A Taylor-Seitz ticket in 2018?

I normally don't spend much time on things that could happen.   There's too much already happening for me to handle.  So here's a quick report from  a valued source from Columbus informing me that Mary Taylor  - you know, the very conservative Republican  lieutenant governor - is alive and ready to run for governor in  2018.

That's a long time from now, I know. But here's what my source told me:   Taylor, a northern Ohioan from Green,  has already nailed down her running mate, State Sen. Bill Seitz, from the Cincinnati area., asking him to grace her ticket.  He agreed.

Seitz is said to have strong conservative credentials and even thinks as a libertarian at times.  Columbus Magazine once  took a poll and described him as the "best speechmaker and funniest"  legislator in the business.  With super-serious Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine still hanging around to succeed Gov. Kasich, Lord knows the GOP  campaign  would at least benefit from one "funniest" guy on the ticket.
 

Would be Mary Taylor could be governor

Gov. Kasich's two-year active political campaign emerging from recycled presidential ambition is apparently having little useful effect in impressing a national audience.  He is hardly an asterisk in the national polls.  Maybe it's something about his curb appeal.

It's largely a media-driven campaign with the national pundits making scant  effort to scratch below the surface of the boastful blue-collar kid whose father, we are forever told,  was a mailman.

Questions arise.  Is he a RINO?  A born-again, will he run out of Biblical references  before he runs out of money.  Did he really  balance a federal budget that was zillions  in the red when he was in Congress?  Is he,  as he told folks in New Hampshire, "not at war with organized labor"? .  This is from the same fellow who collaborated with fallen presidential candidate Scott Walker to restrict public unions.  His Ohio gambit perished at the ballot box by a million votes.

And will he find a way to escape the  charter school scandal in Ohio that he helped create with his disgraced cronies and increased funding? The epic mess is being reported across the land.

Still,  in all of those days when  Ohio State's football team isn't on the field,   will he manage to convince the voter next door that he is really a compassionate Mr. Goodwrench, prayers and all.

It's an environment in which Ohio political writers are reaching for a "what if"  tale of a politcal legacy leading to his princess-in-waiting, Lt.. Gov. Mary Taylor.  I mean, one published report began so speculatively  with, "It's a minor change.  But it could be the first tangible move in what could be a crowded Republican race for governor in 2018. (Italics added)

Two "could be's"  in a single sentence  is  enough evidence of desperate  analysis of "stuff" happening.  We move on with the media speculation:

If Kasich is elected president, or could be not, Taylor has given strong notice that she will not only succeed him to fill out his term, but she also is set on running for the full-term job. She says she's "giving the idea serious serious consideration". But you know how that goes.

Next: That  would be true if Kasich is given a big job in a new Republican administration.

Taylor  says she's a great big Kasich fan and, "I think what's happening here in Ohio can be directly  attributed to him and his leadership.

Obviously she didn't have the charter school stuff in mind at the moment.

Roberts: The Republicans unmentionable justice

 

Although the Republican leadership (?) has had very little to say about Chief Justice John Roberts, who was considered one of the good ol' boys in the conservatives' family, the party's raucous  Noise Wing is having a nervous breakdown over  Roberts' "betrayal".  Very shortly you will see IMPEACH ROBERTS  bumperstickers and torturered versions of it on Tea Party placards wherever three or more anarchists assemble.  (Or possibly on the door to Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart's office, now that he has lovingly cast himself in the cradle of the Tea Partiers' arms.)

Such  hostility toward a Republican chief justice has happened before.  That was back in the 1950s when racists and anti-communists joined  their attacks on Chief Justice Earl Warren, calling for his impeachment on billboards and other public places. Their grievance: Warren's progressive positions on desegregation as well as  the rights of criminals.  As we know, their virulent  campaign didn't work.  Nor will today's assault  on Roberts.

Still, for the other side, Roberts is a double windfall.  He not only  shocked the pundits and the right-wing panderers in sustaining the health care mandate.  He offered the Democrats a rare opportunity to praise a Bush appointee to the Supreme Court.  Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if a liberal chief justice had saved the health plan?  I don't want to think about it.

It was often said that only Richard Nixon's  own  fixation against the Red World  could have steeled him against charges of treason as he headed to China  - the first president ever to do do - to open relations between the U.S. and Chairman Mao. Considering the state of anti-Communist fervor in this country at that time , inflamed by the late Sen.  Joe McCarthy, a Democratic president who would have dared to go to China  on a diplomatic mission would have been barred from returning to these shores.

