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Strickland fails Ohio, GOP rival Kasich says
By DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
John Kasich, Republican candidate for governor, said incumbent Ted Strickland has “failed” the state.
“He’s presided over a decline,” Kasich told The Vindicator editorial board Wednesday. Strickland and his supporters “have spent all their time attacking me for a year. ... I think [Strickland’s] had his chance. His results are bad — loss of jobs, growing poverty, unemployment, homelessness, not competitive. The proof’s in the pudding. He’s not been on top of things. He’s failed.”
Kasich later joined Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor, his lieutenant governor running mate, at a public rally at the Spread Eagle Tavern in Hanoverton.
Kasich was to return to Youngstown today to Brilex Industries to unveil a new campaign policy, the first new policy he’s introducing outside of Columbus.
When asked what Strickland, a Democrat running in November for re-election, has done well in his first term as governor, Kasich said: “I think the fact that he’s talked about green jobs; I think that’s a good thing. But we can’t build our economy on green jobs, but the fact we should pay attention to it, that’s fine.”
In a follow-up asking if that was it, Kasich said, “I’ve not spent a lot of my time thinking about all the great things he’s done, because I think it would be a very short list. [There’s] not a whole lot. I can’t think of a big, long list of things.”
If elected, Kasich said he would lower taxes and reduce regulations that he says keeps businesses from coming to Ohio.
But when it comes to a time-frame for eliminating the state’s income tax, Kasich said, “My goal is to do so over time.”
In response, Allison Kolodziej, a Strickland campaign spokeswoman said: “While Ted Strickland has fought tooth and nail for the folks in the Mahoning Valley as congressman and governor, John Kasich has a long record of outsourcing Ohio jobs and supporting Wall Street at the expense of working Ohio families.”
Kasich can only talk about what Strickland has already done, such as “reducing the size of government and cutting red tape, increasing access to capital for small businesses, and growing the economy across Ohio from the bottom-up,” Kolodziej said.