Looks like Hillary Clinton is buying Ted Strickland.

Personally, I’m not sure why. I mean.  Ted Strickland? What would you do with a Ted Strickland, once you have one?

Twenty-eight of Hillary Clinton’s top bundlers have donated to Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Ted Strickland, with only one of the donations coming from Ohio.

Since Strickland, a longtime Clinton ally, launched his Senate campaign in February, he has received nearly $60,000 in contributions from individuals listed on Hillary Clinton’s “Hillblazers” list, according to aWashington Free Beacon analysis of Federal Election Commission records.

As the WFB goes on to note, the best part of this story? Ted Strickland wants to run on a Hate The Rich People-style campaign.  Because they don’t have irony in Ohio, or something.

Ach, This Thing Of Ours!

Ted Strickland’s (D) Senate bid gasping for cash.

The numbers are pretty entertaining: incumbent Rob Portman (R) raised almost eight million this year, with eleven million in the bank, while former governor Ted Strickland (D) raised about two and a half, with about a million and a half in the bank (Democratic primary challenger P.G. Sittenfeld has raised about half of that, and also has about half of that COH). As the Washington Free Beacon notes here, Strickland’s far behind both the short-term and long-term fundraising benchmarks that he was supposed to hit; I should also note that those numbers assume an uncontested primary. Strickland may not actually get one of those. Continue reading Ted Strickland’s (D) Senate bid gasping for cash.

Does @Ted_Strickland support changing the name from Mt. McKinley to Denali?

I ask because Ohioan legislators are ‘fuming‘ over this:

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said in a statement on his Facebook account that he was similarly “disappointed” in the decision to rename the [Alaska] mountain long named after “a proud Ohioan.”

“The naming of the mountain has been a topic of discussion in Congress for many years. This decision by the Administration is yet another example of the President going around Congress,” Portman said.

“I now urge the Administration to work with me to find alternative ways to preserve McKinley’s legacy somewhere else in the national park that once bore his name,” Portman added.

President McKinley was from Ohio, you see. So politicians from Ohio are going to be just a little bit touchy on the subject. Well. Certain politicians. Apparently Ted Strickland doesn’t actually care about his own state’s history…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: If you think that this is a silly issue, then obviously the easiest way for Ted Strickland to prove that he’s not ducking said issue is to come out and forthrightly say that Barack Obama was perfectly justified in unilaterally changing the name from Mt. McKinley to Denali. I’m not joking. Ohio Republicans aren’t afraid to be publicly upset about this (and, by definition: if the Speaker of the House thinks something is relevant, it automatically becomes so); why can’t Ted Strickland show a little gumption and come our swinging on President Obama’s behalf? – Unless, of course, Strickland’s kind of against the name change, too, but doesn’t want to look like he disagrees with Obama. Which is, admittedly, pretty much how state Democrats cringe and fawn these days every time they’re in a dispute with the national party…

What the Ohio Democratic Senate primary tells us about the state of their state parties.

There’s an interesting – in the ‘Chinese curse’ sense of the term – thing happening in Ohio’s Democratic Senate primary.  The not-really-short version is that national Democrats have told themselves a marvelous fairy tale about how they can take back to the Senate in 2016: unfortunately, state Democrats actually have to make that a reality somehow. And they’re being hampered by the way that national Democrats managed to blight state Democratic political gardens in 2010 and 2014.

Case in point: Ohio. The Ohio Democratic party leadership has seized upon the elderly (74) Ted Strickland for their Senate candidate, despite the fact that the former governor got beaten in his reelection bid in 2010 by John Kasich. Why? Because there isn’t anybody else at Strickland’s level. The Democrats got wiped out in the Ohio Congressional delegation in 2010, and have not recovered. In 2010 they had ten seats to the GOP’s eight; today they have four seats to the GOP’s twelve (Ohio lost two seats after the last Census). The state legislature is also heavily Republican, if not quite at this level. There are no Democratic state-wide elected officials in Ohio. And the previous Democratic gubernatorial candidate? …Well. Continue reading What the Ohio Democratic Senate primary tells us about the state of their state parties.

Ted Strickland (D) launches his futile bid for Ohio-SEN today.

