Ohio’s Democrats need a gimmick

A week ago, John Kasich, the expected Republican nominee for Ohio governor, appeared nutty when he insisted that eliminating the state’s income tax would be the best thing that happens to Ohio. Today, Kasich looks like a genius.

What happened? Massachusetts, that’s what.

When voters in the bluer than blue state elected Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat occupied for almost half a century by Ted Kennedy, the lion of the Senate and a Democratic Party institution, the shock waves could be felt in the scarlet state of Ohio.

And, the titular head of the Democratic Party, Gov. Ted Strickland, must have had a sinking feeling as he contemplated the results of recent polls that show him fighting for his political life.

This year’s race for governor will go down to the wire, and if Ohio voters are anything like the ones in Massachusetts, the candidate with the best gimmick will win.

Kasich, a former congressman from Franklin County and former chairman of the House Budget Committee, has the advantage today. His income tax elimination plan is exactly what voters who are in a deep economic funk — and there are legions of them — would embrace.

Huge price tag

It doesn’t matter a bit that the 10-year phase-out of the tax cut Kasich has proposed could cost the state and local governments and libraries more than $12 billion by 2020.

An Ohio Legislative Service Commission analysis has found that the first year of the phase-out would cost $768 million to the state general fund, $30 million in state aid to local governments and $16 million to public libraries.

Those losses would amount to $79 million in cuts to county, city and township governments and local libraries in fiscal 2011, the second year of the current budget.

But, voters aren’t interested in such details. They’re simply attracted to the superficiality of the idea. It’s a feel-good gimmick — similar to Massachusetts Sen.-elect Brown’s opposition to the health-care reform bill in Congress.

It didn’t matter to voters in that blue state that Brown had voted for Massachusetts’ health-care reform plan now in place.

That’s why Democrats in Ohio need a gimmick, if they are to have any chance of retaining the governor’s office and other statewide administrative offices they hold today.

And just to be clear: A black female running mate — Gov. Strickland has picked former Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Yvette McGee Brown to be on the ballot with him — will not sway the voters.

Indeed, Kasich also has a female running mate, Mary Taylor, currently the state auditor.

While conventional wisdom says that running mates don’t ordinarily help the ticket, they could hurt in a close race.

This being Ohio, where the last three black statewide candidates — two Democrats and a Republican — lost, a black female lieutenant governor candidate is not a guaranteed vote-getter.

Democrats need a gimmick that is as politically brazen as Kasich’s contention that the state of Ohio does not need an income tax.

Downsizing government?

Well, the governor could announce that he is going to downsize state government by ... doing away with the department of development.

Unfortunately, Kasich has beaten him to the punch. He has said that Ohio does not need a department dedicated to business development.

Again, the “We’re taxed off” crowd will be drawn in by the superficiality of the idea.

So, what’s it to be for the Democrats?

How about jobs? If the governor announces that this construction season will be busiest in recent history and that any Ohioan who wants to work will be able to do so, his poll numbers will begin to rise.

There’s nothing like a job to change the attitudes of the voters.

It’s one thing for Democrats to talk about the greening of America; it’s another for Americans to have some green — for a change.

Gov. Strickland has one thing going for him that Kasich doesn’t: The power of the office to direct money to job-creation initiatives. He should do so before the race gets away from him.