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Don’t count Strickland out
On the side
Waiting game: U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, won’t know until the first week of January about whether he gets to stay on or be removed from the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Unless Republican leaders change their plans on reducing the size of committees, Ryan is likely to lose his seat.
Planning meeting: Ohio House Speaker-elect Bill Batchelder, a Republican, and his staff held a private planning meeting last week at the Spread Eagle Tavern and Inn’s Hanover House in Hanoverton. The business, a popular stop for Republicans visiting the Mahoning Valley, is owned by Columbiana County GOP Chairman Dave Johnson.
Political director: William L. Bartos, an attorney, is the new political director of the Mahoning County Democratic Party. His duties include coordinating the party’s get out the vote effort and helping run campaigns for party endorsed candidates. Bartos recently joined the law firm run by David Betras, the county Democratic chairman.
Holiday week: I will be home for the holidays so I won’t have a column next week.
Ted Strickland’s term as governor ends in a couple of weeks, but he has no plans to leave public service and politics.
“I never want to retire,” Strickland, a Democrat, told me during what is likely to be my last interview with him as governor. “I want to die working.”
He laughed, realizing what he said. “I hope that’s in the distant future.”
When asked why he doesn’t want to take it easy, Strickland, 69, said, “I don’t do well with idle time. I can’t bare the thought of doing nothing.”
As for a return to politics, Strickland said anything is possible.
“I don’t know what I’ll do with elected office in the future,” he said. “I want to keep my options open.”
Strickland recently met with President Barack Obama and longtime friend Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington, D.C.
“I told the president I want to help him get re-elected in 2012,” he said.
Strickland hasn’t been offered a Cabinet position.
“I don’t know if there will Cabinet openings,” he said. “Whatever comes up I’d be willing to look at.”
Strickland said he’s interested in energy issues, particularly alternative energy.
Turning “animal waste and garbage to create energy interests me,” he said.
I told him he needs to develop new interests.
Strickland said he sought out Clinton to “seek her advise” on his political future. She told him to take some time before making a decision.
Strickland lost his re-election bid last month to Republican John Kasich.
Would he consider a rematch in 2016?
“I’m not planning to do that, but I’m not taking that off the table,” he said. “I don’t know what the future holds.”
Strickland said he wasn’t surprised by the loss last month, and it wasn’t any worse than his four failed congressional campaigns in 1976, 1978, 1980 and 1994. Before being elected governor in 2006, Strickland won six congressional races.
“I’m feeling some relief quite frankly” with the loss to Kasich, he said. “When you’re governor you constantly feel responsible for everything. You never know what could happen.”
Strickland said he is “troubled” and has “some concerns” with some of Kasich’s recent statements about a transparent government and the Republican’s decision to reject $400 million in federal money for a passenger rail system in Ohio.
Strickland definitely plans to campaign for the 2012 re-elections of Obama and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown as well as other Democrats including U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan.
Without the support of the Mahoning Valley in his 2002 congressional race, Strickland said, “I would have never been governor.”
Congressional redistricting drastically changed Strickland’s 6th District to include all of Columbiana County and half of Mahoning County and eliminate six south central Ohio counties.
“The people of the Mahoning Valley embraced me,” he said. “I was a stranger. They took me in. I didn’t have a history with the Valley. I now feel like I’m part of the Valley. I would have never had the chance to be governor without the people of the Mahoning Valley embracing me when I ran for Congress in 2002. I’m very grateful for that.”