Taking a look back, did Gov. Bob Taft keep his promises?

One Republican criticized Taft for supporting an increase in the sales tax.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Gov. Bob Taft insists that, though unpopular, he has achieved the essence of his agenda during his eight years in office: vastly improved public school buildings and standards, an economic incentive program for high-tech industry and sweeping reform of Ohio's tax code, to name a few.
Taft's critics say the Cincinnati Republican broke significant promises, too, such as making college more affordable and never raising a major tax without going to voters first.
"When you look at the absolute intensity of Ohio voters and how they have declined in their support of Bob Taft, it clearly shows he let them down," said Republican superlobbyist Neil Clark.
"We had numerous tax increases without a vote of the people, we never got a constitutional school-funding formula and he never addressed unethical behavior in state government in the way he said he would," he said.
Jon Allison, the governor's chief of staff, defends the Taft record.
Taft said he would sign legislation with law enforcement support that legalized carrying concealed weapons: done. He pledged to eliminate the irksome auto emissions program E-check: done. He vowed to improve accountability and equity in Ohio's public schools: done.
"Anyone who's not a casual observer of state government will see that these are complex issues that you can't expect to solve without some give and take," Allison said.
Tax increase
It was Republican legislators, for example, who came up with the 1-cent per dollar temporary sales-tax increase that Taft ultimately approved, after rejecting a more comprehensive approach to taxes advanced by the administration. Half of the tax increase remains.
"Before we even got to that point, it's important to remember that we have already been having hard budget times," Allison said. "The governor had cut 1.5 billion out of state programs already."
That doesn't matter, says Rep. Tom Brinkman of Cincinnati, an anti-tax Republican -- a promise is a promise.
"He did promise he would not have a tax increase, either income or sales tax, without 'going to the public' -- whatever that means," said Brinkman, one of the GOP conservatives whose legislative opposition often stymied Taft. "Yet he signed the bill that put a penny on the sales tax. To me, he owed the public a vote on that."
Gun laws
Brinkman also questions whether Taft really honored his promise to voters on concealed-carry legislation, pointing out that Taft's insistence on getting law enforcement support for any such gun bill ultimately delayed the legislation until well into his second term.
"My experience was that he did everything he could to undermine it," Brinkman said. "Once he got the bill, yes, he signed it. ... But as someone on the inside, I watched how he put the bar so high. He bent over backward to make it so difficult to pass something that it was extremely frustrating."
Taft also vetoed a subsequent bill in the session's final days that pre-empted local gun laws to extend the right to carry statewide, but the Legislature overrode the veto.
Allison said the final bill legalizing concealed weapons in the state took years to negotiate so that state troopers and police were comfortable.
"I don't think the governor ought to apologize for a second for setting the bar high," he said. "It certainly made his relationship with the Legislature tougher, but it was important to him that the men and women on the street were satisfied with the legislation."
He said overriding local gun laws was never something Taft agreed to support.
Perception
Insiders say Taft's perception among citizens began to turn when the politically ambitious Larry Householder took the House speakership. Householder, a Perry County Republican who left office in 2004 because of limits, knocked heads with the governor on his policy goals and often refused to show up to so-called "Big Three" meetings with Taft and the Senate president.
Clark said Taft had power in that situation that he never wielded.
"You go into these guys' districts and say, 'Here's what he wants to block. Is this really what you want?'" he said. "Term limits should have made him the most powerful person in the state. Instead, he spoke too often from his protected cave."
Many of Clark's lobbying clients did not fare well under Taft, including race track owners who wanted expanded gambling in the state and nursing home owners whose high Medicaid payments Taft fought.
Taft opposed expanding gambling without putting it to a vote. Allison said. Though he suffered some setbacks, Taft continued to battle nursing homes over their government payments and ultimately slashed their payouts by billions in the last two state budgets.
"A lot of these critics are advocates whose interest is a single focus," he said. "The governor's job is to do what he believes is in the best interests of the entire state."