Strickland right choice?

By Michael Edwards
Contributing Writer
Union County Post

God, guns and gay marriage: Three issues that have reared their controversial heads in the Ohio governor’s race that might not really matter to the average voter.
The political stakes are high this year. Ohio Republicans have held the governor’s office for 16 years but due to ethic lapses in Governor Bob Taft’s administration, Democrats have a real shot at taking the state back.
Strategists for Ted Strickland and Ken Blackwell are fighting it out to identify and differentiate their candidates. The popular mass media has summed things up around issues such as religion, guns and sexuality that have little or no resonance with most Ohioians and particularly the African-American community.
Kevin Thomas, 38, a frustrated resident of Columbus’ King-Lincoln district, said that some politicians just use wedge issues to divide or confuse voters.
“ Other than one [candidate] is a white democrat and the other is a black Republican, I don’t know much about either,” Thomas said.
Thomas is not alone in his confusion. Both parties are actively courting the African-American vote, yet neither has clarified exactly how they have helped the community or will do so.
Strickland says the real issues that need to be discussed are education, health costs, and business development.
“ They are so closely connected that we can’t fix them one at a time. We have to confront them as a total picture,” said Strickland referring to his TURNAROUND OHIO plan. “It’s a different approach to government, but it’s really just a common sense approach.”
Key components of TURNAROUND OHIO include:
• Fully funding early childcare and education to ensure every child has the chance to start school ready and able to learn. And that any student accepted to a state college or university will have the opportunity to attend, even if their family cannot afford to send them. The plan suggests Strickland will work with universities and community colleges to find ways to help them control costs.
• Stabilizing health care costs and providing access to health coverage to companies of every size to avoid a drain on revenues, stunting growth and leaving employees vulnerable.
• Recognizing that state government can fund initiatives simply by taking advantage of available federal and other funding or reordering present priorities that have been ignored by the current administration.
Strickland, the U.S. representative for the sixth congressional district in southeastern Ohio, has consistently led Republican nominee Ken Blackwell in general election opinion polls.
Blackwell, the current secretary of state, is a staunch economic conservative. Blackwell’s public service includes terms as mayor of Cincinnati, an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. In 1994, he became the first African American elected to a statewide executive office in Ohio when he became state treasurer.
“ Yet this same candidate clearly opposes raising the minimum wage and supports tax cuts for the wealthy whom are also millionaires,” emphasized Keith Dailey, Strickland’s communication press secretary.