Jobless rate stirs debate

COLUMBUS

Ohio’s unemployment rate for July dropped to 5 percent, the lowest it’s been in years.

It was more than double that total during the heights of the so-called Great Recession of 2009-10 but has been dropping steadily since Gov. John Kasich took office.

Actually, it started its downward trend in the year before Kasich unseated Democrat Ted Strickland. While it was a close contest, Strickland ended up taking the blame for the jobs lost during his term, and Kasich has received kudos for the job gains under his administration.

Both sides of the political aisle spin their own narrative about what the unemployment numbers mean. But for the average Ohioan on the street, the person in charge during an economic downturn is blamed and the person in charge during economic upswings gets the praise.

The unemployment results have taken on a new significance, however, with Strickland’s return to campaign trail, challenging the incumbent Republican Sen. Rob Portman.

(It should be noted that Strickland has a primary opponent, Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld. But, at the moment, Strickland and Portman aren’t paying any attention to him.)

You can’t go very many days without the Portman campaign and Republicans reminding voters about the Strickland years.

In recent days, Corry Bliss, Portman’s campaign manager, put it this way: “We’re eager to compare Rob’s record fighting to expand Ohio opportunities for better-paying jobs with Gov. Strickland’s awful tenure when Ohio ranked 48th in job creation and lost over 350,000 jobs.”

‘Awful record’

And: “It is clear Gov. Ted Strickland will do or say anything to distract from his awful record when Ohio not only lost over 350,000 jobs on his watch, but the state ranked 48th in job creation – far behind the rest of the country.”

I asked Strickland about this the other day, during that big union rally/protest/parade in downtown Columbus.

He laughed.

“You know, it’s almost funny,” he said. “We had a national recession that was unlike anything since the Great Depression. And I believe that national recession was not caused by me or anything that happened in Ohio. It was caused by what happened on Wall Street and what happened within the Bush administration. And who was involved in the Bush administration in terms of policy? Sen. Rob Portman was George Bush’s trade representative working to send jobs out of Ohio, offshore, and he was his budget director, which helped devise many of the programs and policies that led to the Great Recession.”

He added, “I gave Gov. John Kasich a recovering economy. In my last year in office, in spite of the hit we took during the recession, Ohio was adding jobs and unemployment was coming down. In fact, more jobs were gained in the last year of my administration than in either of the first two years of the Kasich administration. So I’m happy to have this debate. ... I managed the affairs of Ohio during the most difficult times due to the greed on Wall Street and the mismanagement of the Bush administration.”

Portman and Strickland were neck and neck in the latest Quinnipiac Poll, with Strickland losing some ground in recent months and Portman gaining.

Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. Email him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.