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.

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.

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.

It went like this:

• The Oakhill Renaissance Center is a former hospital site in Youngstown, OH that has been turned into a nonprofit multi-tenant business facility.  It was purchased by the Mahoning County, OH government in 2006.
• Mahoning County decided to move its Jobs and Family Services (JFS) offices into Oakhill.  The director at the time was John Zachariah.
• This meant moving the JFS offices out of Garland Plaza, which is owned by the Cafaro company.  The Cafaro company is run by Anthony Cafaro (father of Ohio state senator Capri Cafaro) and his sister Flora Cafaro.  Anthony and his wife have given almost ten grand to Lt. Gov Fisher’s Senate campaign.
• Several county officials (Commissioner John McNally, auditor Michael Sciortino, and former treasurer John Reardon) opposed the move, and have continued to oppose the move, claiming that it was not cost effective.
• John Reardon, by the way, went on to become a state appointee of Gov Strickland’s.
• In 2008 attorney Martin Yovarcik unsuccessfully ran against Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains.  He received $120K in campaign funds from various entities involved with Cafaro.
• It has come out that McNally, Sciortino, and Reardon were all in constant contact with Anthony Cafaro, who actively opposed to the move (and the loss of roughly half a million dollars in annual rent revenue).
• In March Gains started a grand jury investigation.
• Yesterday Anthony Cafaro, Flora Cafaro, Zachariah, McNally, Sciortino, Reardon, & Yovarcik were indicted on a total of 73 counts, including: money laundering; tampering with records; perjury; and bribery.
• The indictment can be found here.

Now, I’m not going to suggest that Governor Strickland is guilty of anything except exceptionally poor executive judgment in picking Reardon for a position of trust and authority.  But I do not that Lt. Gov Fisher did take quite a bit of money from a man with a somewhat, ah, dubious reputation – and who is now being charged with using campaign contributions to hide a bribe.  Shouldn’t Lee Fisher be giving that money back?  Or has Lee Fisher decided that there’s no harm in letting the suspicion that his Cafaro money came with the same ‘understanding’ as did Yovarcik’s?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

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

PS: By the way: at what point does Ohio’s 11.0% unemployment rate start becoming Governor Strickland’s (D) responsibility? Because I know when it can stop being his…

Crossposted to RedState.

43% of Ohio voters approve of how Strickland is doing his job as Governor, while 42%
disapprove. A January PPP survey found the numbers at 48/35.

Strickland’s approval among Democrats has dropped from 70% to 62%, an unusually low
level of support for a Governor within his own party. He’s also seen an increasing level
of dissatisfaction with him from Republican voters, 72% of whom now say they
disapprove of what he’s doing after just 59% did earlier this year.

Matched up against likely GOP candidate John Kasich, Strickland leads 44-42. He had a
slightly wider 45-39 advantage in January. Strickland is mostly hurt by a 54-33 deficit to
Kasich among independent voters, even though those same voters prefer a Democrat for
the Senate in numbers that PPP will release on Tuesday.

See Third Base Politics for more analysis (and Ohio Politics Online, on general principles).  What I want to see is the next Quinnipac poll; both the March and the May ones were done back when there was an expectation that DeWine would be running for Governor. It’ll be interesting to see if the twenty point lead shown in both has dropped in the last two months, too.

In the meantime… as I said yesterday: Go Kasich.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Senator Bi-Partisan in Gambling Debate
Republican Sen. George Voinovich helped persuade Ted Strickland, the Democratic nominee for governor, to oppose any proposal to introduce slot machines that are similiar to casino gambling in Ohio through an issue on the November ballot. Voinovich, who thinks gambling is a powerful addiction and can be destructive to families, has opposed any expansion beyond current law since a casino issue was on the ballot in 1990.

2007:

Gov. Strickland has not only vowed to veto a proposed bill to allow electronic betting on archived races at horsetracks, he has now joined with Attorney General Marc Dann to call for a ban on cash prizes from table-top gaming devices that are appearing in bars and restaurants all over the state. Dann’s support for a ban has developed out of his frustration with his earlier efforts to enforce the existing legal distinction between outlawed games of chance and permissible games of skill.

March, 2009:

Columbus — Gov. Ted Strickland on Wednesday slammed the latest plan to bring full-scale casinos to Ohio, saying gambling supporters need to stop selling their proposal as a potential life-saver for the state’s drooping economy.

“Every proposal that has been brought forth I think has been designed to enrich the promoters and give a modest or, even in some cases, a meager share of resources to the state or individual localities,” Strickland told The Plain Dealer on Wednesday.

June, 2009:

Gov. Ted Strickland rolled out a surprise plan today that would add electronic slots at the seven Ohio horse racetracks to generate revenue designed to help fill a $3.2 billion budget hole.

See also the Cleveland Leader and Kevin Holtsberry’s Ohio Politics Online: the latter thinks that this is “a last ditch effort to avoid tax increases.” Which seems fair enough, as far as it goes, but I don’t know whether it really hammers home the detail that Strickland’s numbers have dropped lately, that Ohio’s unemployment rate has increased lately, and that the Ohio GOP is prepared to highlight not only the state’s heightened economic woes, but also Strickland’s refusal to take any responsibility for it…

Moe Lane

PS: Go Kasich.

Crossposted to RedState.

Harry S Truman (President of the United States) – his motto:

“The Buck Stops Here!“

John F Kennedy (Author of Profiles in Courage, President of the United States) – regarding the Bay of Pigs fiasco:

“President Kennedy has stated from the beginning that as President he bears sole responsibility for the events of the past few days. He has stated it on all occasions and he restates it now so that it will be understood by all. The President is strongly opposed to anyone within or without the administration attempting to shift the responsibility.”

Ted Strickland (Governor of Ohio) – on the news of Ohio’s record 10.2 unemployment rate & the loss of a GM plant / the relocation of NCR: “Ohio’s governor says it’s unfair to blame his administration for two big job losses this week.”

Hmm.  Doesn’t have quite the same oomph to it.

See also Weapons of Mass Discussion and the Ohio Republican Party blog.  And, of course, John Kasich’s site, for those interested in confirming that Governor Strickland ends up not needing to take the blame for Ohio’s problems past November of 2010…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.