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Going shopping for a second banana
Since Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher announced Feb. 17 that he was going to run next year for the U.S. Senate there’s been much speculation about who will replace him.
Every few weeks a name or two of a potential running mate for Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, is the subject of a political column, a newspaper article or blog post.
It was only last week that Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams’ name was supposedly “circulating around Columbus,” according to an Associated Press column.
Williams was rumored a month ago to be a potential lieutenant governor candidate. He told me at the time that he hadn’t been approached by Strickland or a representative of the governor about running in 2010 as lieutenant governor.
Last week he repeated that he still hasn’t been approached and said he believed he could best serve the area by remaining Youngstown’s mayor.
Williams’ name may have been “circulating around Columbus,” but no one in a position to ask about his interest bothered to do so.
The courting of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan as Strickland’s running mate was a lot more serious.
Ryan of Niles, D-17th, told The Vindicator in March that he was giving strong consideration to seeking the lieutenant governor position. (In Ohio, lieutenant governor runs as part of a ticket with a gubernatorial candidate, just like the vice president and president of the United States.)
Shortly after that, The Washington Post and Roll Call published reports that Ryan had decided to run for lieutenant governor.
Of course those reports were incorrect. Ryan announced April 28 that he would seek re-election next year to a fifth term in the U.S. House and not run for lieutenant governor.
The current top lieutenant governor choices, according to political insiders, are state Rep. Matt Szollosi of Toledo, D-49th, and state Rep. Jay Goyal of Mansfield, D-73rd.
Who?
Yeah, apparently there isn’t a whole lot of interest among recognizable Democrats to be the running mate of Strickland, who’s continuing to see his popularity decline. Polls show Strickland will have a huge fight on his hands next year against ex-U.S. Rep. John Kasich, the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate.
While there’s been months of speculation on Strickland’s running mate, the reality is the governor should be in no rush to select one.
He didn’t announce Fisher as his running mate until Jan. 26, 2006, more than four months before the Democratic primary for governor that year.
The decision to select Fisher was based on a lot of factors.
While Fisher’s record when running statewide isn’t good, he had been on the ballot as attorney general twice and governor once. That gave him decent name identification and a strong record of raising money for campaigns. In addition, he comes from Cuyahoga County, a Democratic stronghold and one of the state’s most populated counties.
In hindsight, Strickland could have picked you or me to be his running mate and the outcome would have been about the same. Strickland crushed then-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the 2006 Republican gubernatorial nominee, who ran a bad campaign in what was a very bad year for Republicans.
Next year is completely different.
It’s shaping up to be a bad year for Democrats in not only Ohio, but nationwide.
Polls show Strickland in a statistical dead-heat with Kasich. It wasn’t that long ago that polls showed Strickland with a comfortable lead.
Just as in 2006, it appears Strickland’s decision on a running mate will, at best, have a minimal impact on his election.