The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Strickland needs winter freeze for melting political ice

Santorum to visit Warren County
2/12/12
Benefit dinner held for girl  who died in car accident
2/12/12
Suburbs looking for ways to save, focus on regional issues
2/12/12
Victim of human trafficking speaks to students
2/12/12
Bullying law brings rule changes
2/12/12
> More headlines

By William Hershey, Staff Writer 5:53 PM Saturday, September 5, 2009

Summer’s almost gone and that may be the best news Gov. Ted Strickland has had since his wife Frances agreed to marry him.

Strickland’s a football fan but he’d be better off skipping fall and moving right into winter and a good hard freeze.

The Democratic governor doesn’t have time to worry about global warming.

He knows firsthand about Ohio warming, political style.

The ice has been melting around him since the tulips popped up last spring.

“The Gov isn’t on thin ice,” Ohio Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine said in an e-mail. “He’s already underwater.”

That’s not a universal opinion, of course.

Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern thinks things are just fine, more or less.

“All things considered, I’m very proud of the governor and his administration,” said Redfern.

Ah, those things to consider.

First, there’s the state budget.

Strickland’s allies who advocate for Ohio’s mentally ill, abused children and others on society’s margins are still smarting from spending cuts and predict dire consequences.

“I am disappointed,” said Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, both a long-time advocate for children’s issues and a loyal Democrat. She hasn’t jumped political ships, however.

“You can be angry and disappointed and still want to find ways to move ahead and I think that’s where I am,” she added.

Then there’s the ongoing drama about video slots at Ohio’s seven racetracks. Strickland’s a Methodist minister, for goodness sakes, and even that church’s two Ohio bishops scolded him for trying to close the budget gap with gambling revenue.

Worse for Strickland, right now there’s no guarantee that the slots’ plan is going to do what it’s supposed to – raise $933 million over two years to balance the budget.

Two lawsuits aimed at stopping the slots have been filed at the Ohio Supreme Court. Meanwhile, track owners, each faced with making an initial payment of $13 million on Sept. 15, are balking at the rules set up to run Ohio’s new gambling adventure.

Gambling and disillusioned allies, however, are the least of Strickland’s worries.

It’s the economy, stupid.

For the most part that’s been a story of summertime blues, especially in Ohio and even more especially in Dayton with NCR’s decision to move to Georgia.

The national unemployment rate for August, reported on Friday, Sept. 4, stood at 9.7 percent, a 26-year high. That meant, for once, Ohio was leading the way. Ohio’s July unemployment rate was 11.2 percent, a Buckeye 26-year-high.

Since Strickland took office in January 2007, Ohio has lost 313,600 jobs, about twice as many jobs as there are residents of Dayton.

Governors didn’t create the conditions that led to the national economic collapse but voters aren’t fussy.

They’ll get their chance in November 2010 to hold accountable whoever’s on the ballot.

Meanwhile, the governor’s been giving critics like Kevin DeWine ammunition to make Strickland that person. Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher stepped down as state development director last February when he announced that he’s running for the U.S. Senate.

For more than six months a department that needs a high-profile, high-energy – Fisher is both – job creator has been led by an interim director, currently Lisa Patt-McDaniel.

“The governor will take his time to make sure he finds the right person for the job,” Amanda Wurst, Strickland’s spokeswoman, said last week. Patt-McDaniel and her staff “are working hard every day to create new job opportunities and keep jobs in our state,” Wurst added.

Good for them.

Maybe they can find somebody to make ice for the governor.

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Share this article