In Ohio, the current response from the GOP mandarins was hardly surprising:   Now that the milk has been spilled, there was only one solution:  Throw out President Obama in November and repeal the law.  With what?  They don't say. But what else can a senseless party of hollow suits, from Romney on down, say?

Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who also serves as the director of the Ohio Department of Insurance, has already rejected an insurance exchange under the law, arguing that she doesn't have enough information from the Feds.  A woman in her lofty position could ask, don't you think?

Meantime, Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine, who has staked his  reputation  as a minor legal scholar on his belief that the mandate is unconstitutional, was among the AGs who joined the lawsuit  that drove  the issue to the Supreme Court.  He told  the Associated Press that the health care reform law will be the "preeminent issue of the presidential campaign". He  said he will continue  to fight the law because it compels people to "violate their religious principles".  He's been wrong before.  He was the Romney supporter during the GOP primaries who jumped ship and endorsed Rick Santorum when he erringly  concluded that Santorum would be the party  nominee.

Religious principles? Oh, now we're getting to the bottom of this, which leads me to wonder whether the AG wants to serve as the state's top lawyer or as a robed bishop or preacher.

The coming months will be pretty  ugly.  If totally senseless, too.


P.S. The A.P.'s long wrapup of the comments of Ohio Republicans did not contain a single mention of  Justice R-----s.    

Kasich & Romney: Now joined at the lip

I see that Gov. Kasich has stepped forward to endorse McMitt Romney, joining the tattered Republican establishment's half-hearted rescue mission for a candidate who will need more than millions of pennies from heaven to win in November.

What do these exercises in Day-Glo politics mean, after all? Not much, for either party.

I've always considered them as ephemeral efforts that fall into the category of here-today-gone-tomorrow collegiality , even for a guy like Kasich, who I'm sure has more than once thought of a spot on the national ticket.

Again, as Team Romney's enablers step forward they repeat the authorized version of conservative politics, asserting that they are the sole protectors of the job creators in America. Even Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart loudly asserted to Sunday's Tea Party outing that President Obama is so witless that he wants to tax the job creators

Lt. Gov, Mary Taylor, who has been off in the wings in case something better turns up, also endorsed Romney, accusing Democrats of being ...must I to say it?... "tax and spend" operatives even though that old rubbery phrase doesn't hit the road. A few Republicans (Sen. Orrin Hatch for one) would disagree, arguing that under George W. Bush, the party preferred to spend without taxing .

OK, with the formality of governor's endorsement out of the way, we can all relax since the suspense was killing us. And maybe Kasich will now be able to get back to doing something he ought to be doing for the army of school teachers who are being laid off in Buckeyeland. Can we really call that job creation?

Mary Taylor "clearly" befogs health care reform

L.T. GOV. MARY TAYLOR is bursting out these days as a vigorous opponent of the Obama Administration's health care reform law. That's not really surprising in the anti--health care reform crowd. Taylor, who is also director of the Ohio Insurance department, wrote a letter to the Beacon Journal to express her opposition, declaring: 'Let me be perfectly clear: I oppose the Affordable Care Act", and then went on, as a BJ follow-up editorial pointed out, to befog the various elements in the law.

Assuming that she doesn't intend to be stranded in a state job the rest of life, could this be her opening salvo to enter the U.S. Senate race next year against Democratic Sen Sherrod Brown?Recent polls indicate he is ahead of the leading Republican challenger, Ohio

treasurer John Mandel, a serial candidate who never saw a higher job that he didn't immediately love. Taylor could be the GOP's go-to candidate if Mandel decides to leapfrog the senate seat to run for U.S. president, or British prime minister if the job opens up in the always shaky European political market.

2011 stats for 2012 election!

LATEST FIGURES from Public Policy Polling (PPP):

Sen. Sherrod Brown, 49 pct., Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, 30 pct. Undecided, 21 pct.

Brown, 49 pct., Secretary of State Jon Husted, 34 pct., Undecided, 21 pct.

Brown, 48 pct., Rep. Steve LaTourette, 30 pct., Undecided, 22 pct.

Brown, 48 pct., Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, 32 pct., Undecided, 21 pct.

