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Yes, I just claimed that John Kasich is going to be Ohio’s next governor. This is not meant as hyperbole. I really believe Kasich is going to beat Governor Strickland in November.

This is not based on deep study of the polls or a county-by-county analysis or anything of that sort. It is more of a gut feeling based on how I see the campaign playing out. Now, of course, a great deal could change in the intervening months: scandals, gaffes, the political environment, etc. But right now I don’t see any of that happening in such a way to change the underlying landscape.

I have begun to think that elections are determined in many ways by some pretty basic elements. What is the mood, what is the central issue or issues, how the candidates are perceived and what are their one sentence arguments for running.

On these basics Kasich is simply better situated to win than Strickland.

Details – such as they are – below.

For those of you who don’t have time for long-winded posts allow me to summarize:

Strickland: Economy sucks + lack of clear message or record + credible challenger = lose

Kasich: meets fundraising & qualifications threshold + favorable environment + strong message = win

First off, you don’t have to be a political science professor to understand that a sitting governor with double digit unemployment for the foreseeable future is in trouble. Strickland may be an experienced campaigner and proven fundraiser but the economic situation is trouble with a capital T. Remember how unpopular Bob Taft got with much better economic numbers?

In this situation the challenger must do a couple of things: pass the threshold voters have for candidates and get his message out. No matter how bad things are most voters won’t vote for a completely unknown, inexperienced or crazy candidate (state of Minnesota perhaps excepted). The challenger has to convince voters that they are serious and not a threat to make matters worse.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The challenge for credible candidates can then be name recognition. And this is true of Kasich. Most voters know who Governor Strickland is but many still are unclear about Kasich. This then falls to money and communication. Will he have the money to get his message out and can he do that effectively?

The answers are yes and yes. Kasich is a credible candidate and has the money and talent to get his message out to voters. He has already done a nice job with social media to get the base on board and with using events to build momentum and get favorable news coverage. I have seen nothing to indicate this won’t continue.

Let’s review: incumbent in trouble because the economy is in the tank and unemployment is in double digits. Challenger is a credible, media savvy politician without the baggage of being strongly tied to current state legislative or party leadership (he is not part of the group that put the state in this position). He has proven that he can raise money and do the work necessary to win.

This puts Kasich in a position to run on a pretty simple platform: “things suck, let’s change”. Right? “The system is broken we need someone to come in and fix things.” Not hard to see the big picture message here.

So what is Ted Strickland going to run on? “Things could have been a lot worse” is about all he has. The strategy here is twofold: we survived the worst economic downturn in a generation & John Kasich is a scary guy who will destroy all you hold dear.

I think both of these will end up being weak tea. The fundamental problem is that Strickland can’t run as what I call a “conviction politician;”a candidate who cares about a few key issues and has the drive to accomplish something. Think the opposite of Bob Taft who was office manger from head to toe.

Now, Ted Strickland is going to try and be this candidate. He is going to boast about education reform, cutting government, lowering taxes (homestead exemption) and balancing the budget. The problem for Strickland is that he can’t run as a conviction politician because he has stepped all over his lines on so many issues. He has become the politician stuck awkwardly in the middle.

His education reform is a sop to the education unions – with a few good ideas mixed in – but the funding is not there. He ruined his cutting taxes plank by raising taxes to balance the budget (yes, removing tax cuts that were on the books is a tax increase). He managed to look like a flip-flopping hypocrite by trying to sneak through gambling as a way to solve the budget. And sure he has been forced to trim state government some but he can’t very well run on slashing state government because 1) no one believes him and 2) to do so risks further irritating state unions and other leftist groups who want him to raise taxes and expand government.

The bottom line is no one really believes Strickland is a conviction politician. He was elected because voters were ticked at Taft and the GOP and didn’t trust Ken Blackwell. Strickland at the time seemed like the type who wouldn’t do too much damage – experienced, moderate, not crazy.

But when the economy tanked he seemed like a dear in headlights. He simply does not exude leadership. He is afraid acting like the liberal he really is would mean defeat so he tries to tack to the middle without fully aggravating the leftist base. Throw in a seemingly never ending series of mini-scandals and examples of poor vetting/incompetent management and you have a messaging problem.

If you ask the average voter what Ted Strickland really stands for what do you think they would say. Many might see him as a nice guy, but he has precious little political capital. Name an issue where Strickland has really shown leadership. Begging for more stimulus dollars? Pushing an unpopular rail project?

This brings us back to Kasich. You see, he can run as a conviction politician; because he is one and because the environment calls for it.

The signature issue that highlights this is his call to roll back Ohio’s income tax. It is an example of thinking boldly and brashly about what Ohio needs to do to compete. And it excites the conservative base.

