Gov. Strickland leaving office with Ohio on road to recovery

“There is much we must leave unfinished. But I know this. The foundation of Ohio is stronger now than the day I took office.”

Most fair-minded Ohioans would agree with that assessment by Gov. Ted Strickland of his four-year term, which is coming to an end shortly. But despite the very real progress Ohio has made under his leadership, the Democratic governor failed to win re-election. He narrowly lost to Republican John Kasich.

Strickland was a casualty of the anti-government sentiment that has swept the nation and is reflected in the popularity of the tea party movement. By every objective standard of evaluating his tenure, Strickland should have won a second four-year term.

That he did not is a disturbing commentary on today’s politics. Too many voters are swayed by candidates who campaign by sound bites and have a cursory understanding of the issues.

In the race for governor, Strickland’s record was successfully negated by Kasich’s argument that Ohio had lost 400,000 jobs over the past four years. The voters did not stop to analyze that loss in the context of the 7.9 million jobs that disappeared during the Great Recession that began in the last year of former President George W. Bush’s tenure.

Strickland’s contention that Ohio’s foundation is stronger today than it was four years ago is confirmed by a slew of independent studies and also by the very real progress that can be found in hard-hit regions like the Mahoning Valley.

Indeed, in his final address as governor at the Columbus Metropolitan Club, the former area congressman specifically mentioned the Valley as he stoutly defended the actions of President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress that kept the auto industry from collapsing.

GM’s Lordstown plant

“It’s easy to say ‘the government shouldn’t be in the car business,’” Strickland told the Metropolitan Club gathering. “But the government saved the car business and tens of thousands of jobs in Ohio. The assembly line is running in Lordstown today and they’ll be making cars there for generations to come because in the moment that decided our future, steady hands rewrote the standard of impossibility.”

While it is true that the federal government’s rescue of the auto industry gave General Motors Corp.’s Lordstown assembly plant a new lease on life, Strickland’s role in helping the facility secure the latest compact model, the Chevrolet Cruze, cannot be ignored.

Likewise, the governor’s involvement in the decision by the French company, Vallourec, to invest $650 million in a new, state-of-the art pipe mill adjacent to its V&M Star steel making facility along route 422 in Youngstown must be acknowledged.

Strickland was also unwavering in his support of Youngstown State University, the Youngstown Business Incubator, the development of high-tech industries, and was instrumental in the creation of the Eastern Gateway Community College.

No one can say that he failed to pay attention to the Mahoning Valley. He had promised to make this area a priority.

Likewise, no one can say — with any level of honesty — that Ohio has not come through the national economic recession in better shape that most large states.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia says that over the last year, Ohio had the fifth largest growing economy in the nation; Deloite Consulting has ranked the state as third in manufacturing growth this year; and, the unemployment rate has dropped for eight straight months.

The Kauffman Foundation in its “New Economy Index Report” showed Ohio as tied for first among the 50 states in the growth of information technology jobs. The state was also tied for first in attracting knowledge workers, and was among the top five in growth of high-wage jobs in insurance and finance.

The governor’s record also reflects his willingness to make tough decisions and to work in a bipartisan fashion to deal with the many problems he inherited in January 2007.

Spending cuts

His first biennium budget had the lowest growth in spending in 42 years. In response to the national recession, the governor slashed outlays by $1.5 billion. In his second budget, spending was cut by more than $2 billion.

On Feb. 28, 2007, the total number of state employees was 63,559; now, the number hovers around 58,000. And yet, Strickland was attacked by Kasich for not reducing the number of state employees, and the voters sided with the Republican challenger.

It is an unfortunate reality of today’s politics that appearance counts for more than substance. Kasich made a better appearance, especially in the televised debates, a reflection of his experience as a talk show host on cable television.

Strickland’s departure is the Valley’s loss.