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Election
Commentary
Kasich and Portman need to fire a response before hope is lost
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By Jack Torry,
Washington Bureau
Updated 11:32 AM Monday, May 24, 2010
In this election year with the peasants revolting and the politicians terrified, there are two things you probably don’t want to be if you are running for office: The first is a former executive for a Wall Street investment bank; the second a onetime adviser to former President George W. Bush.
But at a time when experience in government or business is more of a hindrance than help, both Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rob Portman and Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich have to explain their past before they can get Ohio voters to focus on what they want to do in the future.
So far, Democrats are showing no willingness to wait.
Earlier this month, Gov. Ted Strickland assailed Kasich’s ties with the failed Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, calling the former congressman “Wall Street to the core,’’ peppering his speech with phrases like “there’s a difference between Ohio values and Wall Street values.’’
On Friday, Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern launched an assault against Portman.
Pointing out that Portman served as director of the Office of Management and Budget and U.S. trade representative under Bush, Redfern charged that “Bush Trade Czar Portman supported reckless economic and trade policies that sent hundreds of thousands of Ohio jobs overseas.’’
“Wall Street Johnny’’ and “Trade Czar Portman’’ are such obvious attack lines that Greg Haas, a Democratic consultant in Columbus, joked, “I don’t know which is more effective — running against the candidate with Wall Street ties or running against the candidate with George Bush’s trade policy ties.’’
In many ways, the Democratic attacks are an exaggeration. Kasich is not in any way responsible for the collapse of Lehman Brothers. And free-trade policies backed by Bush and Portman helped Ohio become the only state in the country to increase its exports every year from 1998 to 2008 — a fact Fisher and Strickland both have boasted about.
Yet those close to Kasich and Portman know they eventually have to deal in a forthright manner with their past jobs. So far, they simply have pretended nothing ever happened.
Kasich essentially has said that he phoned in sick during the years he was at Lehman. If you can find any mention of Lehman Brothers in Kasich’s biography on his website, you get a prize.
It is just as challenging to find Bush’s name on Portman’s website. Portman notes that he was budget director and trade representative, but never reveals who hired him. Was it Bush? Clinton? Reagan? Or as Democratic consultant Jerry Austin quipped, “It probably was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.’’
Ironically, Portman and Kasich are running the risk of taking a manageable problem and making it worse. Elections are about the future.
Voters want to know how the candidates for governor and senator plan to reduce the state’s high unemployment rate. Optimism wins in Ohio.
“Ohioans are skeptical, but (they also have) a stubborn optimism, and if you don’t capture that, you can’t win,’’ Haas said.
“You have to establish hope. The lesser of two evils doesn’t ultimately win an election if one side breaks through on the hope.’’
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