've prevailed, don't you think it would be a greater act of compassion and courage for you  to recant  your self-serving  apocalyptic vision?

P.S. Your quote did manage to wind up on the Huffington Post, which cast more shame on Ohio at the national level by describing the approved anti-abortion  amendment in Ohio  as "among the most restrictive in the country."

Fiction turns to fact when all else fails

Once upon a time in the land of Nod,  a Republican  lawmaker - oh, let's call her Cathrynn Brown -  came up with a unique proposal for women impregnated by a rapist.  She even went so far as to introduce a bill in the New Mexico legislature that would help identify the rapist.

As a duly elected state representative, Ms. Brown, as the tale goes,  believed it was her obligation as a public official to add a new dimension to the abortion issue.  So her strange  bill would make criminals of  the victims if they aborted in instances of rape or incest.    Her reasoning, or lack thereof, surprised many law abiding citizens.  She insisted that an abortion would destroy critical evidence that a woman had been raped.  And as any law officer knows,  destruction of evidence is,  well, a crime. 

Ms. Brown made all of the papers in New Mexico, which gave her the platform that legislators never fail to seek, and seasoned colleagues in the great lawmaking universe will tell you that the more perverse the plan, the easier it is to earn a platform.

Our lawmaker  remains steadfast in her pursuit of a just society even if her critics accuse the poor woman of  being nutty.  Alas, there is no moral for this story.

P.S.  I know that the details are wacky, but the event described above is  true - which I need not remind you  - is always stranger than fiction!  Particularly, these days, folks.

Tom Niehaus, a Republican making sense

I spend so much yelling at Republicans that it is only fair to report that an ounce of sanity still exists in the Ohio Senate. His  name is Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus, a Republican  who has removed from the legislative table the so-called heartbeat  abortion bill and another that would defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio.

He issued the following statement on Tuesday:

"From my  perspective, I think you have to look at the entirety of the work that's done by Planned Parenthood, and I believe that they offer much needed services that are not available other places, so I chose not to take up the bill in lame duck."

What a breath of fresh air from  the cave-like GOP!

NOTE:  My column on the GOP state candidates for 2014 has been posted on Plunderbund.  

It's time for a Romney reflective flash button

My modest collection of political memorabilia includes one of those reflective  flash buttons from the 1968 presidential campaign. If you tilt it slightly one way or the other either Hubert Humphrey or Ed Muskie, the Democratic ticket, will appear.

I think there may be a growing market for a Romney flash button  that will show him in profile, facing one way or the other.    There is nothing sharply in focus on which way he is headed on many of the major issues, so it's up to you to decide which Romney is reflecting his true visceral  positions.

The latest word on his meandering positions on abortion supports that point.  Consider this:

Mitt, in Delaware, Oh. - "I think I've said time and again.  I'm a pro-life candidate and I'll be  pro-life president,"  His first bold move, he said,  would be to deny federal funding to Planned Parenthood.

Mitt, in Des Moines Iowa, a day earlier:  "There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda."

Still earlier, he has said he would be delighted to sign  legislation as president to ban abortion.

Hold it right there, folks.  Isn't this the same Mitt Romney who as goverrnor  was vigorously pro-choice?

That's what I've been told.

Romney: Professor backwards, sideways and forward

Funny how older news keeps turning up as newer news in a presidential campaign.  I refer to a report on Mitt Romney's  somersaults over abortion that was wickedly documented in a report by William Saletan  first published in Slate Magazine on  Feb.22. It's not that we weren't aware that Romney had a revolving  position on abortion for every occasion.  Rather, Saletan tracked it for 20 years with video clips that showed up on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC program last night - a startling indictment of a candidate who manuevered through  campaigns for governor, the U.S. Senate and now his second presidential effort.  With so much on film it will be difficult for anyone to give him the benefit of the doubt today that he is what he says  he is on abortion, whatever that is.

Here's how Saletan summarizes his investigative report that you can read on-line:

"When you see the story in its full context, three things become clear.  First, this was no flip-flop.  Romney is a man with many facets, groping his way through a series of fluid positions on an array of difficult issues.  His journey isn't complete.  It never will be.  Second, for  Romney, abortion was never really a policy question.  He didn't want to change the law.  What he wanted to change was his identity. And third, the malleability of Romney's core is as much about his past as about his future.  Again and again, he struggled to make sense not just of what he should do, but of who he has been.  The problem with Romney isn't that he keeps changing  his mind.  The problem is that he keeps changing his story."

As I mentioned at the start , there can be no denial that he's been all over the lot on abortion.    It's all on video and audio, folks.  In his voice.

Surely Senator Paul jests. Not.

Let's see.  There was Mad King George.  And Mad King Ludwig.  That's pretty tough company  for Sen. Rand Paul, but the Kentucky Republican is getting closer to making it a threesome.

Paul added another  claim to his bogeyman  behavior in the Senate this week by strangely linking federal flood insurance to the abortion issue. He warned that he would block a bill extending FEMA's flood insurance program for five more years unless the Senate  voted on a  measure declaring that life begins at the moment of conception - the so-called personhood concept.

Surely, he jests.   Surely,  he doesn't.  And his timing is awful, coming just as flooding caused by  Tropical Storm Debby was driving tens of thousands of Floridians from their homes.  Paul says he's "just trying to get  a vote for the people who elected me". Kentucky, the Beautiful.

Mad Senator Paul?  I'm getting used to the idea.