True, some of those same Democrats let Cuyahoga County’s government (and courthouse) become Greater Cleveland’s employer of last resort — a kind of New Deal make-work project, no matter the cost or consequences. This Youngstowner understands.
Still, it’s ironic that in 2004, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan filed a massive lawsuit accusing then-Gov. Bob Taft’s Republican administration of awarding no-bid contracts in exchange for campaign donations. Hagan was Taft’s 2002 re-election foe.
Hagan dropped the lawsuit late in 2005. At the time, another top Cuyahoga County Democrat told The Plain Dealer that although Hagan’s lawsuit was “legitimate,” there was a risk to Hagan. If he lost the case, he might be ordered to pay Republicans’ legal fees.
“Sometimes, truth and justice does not prevail because of dollars and cents,” said Hagan’s fellow commissioner, Jimmy Dimora — the Jimmy Dimora indicted last week over “dollars and cents.”
For Strickland, the only poll that counts is the poll that ends on election night. And the governor may rebound. But Northeast Ohio Democrats are born irked. And last week’s indictments, in the middle of Ohio’s biggest heap of potential Democratic votes, could hardly lighten Democrats’ moods.
Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Strickland and his lieutenant governor, Lee I. Fisher, who’s competing with Republican Rob Portman for a U.S. Senate seat, seem to sing similar hymns:
Their Statehouse successes, they achieved entirely on their own. Any failures, assuming they admit to any, are due to George W. Bush, Taft (whose governorship ended in January 2007) and the GOP’s 1995-2008 Ohio House and state Senate majorities. (The Fisher variant: Portman — appointed by Bush as chief U.S. foreign trade negotiator, then U.S. budget director — is a co-author of Ohio’s troubles.)
As every blue-collar Ohioan knows, there’s plenty to gripe about when it comes to “free” trade. But this also is out there, according to Ohio’s nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission:
After Canada and Mexico, China was Ohio’s largest 2009 export market. And regardless of destination, six Ohio industries exported more than $1 billion each in goods and services: machinery; vehicles; aircraft; electrical machinery; plastics; optical and medical instruments. Yes, Ohioans need to make up their minds if they’re OK with leaner paychecks as long as Walmart (Ohio’s No. 1 employer) holds prices down. But either way, exports keep some Ohio factories humming.
One Strickland problem is that he bet on the wrong re-election issue. He vowed to “fix” school funding. Most voters likely thought “fix” meant “no more levies.” In 2007, Strickland’s first year as governor, voters faced 415 school levy or school district income tax issues; there were 374 last year — a drop of less than 10 percent, while the approval rate, 50 percent in 2007, fell to 47 percent in 2009.
Fisher, meanwhile, opted to become Ohio’s development (“Jobs!”) director just before the economy tanked. Today, that’s a tough resume to circulate. Something about law-and-order or “for the children” would be an easier sell. But for candidates, as for Cuyahoga County voters, political hindsight is 20-20.
Thomas Suddes is an adjunct assistant professor at Ohio University. Send e-mail to tsuddes@gmail.com.
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