From the monthly archives: July 2010
Wow, Kasich’s statement in the Cleveland Plain Dealer all but puts the final nail in the coffin that is Kasich’s reckless income tax repeal plan:
Kasich said the state’s top personal income tax bracket – through which many small businesses pay taxes – was too high but didn’t offer specifics on how to address it.
“There is no doubt that we need to lower these taxes because it make us less competitive,” he said.
We’ve gone from a total repeal of the Ohio income tax code to trying to figure out a way to cut taxes for the [...]
Full Story... →Much has been made of Steve Stivers recent FEC report, but not much has been written about where Stivers is getting his money. According to Stivers’ report 40% of his donations were from business PACs. In fairness, though, Kilroy accepted a similar ratio from mostly union PACs.
Stivers accepted so much special interest money, though, he likely violated federal campaign finance laws. My understanding is that a PAC can only donate $10,000 and individuals can only donate up to $4,800 to a congressional campaign in a single cycle. Another federal political candidate’s campaign may only donate up to $4,000 a [...]
Full Story... →While John Kasich was busy doodling “Kasich + Daniels =BFF 4Ever” with hearts over the “i”s and prancing unicorns lifting them into Jesus’ waiting arms, Joe Hallett of the Columbus Dispatch tried to remind everyone of the elephant in the room because he’s really creeped out by this gubernatorial man crush:
Outside of Peyton Manning, Indiana sucks ass.
An examination of statistics, however, reveals that Indiana might not be the jobs magnet that Kasich incessantly portrays on the campaign trail.
On a steamy day when Strickland also wooed northeastern Ohio voters in an already-sizzling race, Kasich campaigned with his [...]
Full Story... →When I watch John Kasich, one word comes to mind: humble. Kasich points out that he’s running for Governor because he wants to give back his talents to Ohio after being a successful businessman of a two-man office of a company that lead into the world’s largest bankruptcy. It has nothing to do with the fact that he’s unemployed and is the only conservative who can’t get ratings on Fox News.
Kasich also wants you to know that he thinks Strickland’s Centers of Innovation is a great idea as well as Strickland’s idea of getting universities to do more [...]
Full Story... →In response to news reports that public records show that Kasich actually lobbied more state pensions to give work to Lehman Brothers after specifically and uncategorially denying such a possibility, Kasich’s campaign said:
Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols rejected the suggestion that Kasich was dishonest, saying Kasich doesn’t rememebr [sic in original] the STRS phone call.
Ahh, it’s the “I lobbied so many State pensions, I cannot possible remember them all!” defense.
Of course, while Kasich plays the “forgot it” card, the ORP plays the “smear” card. Because anytime you point out Kasich tried to steer state business to [...]
Full Story... →Not only is the ad really bad because its filled with cheesy, forced attack lines based on obscure political references (I’d note that not even the Carpetblogger has written or Tweet’d about it), but according to the Columbus Dispatch (R-Columbus), it’s also false and misleading.
First, the ad lies about the true state of the jobs market in Ohio:
Like the other ads, the latest, which began airing yesterday, focuses on jobs lost during Strickland’s tenure, although after several months of job gains, the actual number lost is 379,900 from December 2006 through June.
Yeah, they’re only 20,000 jobs off [...]
Full Story... →It’s been interesting to watch this inevitable transformation of John Kasich from pity party to full on angry man. You’ll remember their first defense for Strickland going on the offensive was to basically say “LEAVE JOHN KASICH ALONE”. Mean, mean Ted Strickland should not attack poor John Kasich. It was not fair. Ted should talk about his record and not put poor little Lehman Brothers boy John Kasich on the defensive. It was as if they were taking campaign advice directly from Chris Crocker.
When that didn’t work (hint: noboby is going to leave John Kasich alone) [...]
Full Story... →Back in May 12, 2010, the Columbus Dispatch reported that John Kasich helped Lehman Brothers pitch its services to two public pensions that wound up losing millions in other investments it had with Lehman Brothers.
“Kasich never approached any other Ohio governmental entity about doing business with Lehman, the campaign said.”
Well, this morning, the Columbus Dispatch has found out that the Kasich campaign lied.
Although John Kasich’s campaign said earlier this year he only had two contacts with Ohio’s pension systems trying to drum up business for Lehman Brothers, the State Teachers Retirement System now [...]
Full Story... →Lyndsey Teter of The Other Paper has today’s must-read story profiling John Kasich’s infamous temper tantrums over the year. When my son acts up, he gets time out. John Kasich instead runs for President and Governor. Kids are weird. The Other Paper asks, "Does Ohio need an SOB as Governor?"
Teter describes a number of embarrassing events in Kasich’s past of treating working class people like second-class citizens compared to himself:
Kasich threw a hissy in the late 1980s in a grocery store because the manager wouldn’t reopen the store’s video store section so he could rent “The [...]
Full Story... →The Strickland campaign announced that tomorrow afternoon they will “reveal new information obtained from public record requests about Congressman Kasich’s role in pitching Ohio state pensions while he was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers.”
We learned back in May that Kasich lobbied two state pensions on behalf of Lehman Brothers:
Rob Nichols, a Kasich campaign spokesman, said in the statement. “At the request of a New York-based colleague, he was glad to help arrange two introductory meetings, and then his colleagues took things from there.”
Kasich then claimed that he only helped arrange the presentations, [...]
Full Story... →Budget Watch