The media of course hates it. Because like the green eye-shade wearers they are, they demand detailed budget scenarios and explanations of how everything will work. They simply can’t fathom how something this big might be accomplished and so they seek to nit-pick it to death.

Government is slashed to the bone! Think of the children! The Democrats and their media enablers bang the drumbeat on and on but the voters aren’t listening. If you think government is too small you are already going to vote for Strickland.

And all the while the message that is communicated is John Kasich thinks taxes are too high and is willing to take a lot of heat for it. Voters are not into the inside baseball of technical budget numbers or economic development policy. They only have time for and the ability to deal with big picture stuff.

Secondly, Kasich can and is running against both parties in a sense; against both Ted Strickland and Bob Taft. He is making the case that Ohio has been thinking to small and too narrowly for far too long. The fact that a huge chunk of the political and governmental establishment screams when the idea of eliminating the income tax is raised just shows how tied they are to the status-quo.

During normal times this would be a risky platform. Ken Blackwell ran an awkward an often off-message campaign but in many ways he had similar elements. He too was arguing for large scale changes and blaming both parties for failing to act. The problem for Blackwell – outside of the left’s constant demonization – was that the electorate wasn’t ready for big time change.

But the economic downturn, and inability of government to do anything about it in the near to medium term, means this anti-status-quo message is much more attractive. And Kasich with his history of balancing the budget and serving during economic good times is perfectly situated to campaign on this message effectively.

All of this is a longwinded way to saying: what is the election going to come down to? It is going to come down to jobs and to Ohio’s future.

John Kasich is going to campaign as a fresh face and new attitude. He is going to argue that the status-quo isn’t good enough; that is hasn’t been good enough for some time but that politicians of both parties lack the conviction and imagination to do anything about it but that he does and he will.

Ted Strickland is going to try and argue that he made the hard choices during the worst economy since the great depression and that he has the experience to lead the rapidly approaching recovery. And that John Kasich is a reckless conservative who used to work at Lehman Brothers.

Voters are going to see double digit unemployment, mounting budget deficits, stimulus dollars wasted and taxes going up – not to mention cabinet members resigning and staffers in court.

Can you honestly tell me that voters will then choose to give Ted Strickland four more years to try again?

Me neither.

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What with Ted Strickland taking all the heat from left and right while the economy makes Taft’s time in office seem like an oasis of prosperity.

The folks over at the Education Gadfly had the bright idea of talking to him about his new found perspective.  And it produced some interesting quotes.  These two in particular caught my attention:

Is a good education a matter of money?

Overall, funding is not the biggest obstacle to school improvement in Ohio. It’s how we can best use the time and talent of educators to improve education for all kids, particularly for kids in urban areas…. Resources are important but more important is how the dollars are used at the school level to change what is happening in the classrooms.

Is it time for a tax increase?

It’s nice not to be governor right now and worry about those decisions….The temporary one-cent sales tax increase was not popular, but I believed it was necessary after all the cuts we had already made. Today, I’m not close enough to the details of the budget to answer that question…. I do believe, however, that it is important to continue the income-tax reductions underway because Ohio’s rates are too high from a competitive standpoint when you put the state income tax together with our city income taxes. You don’t want to be one of the highest income-tax states…. It’s hard to compete with Texas and Florida [and other states without income taxes] but now we’re not even competing with surrounding states.

More on this below.

That first point can never be said enough.  Money is not the problem with Ohio education.  The left, the unions and their allies in the courts have driven this perspective and it is all too often bought by the public.  But it simply isn’t true. Money plays a role but it doesn’t drive outcomes.  And most of what Strickland is trying to do is spend more money on teachers and districts.

The second point is more complex obviously.  I am never a fan of raising taxes but I think this is a perfect example of center-right being better than left.

The Republican controlled General Assembly and Governor Taft raised the sales tax temporarily.  Yes, I think they should have done a much better job of cutting waste and reorganizing government but passing a temporary tax increase followed up by the lowering of income taxes sure beats a permanent expansion of gambling and likely attempt to repeal those tax cuts after the election.

But look at what Taft empahsized in his last few sentences.  They are worth repeating:

Ohio’s rates are too high from a competitive standpoint when you put the state income tax together with our city income taxes. You don’t want to be one of the highest income-tax states…. It’s hard to compete with Texas and Florida [and other states without income taxes] but now we’re not even competing with surrounding states.

This is what policy makers have to understand.  Reputations matter and Ohio has a reputation and a record as a high tax state.  The GOP has been unable to do anything about the taxes at the local level – thanks again, Columbus – but the state level has finally seen some movement.  Reversing this would be the height of foolishness.

The GOP has been far from perfect in this area.  I realize this.  But at least they have tried to bring some reform to the table.  The Democrats will look to raise taxes the moment they get a chance and they have no interest in smaller government.

