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Democrat Ted Strickland said he’s running next year for the U.S. Senate
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Strickland
COLUMBUS
Ex-Gov. Ted Strickland said he plans to run an aggressive campaign for U.S. Senate and will gladly take on Republicans who he contends distort his record.
In a Wednesday interview with The Vindicator shortly after announcing in an email his candidacy for the Senate seat in 2016, Strickland, a Democrat, said, “You know the Republicans. They’re going to attack you for what you’ve done or make stuff up. The people of Ohio know me.”
Moments after Strickland’s announcement that he’d challenge U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, the first-term Republican incumbent, in 2016, state and national Republicans criticized the former governor.
“The choice is clear — it’s either back to the Strickland days of record unemployment [during his time as governor] or moving our economy forward with Ohio’s Rob Portman,” said Jahan Wilcox, National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman.
Portman publicly criticized Strickland more than 20 months before next year’s general election, and his campaign Wednesday launched an anti-Strickland website, retreadted.com.
Though Strickland’s public announcement came Wednesday, he said, “I reached a final decision within the last month and a half.”
The Vindicator exclusively reported on its website, vindy.com, on Jan. 30 that Strickland had told close political allies and high-level national donors that he was running for the position, and would make a public announcement in late February.
Strickland said the newspaper’s sources were correct.
He waited to announce because “I wanted to talk with my friends and supporters. I had a job, and I needed to bring that to a conclusion. It took me time to wrap things up.”
The Vindicator also was first to report Feb. 17 that Strickland had actively started soliciting campaign contributions. That was confirmed by his campaign and came after Strickland’s Feb. 13 resignation as president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Strickland had that position with the Washington, D.C., left-leaning think tank for 11 months.
Since the Jan. 30 report, state and national Republicans have criticized Strickland almost daily, primarily accusing him of no longer supporting coal or gun rights.
“I’ve always supported coal miners and coal. I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment. I’ve always considered myself part of the working class. All of this will be debated in the course of the campaign,” he said.
Strickland said he supports fair trade and “keeping jobs in the United States,” while Portman is “an outsourcer” who served President George W. Bush’s trade representative for a year.
In a statement after Strickland’s announcement, Portman said, “The coming months will give Ohioans an opportunity to contrast my vision for a better future for Ohio workers with his past tenure as governor when hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared from our state.”
Strickland served 12 years in the U.S. House and won the 2006 gubernatorial race. He lost his re-election bid to Republican John Kasich in 2010 by 2 percentage points.
Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld announced last month he was running for the Democratic nomination for the Senate post in 2016.
Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras, who’s given $2,700 to Strickland’s Senate campaign, said, “I’m going to fight hard to get him elected to the Senate. He represents everything good about a public official.”