Governor Strickland is a Kilroy Democrat

Governor Ted Strickland has lately been proving himself a true Kilroy Democrat. The term, as anyone even vaguely familiar with the Congresswoman would surmise, describes a career politician who is epically inept, inexcusably negative, intensely hypocritical, and downright dangerous to the interests of his or her constituents.

Ted Strickland is our state's accidental governor; he's the Jimmy Carter of Ohio. Both men were elected because the people were tired of scandal. For Carter the impetus was Watergate, for Strickland it was Coingate. Candidate Strickland promised us that he would end a culture of corruption in Ohio's state government and create jobs. As everyone knows, Strickland's job creation promise didn't pan out: Ohio has lost 427,300 jobs on his watch. As demonstrated by the recent scandal over a canceled sting operation at the Governor's Residence, Strickland has also proven himself a failure at ending the culture of corruption.

In a recently released report Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles, the state official responsible for investigating allegations of wrongdoing by state agencies and executives, states that both Strickland's Director of Public Safety, Cathy Collins-Taylor, and the commander of his security detail, Lt. Joseph Mannion, lied to investigators in an effort to cover-up the politically motivated decision to cancel a "safe, well-planned and routine" operation in order to protect Governor Strickland from political embarrassment.

The facts in the Inspector General's report paint a disturbing picture that makes it impossible to excuse Director of Public Safety Cathy Collins-Taylor's conduct. In her testimony Collins-Taylor argued that past tense verbs used to describe DPS actions didn't necessarily mean that the actions had already taken place and that the phrase "embarrassment to the boss" didn't mean embarrassment to the governor, it just meant "embarrassment to the administration in general – to the Patrol, to DRC [Department of Rehabilitation and Correction], to DAS [Department of Administrative Services]". Overall, her statements read like they should have been performed by Jon Lovitz and followed up with "Yeah! That's the ticket!" The Inspector General correctly classifies her statements as "absurd".

In addition to her lies, the Department of Public Safety under Collins-Taylor obstructed the Inspector General's investigation by intentionally providing 44,000 pages of meaningless records including "a series of communications labeled 'Girls Night Out'". Good to know the Department of Public Safety takes conserving taxpayer-funded resources seriously.

How did Governor Strickland react? Surely a man who once said "It is important for Democrats to send a very clear message that we will clean our own house" would take a pretty heavy hand against a corrupt subordinate, right? Nope. Strickland rejected the Inspector General's report and said "[Collins-Taylor]'s done nothing wrong." Pretty hypocritical for a guy who campaigned on a promise to clean up corruption.

Fortunately, the Ohio Senate will have the opportunity to hold Collins-Taylor accountable for her misdeeds. As it turns out, Governor Strickland failed to submit Collins-Taylor's nomination to the Senate when he appointed her on September 18. That's right: Governor Strickland is so inept he forgot to submit a cabinet member's nomination to the Senate. Wow.

To change the subject from his administration's shortcomings, Strickland's campaign has released a Kilroy-style negative attack ad against his electoral opponent, John Kasich.



The ad itself is almost an exact copy of a SEIU ad produced in 2008 to promote Barack Obama's presidential candidacy. I imagine Vice President Biden has to be hopping mad about this; when he plagiarized another politician back in 1988 it derailed his presidential aspirations. Strickland's pretty much getting a free pass--not fair! Plagiarism is a big f*cking deal!

The standout takeaway from the ad isn't that it displays political desperation or betrays Team Strickland's banality, the major takeaway is that even Ted Strickland realizes the Pelosi Congress has failed! For months Team Strickland has been trying to peg John Kasich as a Wall Street bigwig (they even had Congresswoman Kilroy hold a hearing in hopes of doing so), but now Strickland's dreamt up a label capable of inspiring even more scorn: "Congressman!"

In the 30 second ad the word "Congressman" is spoken or displayed six times--that's one "Congressman" for every five seconds. At no point does the ad inform viewers that John Kasich hasn't been in Congress for almost ten years. It's a deliberate omission because Strickland wants voters to think Kasich is in league with Nancy Pelosi and Mary Jo Kilroy as they jack up your tax rate and murder jobs like fish in a barrel. The reality, however, is that Strickland is the incumbent. His Kilroy-style politics are going to put him exactly where they're going to put her--and coincidentally where the two of them have put far too many Ohioans--in the unemployment line.