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| Gov. John R. Kasich |
How to make Ohio great again is a perplexing problem, one sure to elude Republicans who swept away their Democratic challengers just a month ago, and who mostly align themselves with Kasich's outdated supply-side mentality that favors pro-business policies that invariably result in anti-worker, anti-wage-growth.
With one foot out the door after two terms of bullying and berating local governments, public school districts and public workers, Kasich's first bonehead move was to try to gut public-sector collective bargaining with the passage in 2011 of SB 5. Had the bill remained law, it would have relegated collective bargaining for public union workers to the harsh whims of employers. Buckeye voters did something then they have failed to do again, rise up in mass to nullify a bill designed to hurt unions—and their historic support from Democrats to take up the causes of workers, women, minorities and seniors.
As The Toledo Blade wrote in 2014, Ohio voters should "consider whether to give John Kasich another four years as governor this November ... they might want to revisit his first year in office, when he promoted a series of extremist policies. Chief among these was the union-busting Senate Bill 5."
That was the ballgame in 2016, when Kasich and 15 other GOP candidates thought their "establishment" political credentials, honed over decades of polished, professional showmanship that sung the song of CEOs while forgetting the words to the song that average workers wanted to hear, were no match for a never-politico like New York billionaire and reality TV show maven, Donald John Trump. To this fraternity's great surprise, and greater chagrin, Trump blew Kasich and company away. The sanctimonious governor who always invokes God in his jabber, performed among the worst of the lot, but stayed in the race because he knew media would follow him.
No longer the state to go to—those honors go to Nevada, Utah, Washington, Texas and Florida according to recently released Census Bureau data—remaining Buckeyes are older, less educated and fatter. With a population that has grown over the last decade by barely enough people to fill Ohio State's football stadium once, Ohio lawmakers are doing their level best to give the world more reasons to stay away.
Not satisfied with the slew of anti-women's health bills he's already signed into law over the last eight years, Kasich added to his pathetic pile by signing another bill to limit abortion options. Signing SB 145 into law, which bans the dilation and evacuation procedure, Kasich cements his reputation as man ignorant of women's health issues.
He summoned the courage to veto the so-called "Heartbeat Bill," which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. But not because he disagrees with the intent of the bill, but because he thinks it won't hold up in court, and defending it will cost Ohio millions. But Republicans who hate government intervention in general, think using it on woman's health rights is alright. Ohio's full-time legislature is controlled by a supermajority of Republicans, so Kasich's one act of sanity maybe overridden before the year ends. And if it isn't, Gov-elect Mike DeWine, a staunch Catholic, said he'd sign the heat-beat bill.
Thinking his voice will not be diminished once he leaves office, Kasich's future depends on gullible state and national media following his outbursts and flamboyant utterances—"rotten, stinking politics." As he migrates back to what he does best, blathering on about policies he helped enact (deficits, gerrymandering, income inequality) then turned against when that made news, it's safe to say The Columbus Dispatch, a life-long Kasich support whose editorials virtually always support his tortured, austere thinking, will continue to cover him as if he's still Ohio's leader and the savior of the free world.
Desperately seeking a high-profile media gig that pays him well to spew his long-held beliefs that tax
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| President Donald J. Trump |
His stump speech in 2016 centered on his unique ability to bring people together. The history of that claim is so false as to be funny. Anyone who cares to research it will find he's been unable to bring people together on anything that doesn't share his vision. Even his own legislature's frustration with his inability to do that will be manifested when his vetoes are overridden, as if he were an out-going Democrat. GOP big game hunters have him in their sights and won't be afraid to pull the trigger.
The Catholic boy from western Pennsylvania gave up a life in the priesthood for the fame and fortune in Republican politics. He's enriched himself over four decades in politics to the tune of between $9-22 million. Playing "The Grinch" this Christmas, Kasich vetoed a pay raise for elected officials who had not had one in ten years. Posting budgets that set records as the highest in Ohio history, a strange phenomena for someone who harps on government spending and especially federal deficits, Kasich kicked his fellow Republicans in the teeth on the way out the door this year, as he searches for his next big payday on a 24/7 cable news network.
His quirky personality and equally quirkier policies have made him a persona non grata among Democrats, a traitor to Trump Republicans and a false prophet to independents who think he sounds good until they examine his outbursts further, realizing they're in-line with Trump's policies. Despite the small difference in personal styles, with Kasich's being just short of The Donald's overt clownishness, Republicans of a feather gather together as was the case when Kasich remained silent of Trump's humongous tax giveaway to already rich business and absurdly rich individuals.
The National Chaplain is certainly older but not appreciably wiser. Planning yet another book that will re-plow the same furrows from previous auto-biographical books, John R. Kasich seems content to float along in the flotsam and jetsam of cable news shows that do more to divide the nation than bring it together.
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