Gone as governor, Ohio media finally dares criticize John Kasich

For long-time students of John Richard Kasich who have followed his performance politician's career arc from LSC intern to Governor of Ohio, it's curious that Ohio media in general and the statehouse press corps in particular are finally daring to criticize him in ways they couldn't muster over the last eight years.

Gov. Kasich with his starting team:
Mary Taylor and Mark Kvamme.

Editorials in the Toledo Blade, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Dayton Daily News and Akron Beacon Journal, among others, paint a picture of the petulant and prickly state CEO as someone who had tense relations with so many would-be partners, especially his ultra-right Republican lawmakers, who sent him a gaggle of terrible bills he signed into law. In his second term, they were so out of step with him that they mustered the votes necessary to override several of his vetoes.

Always a showman, Kasich, who's honed his performance politician chops over decades in the public eye, has landed an agent and his sought-after post-governor gig as a CNN contributor. His landing an agent and his hiring by President Donald Trump's most despised TV network made news on the day all other Buckeye media was fixated on the swearing-in ceremonies, and the six executive orders new Gov. Mike DeWine signed as his first policy initiatives on his first day in office.

Finally confessing after years of being reticent to do so, Ohio's legacy newspapers repeated Kasich's false but now set-in-concrete talking points about his great (or not) creation of jobs, his saving a state whose emergency fund was depleted to 89 cents when he was first elected in 2010, and his most worthwhile although very misunderstood adoption of expanded Medicaid. They all recalled his first big blunder, pushing to gut public sector unions via SB5 and included his calculated PR error to boycott welcoming Republicans who came to Cleveland for the party's national nominating convention in 2016..

As the dancing bear of anti-Trumpers, Kasich, now 66, will become another 24/7 talking pundit on CNN, where he'll keep his "voice" in front of a world-wide TV audience even though he's admitted repeatedly, as often as lazy TV personalities asked him the question, that he couldn't beat Trump if the race were held today. If he's wishy washy on his chances at mounting his third run for the Oval Office in 20 years, come 2020, what will change his fortunes going forward now that he's no longer leader of a major, and very red state like Ohio, where Trump beat Hillary Clinton by nearly nine points, and he as the sitting governor beat Trump in his lone primary win even though he couldn't push past the 50-percent mark in his home state?

While a handful of papers dared look back on his tenure to weigh-in on what he did right and wrong, every one of them left many of his scandals on the table. Each avoided laying out some of his biggest political pitfalls, including his dirty-tricks campaign in 2014 to derail a potential challenger, Charley Earl of the Libertarian Party, his erosion of voting rights, signing into law more than 20 bills that hurt women's health rights, his combative personality that criticized politicians and party politics even though he was guilty on both counts in many cases, and two huge failures, one on for-profit charter schools and a second on the degraced husband of his chief of staff who falsified data on a federal education grant form.

Kasich's inspector general released a report on Bill Lager, owner of the Electric Classroom of Tomorrow, who made large donations to Kasich and other Republicans over the years after receiving tens of millions of dollars that should have gone to public schools but for policies Kasich and his GOOP legislature put into place that kept the money flowing even when the students at these for-profit charters performed poorly. Kasich took Ohio from 5th best in the nation on education to 23rd, earning Ohio the nickname of "The Wild West" of charter schools.

Where was the outrage of these broad sheets when it came to his near abandonment of his governor's duties, his fleecing of taxpayers for millions to protect him on a presidential campaign trail he never once mentioned he would undertake if reelected in 2014? There was no apology by the Plain Dealer, who seemed proud that the paper had endorsed him twice, for taking down a video of his juvenile behavior at an editorial meeting that included two other governor hopefuls?

As the facts show, these papers dropped the ball or were blind to when Ohio's turnaround from the Great Recession started, and it wasn't when the glib governor he came into office. Former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, as Bureau of Labor Statistics charts show, took the entire brunt of giant job losses yet managed through skilled budgeting and stimulus help from Washington to send the job creation line heading up again before he left office.

The now infamous claim by Team Kasich that Ohio was in a ditch and facing a budget hole of $8 billion is an urban myth Kasich exploited that newspapers let him exploit. The truth is the $8 billion hole figure was only an estimate by then Republican Auditor of State Mary Taylor. Taylor's made up figure was taken as fact, as the real gap was billions lower as fathomed by budget experts. Taylor went on to become Kasich's Lt. Governor running mate, who cut herself loose from him when she ran for the top job.

Out of office, John Kasich will do what he does best: motor his mouth on TV and in editorials about solving problems he's been part of creating for decades. Kasich, who made his bones by decrying debts and deficits, oversaw the largest budgets in Ohio history when he was simultaneously whining that Ohio was broke. He created a super-secret, private jobs group (JobsOhio) he said when first running for office that he would head until the Ohio Constitutional said he couldn't do that. JobsOhio, beside being a money hog, didn't live up to Kasich's claim of how great it was.

His totally unreported scandal on the pension front was allowing Wall Street managers so soak state pension funds for huge fees even though these funds have little to show from spending millions on exorbitant fees. "Good work if you can get it," one Ohio editorial writer wrote.

Maybe highest on Kasich's list of shameful actions is how he skewed Ohio's tax system to favor the rich by shifting the tax burden to the poor. The Akron Beacon Journal makes this important point in an editorial that outlines how Kasich, a multi-millionaire himself, cut income taxes that were sold as winners but have produced the opposite effect. Kasich's tax scheme produced a budget that was $1 billion short, that apostles of no-new taxes filled with budget cuts.

As the ABJ notes, over the last decade, including eight years under Gov. Kasich and an Republican-led legislature, "state spending on key priorities down sharply in real dollars, for instance, higher education, down 20 percent; transportation, 42 percent; local governments, 46 percent. Such trajectories do not point to a stronger Ohio economy or improved quality of life. So there is much to be gained in a more equitable tax system that generates additional revenue."

Citizen Kasich in 2010

decries government regulations

In his latest op-ed piece in USA Today, the Catholic boy who once wanted to become a priest but found fame and fortune through partisan politics more to his liking says his Republican Party is mired in 1950's thinking, and that new ideas, of which he will claim to be the father of, are what's needed now. What those new ideas are, if they are different than his life-long belief in supply-side economics and free market mechanics and his desire to overturn Roe v Wade, are a mystery.

One new idea Kasich should embrace, but he won't because he's stuck in the past as deeply as he claims the GOP is, would be championing a Canadian-style, Medicare-for-all health system. Another new idea he might voice on CNN is that America's military buildup is a prime driver of our debt and deficits, a subject he says can be controlled with a federal balanced budget amendment, which virtually all sane economists say would be disastrous if all options to cut spending—including military expenditures—are not on the table.

Trying to parlay himself as a so-called "moderate" is one of his trump cards. But as noted here, he's not a moderate. With media encased in its belief that he is a moderate because his talks like a moderate even though his real record shows he's not, media will continue to hide his real record.

Kasich's quirky, shoot from the mouth personalty has rubbed virtually all people and parties, especially his own, the wrong way. As many a Capitol Square observer has observed, he's got his ideas and if his ideas aren't yours, good lucking coming to a compromise with him.

As many a Capitol Square observer has observed, he's got his ideas and if yours aren't his, he's not with you. All his talking about coming together through compromise is something his track record in Ohio shows he doesn't do well.