Members of GOP discuss stances

The Republican gubernatorial candidate wants to cap state and local spending.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell touts polls showing him as the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate, but downplays those same polls that have him trailing U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, if the general election was today.
During a Wednesday interview with The Vindicator, Blackwell said Strickland leads him in polls because of an anti-Republican feeling among Ohio voters related to political corruption involving some members of his party.
"Once we go head-to-head, the voters will see our differences," Blackwell said of Strickland. "They'll see who is in favor of the status quo and who favors change."
Blackwell and Attorney General Jim Petro, also running in the Republican gubernatorial primary, "represent the incompetence and failed policies of the last dozen years or so," said Jess Goode, Strickland's campaign spokesman. "Ohioans are hungry for positive change."
Blackwell said Republicans campaign like President Ronald Reagan, but govern like tax-and-spend Democrats. Because he sticks to his conservative values, Blackwell said voters are supporting his candidacy.
But Robert A. Paduchik, Petro's campaign manager, said while Blackwell talks like Reagan, he spends like President Jimmy Carter, pointing to increases in the secretary of state's budget.
"His record is that of a rhetorical conservative, while Jim's record is of a fiscal conservative," Paduchik said of Blackwell.
Three main issues
Blackwell's plan to improve the Ohio's finances focuses on three main issues: a constitutional amendment to limit state and local government annual spending growth to 3.5 percent, reducing taxes and regulations to make the state more attractive to businesses, and signing a long-term contract with a company to operate the Ohio Turnpike that would bring close to $6 billion to the state.
Two other statewide Republican officeholders running in the May primary met Wednesday with The Vindicator.
Auditor Betty Montgomery is running in the GOP primary against state Sen. Timothy Grendell for attorney general, a job she held for eight years.
Montgomery said she has enjoyed being auditor these past three-plus years, but her "personality is used to a more fast-paced office" like attorney general.
"It wasn't until I was auditor for a few weeks that I realized I was an adrenaline addict, and the auditor's office is more sedate and planned," she said. "If the auditor was a book, it would have five chapters while the attorney general's office would have 20 volumes. You often dance on the edge of a razor blade as the attorney general."
Montgomery said she isn't bored in her current post, but "I never had a 9-to-5 job. It's more of a 9-to-5 planned world in the auditor's office."
Treasurer Jennette Bradley, appointed to the position in January 2005 by Gov. Bob Taft, is facing Ashtabula County Auditor Sandra O'Brien in the Republican primary. O'Brien has criticized Bradley for failing to stop corruption at the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.
Bradley said the accusation is ridiculous because the treasurer, under state law, doesn't have investment authority for the bureau. Also, Bradley was in office for less than three months before the scandal came to light last year.
skolnick@vindy.com