This is important to keep in mind.  The lesser of two evils may not be an attractive voting philosophy but it is all too often reality and ignoring can be disastrous.

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Image via Wikipedia

Jon over at 3BP takes the time to explain to Joe Hallet why gubanatorial candidate John Kaisch did the right thing by not getting involved in the budget debate:

Simply because Kasich has announced his candidacy does not mean he has an obligation to have fully developed policy proposals with only a skeleton staff tasked with getting his campaign up and running.

Mr. Hallett, there are 477 days until November 2nd, 2010. Make no mistake, John Kasich will give Ohioans a vast understanding of how he will govern and where he stands. And he has plenty of time to do so.

Jon is of course right that expecting Kasich to offer details on how to fix Ohio’s budget crisis is politically foolish, unwarranted, and unwanted by either party.  He is after all not an elected official but merely a candidate a long ways out from election day.

But this ignores the real reason Joe Hallett wrote the column in the first place.  Because in the eyes of the Columbus Dispatch real leadership means raising taxes (see here and here).

Details below.

In case that isn’t clear from them taking every chance they can editorial to call for tax increases and praise those that raise them, notice two things.

Frist, how focused on the issue Hallett is:

The budget crisis has exposed Strickland’s weakness as a leader. The crisis could have been solved long ago had the governor not foreclosed his options, including an obvious one used by the last four governors, three of them Republicans: tax increases.

A temporary one-cent-on-the-dollar increase in the state sales tax would raise $1.2 billion a year. Food and medicine are exempt from the sales tax, a hedge against disproportionately hurting the poor. Would you really notice that extra penny? And even if you did, wouldn’t you pay it to help keep low-income children, the elderly and disabled from being kicked to the curb?

Another option Strickland ruled out was deferring the final 4.2 percent phase-in of the five-year, 21 percent state income-tax reduction enacted in 2005. Delaying it would generate $900 million over the biennium.

By predicting that a tax increase would give Republicans fodder for campaign attacks, Strickland tacitly admitted that he is worried about the impact of a tax increase on his re-election chances. It is true that there is no guarantee that even one legislative Republican would support a tax increase.

But that option isn’t even on the table. And it is worth noting that a Republican governor and GOP-controlled legislature had the courage to enact a temporary one-penny sales-tax hike to get through a budget crisis early this decade.

Just for history’s sake let’s note that Taft never recovered from raising taxes and the Ohio House changed hands?  Do you think Strickland is unaware of this?

Of course not.  While I agree a more honest and politically courageous move would be to do what your base wants and raise taxes.  He would win plaudits from editorial boards around the country and lefty bloggers all over Ohio.  But voters?

Ah, that is a much trickier question.  Hence Strickland’s irritated demeanor and grandstanding these last few weeks. But that is why they play the game, folks, it always looks easier on paper.

Strickland disappoints by being a real live politician caught between his liberal stances and the electorate.  The caretaker sudddenly seems out of his depth.

But not surprisingly Hallet has a hero he would like to turn to:

There is a proven leader to fill the void. Now 72, Republican George V. Voinovich is retiring from the Senate next year, though he says he has more years to give to public service.

When he was governor from 1991-99, Voinovich piloted the state through budget crises the right way: He painstakingly convinced the public what needed to be done, brought that pressure to bear on legislative leaders, cut the budget to the bone and raised the necessary revenues the honest way.

If Voinovich deferred retirement to commit to just one term as governor, Ohioans would have a viable third option: A leader free from re-election pressures with the experience and the guts to get Ohio through perilous times.

What Hallett fails to note is the Voinovich is in fact responsible for much of the economic uncompetitiveness of Ohio for failing to offer much more than the status quo (we have differing definitions of cutting the budget “to the bone”) and is one of the most unpopular elected officials in his own party.

The sad thing about all of this is that Kasich really is offering a different kind of leadership.  He is the only one talking about really changing the economic game in Ohio. And if the Dispatch could take off their blinders they might notice that he has a record in Congress to back up his rhetoric.

But to the Dispatch the status quo is to be preserved at all costs.  Government is too important to leave to politics and tax increases are always the answer.

Bob Taft listened to the Dispatch far too often and look where that got him.

Thank God John Kasich isn’t stupid enough to repeat that mistake.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Kasich really has an interesting message and style.  For obvious reasons, he is promoting his work during the 90s and the growth of that period.  But he is also in a sense running against the GOP leadership that followed that period; against Bob Taft and against Bush and the GOP who he says “forgot the formula.”

It really is classic GOP themes and message but with a populist twist and independent style.  Democrats are going to try and paint him as just another Republican with the same policies that caused our problems; ie George W. Bush.  But I think they are going to have trouble making this stick because of the economy and because of the skills and style that Kasich brings.