Plain Dealer's Kucinich endorsement argues against it twice endorsing Kasich

The Cleveland Plain Dealer (PD), a once respected legacy newspaper that's fallen far short over the years as its readership has dwindled, endorsed Dennis John Kucinich Sunday as its preferred candidate in this year's Democratic primary.

Dome of the Ohio Statehouse

"Ohio's next governor must be a fighter -- a fighter for greater equity, justice and common sense; a fighter for the state's urban centers; and a fighter against the moribund thinking on education, diversity, economic opportunity and home-rule rights that's held Ohio back for too long," the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer wrote today.

In its endorsement of Kucinich, a former mayor of Cleveland who served numerous terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and twice ran for president, the PD used the same kind of spurious thinking it used when it first endorsed John Kasich for governor in 2010 and again when he ran for reelection in 2014.

The PD offered a list of what's wrong in Columbus without ever once mentioning that John Kasich, the candidate they fell for twice, has been Charles in Charge for the last eight years, running at times with and against the state's legislature controlled by veto-proof margins in both chambers by Republicans. 

Instead of choosing the steady hand of former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, on whose watch the Great Recession descended on Ohio like a plague of hungry locusts eating up hundreds of thousands of jobs in quick fashion in less than two years, the PD editorial board bought the razzle dazzle, flimflam of Kasich, who promised much but delivered little.

After nearly eight years of Kasich's political showmanship, that favors rich individuals and corporations over everyday laborers and small businesses, Ohio ranks 40th among states. The perennial battle ground state that's drifted far right of center over the decades, now trails the nation in job creation, made life for women harder and robbed cities and schools of billions in revenue that was redistributed to the already wealthy, among many other metrics.

Rich Cordray may be a smart guy but he lacks charisma. Dennis Kucinich has charisma but he lacks Cordray's connections to Clinton-Obama money. When the PD says " ... business as usual in Columbus has left too many Ohioans behind," they are now in opposition to their own reasoning on endorsing Kasich over both Strickland or Ed FitzGerald, the 2014 candidate Democrats ran against Kasich who the media slaughtered for all the wrong reasons while letting Kasich off one scandal after another Scott Free.

Roldo Bartimole, Ohio's leading independent reporter, recoiled at the PD's endorsement of Kucinich. Bartimole, who worked for the Wall Street Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer back in the day when it was respected far more than it is today, thinks the paper has gone off the rails.

"The PD, I think, is just so far out of it that they don’t know what they’re doing," Bartimole wrote to me today. He stopped short of accusing the PD of being in league with the DeWine/Husted camp, but thinks the paper comes up short if it doesn't also inform its readers that Kucinichs progressive image has some serious defects, as he points out here and here. He and others think the PD would rather see Mike DeWine as the next governor than either Kucinich or Cordray.

"I think they’re for DeWine to win. Such bullshit," he says.

Let's not forget that the PD took down a disturbing video of Gov. Kasich acting the petulant child he is just weeks before the midterm election in 2014, when Kasich, FitzGerald and Anita Rios, the Green Party candidate, were together in the same room at an editorial interview session. Kasich knew that to be viable to run for president in 2016, he had to win a second term. Kasich's performance was such a train wreck that his aides bullied the PD into taking the video of the interview session down after it being on line for just a day or two. For many, that action cemented the paper's bias for Kasich, who hasn't stopped running for president even though he got clobbered in 2016.

When your so-called political friends turn on you, it's a bad sign of bad things to come. But that was as clear as pure water when a very Republican, very conservative blog, 3rd Rail Politics, butchered Kasich for abandoning his job as governor.

Cyndy Rees, author of "A Contract with the Caucus," said Ohio GOPers should "require Governor

John Kasich on Election Night in 2010

Kasich to actually do his job, or else pay back his salary and face removal proceedings." Rees writes what is in plain sight for all media not too blind or too invested in Kasich to see. "The state’s Republican Governor has checked out of Ohio for the express purpose of trashing the sitting Republican president and challenging him in 2020. And in a state where the President won by 8 points, the Republican General Assembly gives him a pass? From the moment Kasich boycotted the Republican convention in his home state, the legislature should have made his tenure a living hell. Instead, they privately grumble and hope things will get better under Mike DeWine. The ostensibly conservative Ohio House should be steamrolling this guy whose staff is already out the door anyway."

Who Democrats nominate for governor will have an impact, like it or not, on whether Ohio's senior senator in Washington wins a third term or goes home defeated if Trump Republicans turn out to install Brown's GOP challenger if Democratic turnout isn't up to snuff. Team Brown emailed today, saying, "A newly released poll says a single point is all that separates my opponent, Congressman Jim Renacci, and me. Needless to say, this isn’t very comforting."

If Kucinich leads the ticket, will Brown endorse him or campaign with him or run a campaign that divorces itself from him? It's hard to imagine Kucinich losing without Brown suffering repercussions, since all their names will be on the sample ballot. But like Kucinich, who has lined up on occasion with President Trump, Brown has done the same on steel and aluminum tariffs he sees protecting Ohio jobs.

A recent poll of Democratic candidates for governor show Cordray and Kucinich tied at 21 each. Voter turnout among Democrats, and whether independents or Republicans will vote in the Democratic primary are big factors that can swing the May 8th primary vote to either the consumer finance protector or the Fox News fighter who has everything to gain and nothing to lose.