"Working on this budget is more important than participating in a parade or eating hot dogs at an outdoor cookout." - Ted Strickland
(Columbus) - Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine called on Gov. Ted Strickland to immediately suspend his own campaign activity and devote full attention to Ohio's budget crisis.
Strickland sent a divisive fundraising email Monday on behalf of the Democratic Governor's Association, hypocritically defying his own appeal to state lawmakers to avoid campaigning until the budget crisis is resolved.
Dayton Daily News: The governor said he and lawmakers should skip July Fourth celebrations and get the budget passed. "Working on this budget is more important than participating in a parade or eating hot dogs at an outdoor cookout," said Strickland. (6/29/09)
"Ted Strickland has become notorious for politicizing the governor's office," said DeWine. "At a time when Ohioans desperately need a visionary leader, Gov. Strickland is nothing more than a calculated politician. The fact that he apparently cares more about raising money for the Democratic Party than about turning around Ohio's economy or leading the state through a budget crisis says a lot about his priorities."
# # #
For the Record:
Strickland's cares more about re-election than leading Ohio.
"The lack of leadership this governor has shown throughout this crisis is nothing short of appalling. ... At a time when Ohio desperately needs a governor who thinks first and foremost of the state's future, Strickland acts as if that future begins and ends with his 2010 re-election campaign." (Brent Larkin, The Plain Dealer, 6/28/09)
"The governor alone isn't accountable for Ohio's well-being. But he is the man at the top. And he has an obligation to level with people about what will happen if Ohio just cuts its way out of its hole. He has shamelessly not done that. And it's because his foremost concern is being re-elected." (Ellen Belcher, Dayton Daily News, 6/26/09)
Strickland said that although publicly offering a detailed fix even as a Senate-House budget conference toils is a break with tradition, Ohio's economy is the worst it has been in 80 years. That's why, aside from questions about the specifics of his slots plan, it's fair to ask, "Where have you been until now, Governor?" (Editorial, The Plain Dealer, 6/21/09)
Now that he's desperate for cash and recognizes the folly of raising taxes in a recession, he has turned to the one financing option that he has long demonized. He's touting vice as a budget-saving virtue. And by compromising his own principles, he shows himself to be a hypocrite, which isn't the worst thing you can call a budget-strapped politician. He's also become the state's top bookie. (Phillip Morris, The Plain Dealer, 6/23/09)
Strickland regularly plays politics with Ohio's budget crisis.
Frustrated by attacks on his proposed $54 billion two- year budget, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland says GOP politicians should show him the way. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/21/09)
Some think the governor and the House leadership purposely sent the Senate a phony budget, hoping the voters would blame Republicans for the deep spending cuts that are inevitable in the Senate-passed spending plan. (Editorial, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5/10/09)
Strickland's budget called "a book of political fiction."
Strickland handed his fellow Democrats in Ohio's House a book of political fiction, with a cover calling the contents a budget. House Democrats kept the book's cover, rewrote many of its chapters, and then handed the messy manuscript off to state Senate Republicans. (Editorial by Thomas Suddes, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5/24/09)
The question remains...
Why were Strickland and the Democrats so eager to regain the Governor's Mansion and legislative power, only to run from the very responsibilities they fought so hard to win? It now falls to the Republican-controlled Ohio Senate, which will take up the budget bill soon, to inject some sanity into the plan and determine how Ohio will pay for education and how it will cope with the huge shortfall in the subsequent budget. (Editorial, Columbus Dispatch, 5/1/09)
# # #
Delicious
Digg
Technorati
