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Democratic gubernatorial nominee said he’s frustrated with the focus of the campaign
YOUNGSTOWN
Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, said he is frustrated the focus of the campaign has been on issues such as his driving for about a decade without a permanent driver’s license rather than things that should matter to voters.
“My hope for a more substantive comparison of our records will never come to be,” FitzGerald said Monday during an hourlong discussion with The Vindicator’s editorial board.
With early voting starting today and the Nov. 4 election four weeks away, FitzGerald says his campaign doesn’t have the money to air television commercials and will focus on traditional grass-roots efforts. Polls show him trailing incumbent Gov. John Kasich, a Republican.
In addition to not having a permanent driver’s license, lagging in the polls and struggling financially, FitzGerald also has lost key campaign staff and the state troopers association endorsement, and some Democrats on the statewide ticket are trying to separate themselves from him.
“If you run for governor or another high state office, you will have your opponents go through your life and try to figure out what’s the worst thing they can say about you,” he said. “They went through my entire life. The worst thing they could come up with is that for a period of time when I switched from having an out-of-state driver’s license when I was assigned as an FBI agent and came back to Ohio [and didn’t get an Ohio license]. I was just remiss in it. I’m not making any excuses. I didn’t pay attention to it. I didn’t get pulled over. I didn’t have a situation where I was getting away with something other people weren’t.”
There are some people, FitzGerald said, “who are trying to make [not having a driver’s license] the fundamental issue in a campaign for governor. I’ve certainly answered now 90 days worth [of] questions about it. It’s really pretty silly. It certainly was a mistake. It was something I was careless about.”
The focus of the campaign, he said, should be Kasich’s record including the state’s economy “underperforming” with him as governor, Kasich’s income-tax cuts “disproportionately” benefiting the wealthy, the state sales-tax increase and cuts to local governments and school districts.
“I can give you a long list of things that John Kasich has done in his private affairs and his public affairs that are much more indicative of what kind of governor he’s been and much more indicative of his character, but I can’t control whether or not that’s what’s going to be reported on or focused on,” FitzGerald said.
That includes Kasich’s time as a managing director for Lehman Brothers, an investment bank that collapsed in 2008 — the largest bankruptcy in the nation’s history — and for calling a police officer, who ticketed him in January 2008 for a driving violation, an “idiot” in a speech three years later, FitzGerald said.
“Is he held accountable the same way as I am?” said FitzGerald, who chastised The Vindicator and added, “I’m sure when [Kasich] came in here, you gave him quite a hard time about Lehman Brothers. You spent quite a lot of time on that. ... The question is whether or not he is held accountable the same way I’m held accountable.”
He also said, “You hope you can do enough [campaigning] through free media, but that assumes the media is going to focus on things of substance.”
The gubernatorial nominee said he’s not the only Democrat in the state struggling to raise money, and specifically pointed to the Ohio Democratic Party as having the same problem.
FitzGerald later said there are some media organizations that focus only on his lack of a permanent driver’s license. He didn’t name any of them but said The Vindicator is not among them.
FitzGerald said that those who find his driver’s license issue “more compelling” than Kasich’s past issues and the state’s economy “shows a weakness of the system.”
He added: “I always believed the Kasich campaign would try to change the subject and not talk about these things. I didn’t know whether or not they’d be successful or not, and they have been successful. You never know how a campaign will go until you get into it. You never know what’s going to catch the public’s imagination.”
In response to FitzGerald’s statements, Connie Wehrkamp, Kasich’s campaign spokeswoman, said, “We’re confident the voters will support Gov. Kasich for his proven track record and strong leadership, not the guy who has done nothing but spew angry rhetoric, attempt to mislead Ohioans and oppose the governor’s pro-jobs agenda every chance he gets.”
When asked if he thought he could win the gubernatorial race, FitzGerald said, “I do, but I don’t discount the fact that I’m an underdog and I think I have been from the beginning.”