Such a pity… well, no.  It’s not.  But the proprieties must be observed: “Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland will seek to challenge Republican Sen. Rob Portman next year, launching what could become one of the top-tier Senate races of 2016… Strickland, who has been talking to donors and supporters in recent weeks, announced his decision to run in an email to supporters this morning.”  Strickland has three major problems, here:

  1. He’s 75 years old [sorry: 75 in 2016 – ML]. That’s a bit old for a freshman Senator; and, yes, that’s a legitimate concern. The Democrats would get a max of two terms out of him, tops, and I’m being kind in pretending that they’d even have the chance.
  2. His past record. This article here mentions Strickland’s habit of spending the last fewe years working for people and groups who more or less hate everything that gives Ted Strickland his crossover appeal; to that I’ll add a little matter of some local corruption from 2010 (the fallout from that is still merrily bubbling along). There’s an existing file on this guy, in other words. One that the Portman campaign is already perusing, assuming that they didn’t just memorize it.
  3. And then, of course, there’s the minor matter of the 2014 governor’s election. No, not the 49/46 squeaker from 2010; the 64/33 blowout from 2014 that Ted Strickland didn’t have the nerve to even show up for. And he should have shown up for it; the fact that he didn’t pretty much confirms the conventional wisdom that Ohio is better off under John Kasich’s leadership than it was under Strickland’s.

Continue reading Ted Strickland (D) launches his futile bid for Ohio-SEN today.

Gov. Strickland (D, OH) supporter attacks war veteran at rally.

(H/T: Third Base Politics) Do you know this guy?

Because he went after a Iraq War veteran at a Ted Strickland rally. Dumped hot coffee on him, then came back later to give said veteran the finger (in case you were wondering whether it was deliberate or not).

The cops would like to discuss the matter with the assailant, so if you know him, please contact the Scioto County Sheriff’s Office. Or you could just call the (current) Governor: the way that Ohio Democrats have been behaving lately, that was probably Strickland’s campaign manager.

Moe Lane (Crosspost)

PS: John Kasich for Governor.

First OH-GOV Kasich/Strickland debate tonight.

For those so interested; it’ll be on tonight at 8 PM EST. The live video feed should be available via this link; if not, check here. I spoke with the John Kasich campaign today: they fully expect Strickland to keep playing the anti-NAFTA card while steadfastly ignoring the fact that Strickland is heavily dependent on Bill Clinton (the Big NAFTA Dog himself) to somehow save him from his current slow-motion defeat. They also expect John to consume Ted Strickland’s liver raw on national television, although they didn’t exactly put it in quite those terms.

Or anything really like those terms at all, really.

OK, they were just feeling confident about how the debate was going to go. I suppose that talking about eating livers raw and stuff would probably get too many complaints from the FDA.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Ohio and the limits to Demagoguery.

The unusual thing about this article (“Losing the Class War“) is not its message.  Its message is in fact pretty straightforward: to wit, that the Democratic nominees for Senator and Governor in Ohio are both trying, and failing, to rouse public anger against the Republican nominees through some good, old-fashioned pseudo-populist demagoguery.  They’re trying this because both Gov. Strickland (who is losing his re-election bid to John Kasich) and Lt. Gov. Fisher (who is losing the Senate race to Rob Portman) are heavily reliant on Big Labor to generate some sort of buzz for their moribund campaigns; and they’re failing because under their watch Ohio’s economy has, well, tanked.  More to the point, the population of Ohio is aware that the current leadership team of Ohio consists of two gibbering, would-be rabble-rousers who apparently have, as they say, Poor Impulse Control.  So, again, that’s not the unusual thing of that article.

No, the unusual thing is that it was on NPR: there’s some sort of partnership thing going on there with National Review Online.  I guess somebody over at NPR can put two and two together, and get Armageddon

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Strickland, Fisher cronies/donors indicted.

OK, this one is going to require a bit of background.  Short version: Ohio courts have just indicted a bunch of Democrats – some of whom have links to both Governor Strickland (D-OH) and Lt Governor Fisher (D-OH) – in a complicated real estate corruption case.  The word ‘tendrils’ comes to mind: stick around and you’ll see why. Continue reading Strickland, Fisher cronies/donors indicted.

Well, at least Meghan Cofield’s getting work.

Who is Meghan Cofield? Well, she’s a Ohio worker who lost her job, and it’s all John Kasich’s fault!

No, wait, it was all John McCain’s fault!

Yeah. That was an ad from 2008 – same person, and even some of the same footage – when Barack Obama was pretending to be hating on NAFTA (needless to say, that promise came with an expiration date: also needless to say, Strickland has no intention of bringing that up with the President). Which leads me to the next question: just why is Meghan Cofield so depressed? She seems to be developing quite the career race-baiting the Chinese.

Moe Lane Continue reading Well, at least Meghan Cofield’s getting work.