Brown, 49 pct., Rep. Jim Jordan, 30 pct., Undecided 30 pct. , Undecided 21 pct.

Brown, 49 pct., Drew Carey, 34 pct., Undecided 17 pct.

I know, the 2012 election is still light years away. But haven't you heard? The campaigns are already under way. Ouch!

Sherrod Brown quickly out of the starting gate

SEN. SHERROD BROWN was in a campaign mode when he spoke at Akron Roundtable earlier this week. The luncheon audience packed the vast Quaker Station dining room with more than 500 Roundtable members and political guests. Seated directly in front of the dais were Democratic Reps. Betty Sutton and Tim Ryan, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, County Executive Russ Pry and FirstEnergy chief Anthony Alexander. It was the sort of turnout that would quicken the pulse of any campaigner.

From the podium, or working the crowd before and after, Brown didn't let the moment pass unheeded as he sets out to seek a second term in 2012. As elongated campaigns go these days, there's not a minute to take for granted.

The speech was largely from the hip, and stressed the accomplishments of the Obama Administration and Democrats during the lame duck session, with no harsh words for the Republican opposition. One of the criticisms of the Democrats was that they did an awful job of boasting of their successes. An unwavering liberal, Brown consistently and without apology supported the health care reform bill, the bailouts and the stimulus packages as well as a range of social issues that are anathema to the political right.

At 57, he retains a jauntily casual raspy-voiced approach to others that often belies the fact that he's dead serious about things that matter the most to his constituents.

In 2006, against the judgment of some of his supporters, he decided not to seek an eighth term as congressman from the 13th district. Instead, he challenged Republican Sen. Mike DeWine in what could have been a fool's errand. Brown won in a landslide. There's conjecture in the political campsites that the GOP will put up Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor for Brown 's senate seat, but others may want a piece of the action, too.

Republicans are on a roll this days and Brown can expect to be slammed with the usual right-wing trash talk. But even so, it would be premature to suppose that the Yale-educated blue-collar favorite is out of fashion. In politics, each day can be different from yesterday - and from tomorrow.

Kasich-Taylor prepare to turn out Ohio's lights

THERE WAS A LOT of recycled ear candy passed out at yesterday's announcement by Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich that State Auditor Mary Taylor would join him on the ticket. Such events for both parties are always euphoric moments before the candidates take to the stump and are forced to explain exactly what they meant. Among Kasich's promises were his commitment to eliminate the state income tax, repeal the estate tax, deregulate industry and commerce and shrink government. So who could argue?

Trouble is, the system doesn't work that way, never has and never will. As we have so often learned the hard way, when the state shrinks its share, local governments must pick up the pieces; that is, if you want to keep the schools and a lot of other public services and projects moving along. When it comes to cash flow, Kasich, a former managing director of Lehman Brothers before it crashed into bankruptcy, knows that as well as anybody. He just won't say so in the delirium of sweet talk to the voters, not the least of whom are his Tea Party friends. Several news reports that I read noted that he was much less specific about how he would pay the bills if revenue vanished under his proposals. Fact is, he couldn't.

Maybe a report by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission will be of help to the voters: the first year of a phased-out income tax would cost the state treasury $768 million. The commission said that would translate into $79 million in cuts to local governments and libraries in fiscal year 2011. Over 10 years, it would drain $12 billion from the state revenue. In terms that might be easier to understand , the Plain Dealer pointed out that 40 pct. of the state's general revenue comes from the income tax.

I'm surprised Kasich didn't blame former Democratic governor, Jack Gilligan, of saddling Ohio with the income tax in the first place. When Gilligan ran for governor in 1970 he frequently called for the new tax to, among other things, rescue cash-starved school districts. With uncommon, if risky, honesty about the state of the universe, Gilligan told the voters that if they didn't want an income tax, they should vote for the other guy. He won anyway. And when the tax was tested with a referendum two years later to repeal it, the voters again sustained the tax. (When Rhodes later entered the job, the joke around Columbus was that although the new governor was monstrously opposed to taxes, he never lifted a finger to rid the state of the "Gilligan tax." And we knew why.

So for the next 10 or 11 months, I suspect there will be marathon of headachy harangues against Gov. Strickland, taxes and state budgets, with nothing new added to the inertial Republican agenda.

Ear candy.

Kasich-Taylor. McCain-Palin?

