Taylor: No plans to run for governor

By David Skolnick

The lieutenant-governor candidate says she’ll be able to help transform government in that post.

YOUNGSTOWN — Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor, the Republican Party’s lieutenant-governor candidate, says talk of her eventually running for governor is premature.

“I try not to put the cart before the horse,” Taylor said Thursday in an interview with The Vindicator. “I haven’t given it as much thought as you think I have.”

It was only eight years ago that Taylor was serving as a council member in her hometown of Green, a city in Summit County with a population of about 20,000. Taylor began serving the first of two two-year terms in the Ohio House in 2003. She was elected state auditor in 2006, the only Republican to win a statewide executive elected position in Ohio that year.

Taylor was preparing a run for re-election when, she said, John Kasich, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, called her last month asking about being his running mate. The announcement of her decision was made Jan. 14.

Lieutenant governors typically don’t have many responsibilities and usually run a state department in the governor’s Cabinet.

While Taylor expects to hold a Cabinet position — though she’s undecided what it would be — she also sees Kasich and herself “as a team. The two of us working together to transform government. We’ll improve the efficiency of government with the goal of cutting costs.”

The deadline to file to run in the May primary is Feb. 18.

Taylor’s announcement led Delaware County Prosecutor David Yost to decide to switch from running in the Republican primary for attorney general to auditor at the request of Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine.

Also, state Rep. Seth Morgan of Huber Heights, a certified public accountant, also is running for auditor, and Franklin County Recorder Robert Montgomery is giving serious consideration to seeking the Republican nomination.

Taylor said she isn’t planning to endorse a candidate, at least at this time. She called the three “strong candidates.”

The Democratic candidate for auditor is Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper.

“We weren’t all that impressed when John Kasich picked Mary Taylor, and our chances of David Pepper winning the auditor’s race were certainly helped by her move,” said Seth Bringham, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party. “Mary Taylor brings nothing to the ticket that changes the fact that [former] Congressman Kasich supported the Washington-Wall Street trickle-down policies that got us into the global recession.”

Taylor said, “Democrats are going to look for things they want to create or invent” as reasons for her leaving the auditor’s race.

Taylor was the keynote speaker Thursday at the 95th annual Mahoning Valley McKinley Club dinner in Niles. The dinner brings together Republicans from Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties.

skolnick@vindy.com