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Battle for Democratic nomination for US Senate heats up as the two hopefuls clash over paid sick leave
On the side
A staunch opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson of Marietta, R-6th, “apologized” to the people of the year 2030 for not being able to stop the Iran nuclear deal.
Johnson said: “I want to speak into the future, to present a plausible scenario, and an apology. An apology to be heard by the survivors. An apology to every victim of what will forever be known as the ‘Iranian Nuclear Attack.’”
The agreement negotiated by the United States and Iran – as well as five other countries – would allow stronger inspections of nuclear sites in Iran in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Several members of Congress, including some Democrats, oppose the deal, largely because of concerns the money would be used by Iran to destabilize the Middle East.
Johnson finished by asking how leaders of 2015 could let this happen and answered his own question.
“The answer is simple and sad: because, despite our best efforts, we couldn’t stop the deal that funded, armed and unleashed nuclear hell from the madmen of Iran. We allowed the power and persistence of the foolish to deliver a corrupt contract with a nation of terror. And, in 2030, the day of reckoning arrived.”
The U.S. Senate campaign of Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld used President Barack Obama’s Labor Day executive order requiring federal contractors to provide paid sick leave for their employees as an opportunity to criticize ex-Gov. Ted Strickland, his Democratic primary opponent.
Like Sittenfeld, Strickland backs Obama’s order to have companies doing business with the federal government provide up to seven paid sick days a year for its full-time employees beginning in 2017, and less paid sick time off for part-timers.
Strickland “has always supported a federal law requiring paid sick leave,” said Dennis Willard, his campaign spokesman. “He applauds the president’s actions, and Ted continues to support a federal law for paid sick leave as he runs for the U.S. Senate.”
But Sittenfeld’s campaign points to Strickland’s opposition in 2008 to a proposed statewide ballot initiative to give similar sick-leave benefits to workers in Ohio at businesses with at least 25 employees.
Strickland said at the time that he attempted a compromise between the two sides to balance the ballot-issue supporters’ desire to have workers get paid sick time with employers’ need to manage their operations.
When a compromise failed, Strickland opposed the proposal and backers agreed to pull the measure from the ballot.
At the time, Strickland said he’d push for a similar initiative on the federal level if Obama was elected. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and Strickland said in 2008 that they expected Obama to make it a national issue if he were elected.
That didn’t work out well, but it shows Strickland backing a federal policy on sick days going back at least seven years.
Sittenfeld sees the 2008 issue differently.
“When Ted Strickland was governor and had a chance to help bring paid sick days to Ohio, he dropped the ball,” he said in a prepared statement.
He disputes that Strickland truly tried to compromise between the coalition backing the issue and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, which led the opposition.
“Instead of siding with workers and their families, Gov. Strickland sided with the chamber and its big-business allies,” Sittenfeld said. “He was wrong then, and he can’t rewrite history now.”
Dale Butland, Sittenfeld’s spokesman and senior adviser, was the communications director for the coalition back in 2008.
Butland said this is “another issue difference between P.G. and Ted. When [Strickland] had the chance to bring sick days to working Ohioans, he chose to support the chamber of commerce’s position. I wish he had a little more guts when he was governor.”
With the 2016 Democratic primary less than six months away, Strickland, the clear frontrunner, isn’t going to talk about Sittenfeld.
At this point – and likely throughout the campaign leading to the March 2016 primary – there’s no political reason for Strickland to do so.
Based on the drop-off in Sittenfeld’s campaign contributions, the campaign’s strategy appears to be an effort to gain attention by criticizing Strickland to the media on various issues. The sick-day statement is the latest. It was gun control last week and the XL Pipeline the week prior.
Polls show Sittenfeld, who announced nearly eight months ago that he was running for Senate, has very little statewide name recognition and would get crushed in a one-on-one match-up with incumbent U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican.
Those same polls show Strickland with strong name recognition and a lead over Portman. That lead has shrunk over time, coinciding with Portman and primarily his wealthy backers spending millions of dollars on ads more than a year before the November 2016 general election. The latest poll has Strickland ahead by 3 percentage points, which is within the margin of error.
The tone of Sittenfeld’s statements during this race seems to be more negative toward Strickland with time.
But Butland said, “Elections, by definition, are about differences. We’re not going to be afraid to talk about the issues. We’ve made it clear we’re not going to attack Ted personally. P.G. respects and admires him. But when we have disagreements in the campaign, we will aggressively talk about them.”