IS OHIO facing a redux of the McCain-Palin ticket? That could be one explanation of the arrival of State Auditor Mary Taylor, a Summit Countian, as John Kasich's running mate on the Republican side of the scrum with Gov. Ted Strickland. Surely there must have been some thought given along GOP Row to the prospects for a shopworn former Wall Streeter and Ohio congressman to make it all the way to the governor's office by himself this year. So Taylor, a photogenic politician who would represent relative youth and vitality to the ticket, would take up the slack. Besides both are the strongest advocates of the party's core values, not the least of which is the cut-taxes thing.

Among those on the GOP side who must be delighted by the tandem is Summit County Republican chairman Alex Arshinkoff, who has been among those nurturing Taylor's political career and is now positioned for a hometown role in a state election. (He has also been working for Kasich.) But a reasonable question persists in all of this: If the party down in Columbus is so high on Taylor, why didn't they persuade her to run at the top of the ticket, instead of seeking reelection as auditor before now?

* * * * * * *

I've been told that a certain ranter on WNIR has been damning the Akron-Summit County Public Library for seeking a 1.4 mill levy, arguing that his taxes shouldn't pay for another's use of computers at the place and that, after all, the library is little more than a hangout for the homeless. As one who just enjoyed the benefits of the bright new facility's special collections department, I would suggest that the schlock show host go down there some time, look around, ask some questions from an always helpful staff and even read a book - or have somebody read it to him.

A diversionary Ohio poll on a rainy day

ALTHOUGH THERE are still mega-miles ahead in the major 2010 Ohio races, you can bet your rusty Wendell Willkie button that insiders from both parties will be carefully digesting the latest Quinnipiac poll for beneficial spins.  At this stage of the long journey,  polls tell us very little - unless, of course, they come in handy to influence the big early donors that their generosity would not not be forgotten.

The Q poll for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican George Voinovich, shows Lt. Gov Lee Fisher with a comfortable lead over Republican Rob Portman, 42 pct-31 pct, while Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, who is competing with Fisher in the Democratic primary, is ahead of Portman, 40- 31.  Both also have double digit leads over State Auditor Mary Taylor,  who is not expected to run at this point.

Gov. Ted Strickland has a 51-32 lead over former Republican congressman Republican John Kasich.   More important than the one-on-one matchups is the context in which Ohio politics is currently being played out.  President Obama has a 62-31 approval rating in the Buckeye state; Strickland, 52-37.  

The Democratic senate primary remains the focal point among the party's movers and shakers, with a back-channel effort by some  inside chess players to persuade Brunner to withdraw and run for the Ohio Supreme Court instead.  You might keep an eye on that opening gambit.

A strong word of caution:  A year before the 2008 presidential election in Ohio, the Q poll reported that Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani (!!!!) were in a virtual tie.    We all know how that turned out on Election Day.  

  .    

Calculated procrastination?

OHIO AUDITOR Mary Taylor, the lone Republican to survive the Democratic sweep of state offices in 2006, has the look of higher public office in her eyes these days.  Governor?  U.S. Senate? in 2010?   Other than mentioning that she's asked about her political future wherever she goes, she didn't quite respond in her appearance at the Akron Press Club luncheon Thursday.  And when smiling politicians don't discount "rumors,"  as she described them,  you can bet that they are more than rumors and that she will receive countless invitations to speak at high-powered Republican get-togethers in 2009.  Who else, after all,  is available to the state organization in the wake of the GOP slumber parties in Ohio in 2006 and 2008.  She will only say  that she can't predict  where she'll be "One, two, three years from now." Her county enabler and party chairman, Alex Arshinkoff, who attended the luncheon, resorted to the words of his former boss,  the late Ray Bliss,  when asked to define her coy words:  "Ray called it calculated procrastination."  Thank you.

Taylor was co-chairman, along with former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine,  of McCain's losing campaign  in Ohio.  But with that grim experience behind her, I remain puzzled by her remedy for the party's return to parity with the Democrats.   The party, she says, must return to its basic values of "tax relief and job opportunities."  Return?  It seems to me such  party insistence on its core values was cascading from the Republican  megaphones in 2006 and again in 2008 and no more effective than gossip.   Maybe it's  time to look for more imaginative ways to lure voters as the 21st Century races forward.  Except for the never- discouraged  GOP hard-liners, it couldn't hurt. .