Ohio is a natural spot for Republicans to make some headway given how our state's economy is in the dump and Strickland has done nothing really to pull it out.

John Kasich has a very strong record for the work he did on balancing the budget while in Congress, and should be a heavy favorite to win in an anti-Democrat/anti-Incumbent environment.

That being said, his major achilles heel will be that he spent the past 8 years on Wallstreet, at Lehman Brothers. Lehman cost Ohio's pension fund almost half a billion dollars, and while that is not Kasich's fault, it doesn't take a political genius to see how easily the situation can be demagogued.

Strickland has launched a campaign to get him to reveal his bonuses from Lehman over that time that Ohio's pension fund was blowing up. The 2 things have nothing to do with eachother, but being considered complicit and in bed with Wallstreet is possibly the most toxic thing that can happen to a politician in this environment.

The message for the next 5 months is going to be to just hammer the idea of electing a Wallstreet executive to run a state that's pension funds were hit with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses because of the failure of a firm that man was an executive at. Karl Rove himself couldn't ask for more ammunition if you're looking to mount a campaign around demagoguery and class warfare as the ads write themselves.

Question is, is everyone ready for what will surely be a nasty campaign season?

Here is the Politico blurb, and then a link to the commercial.

Commercial:

DEFINING KASICH: An independent expenditure group led by the Democratic Governors Association is going up today with an aggressive ad against Ohio gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, highlighting the former Republican congressman's work as a banker at Lehman Brothers. The commercial, from Building a Stronger Ohio, describes Lehman as "one of the Wall Street banks responsible for the crash that hurt Ohio's economy," and warns: "Lehman Brothers hid toxic loans from regulators and gave out more than $16 billion in bonuses while Kasich was a managing director. ... But Kasich refuses to reveal how big all his bonuses were or how much he was paid." Images of a check made out to Kasich for "Untold Millions of Dollars" flash on the screen before the narrator says in closing: "Ask John Kasich to explain how he got rich on Wall Street." Watch the ad here.

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has already been hammering Kasich over his Wall Street ties, and Building a Stronger Ohio has the resources to make this new hit sting: it's taken in $1.7 million in contributions this month, including $1.5 million from the DGA, according to documents filed with the Ohio secretary of state. The group has also launched a new site to go after Kasich at www.strongerohio.org.

http://www.politico.com/morningscore/

When you can't stand on your own record, you do whatever you can to try and win.

That's the position Strickland is in.

By his own words and deeds, he has been an abject failure as governor.

The only way he can hope to be re-elected is by portraying Kasich as some "fat cat" who is out of touch with the average Ohioan...you know, the same average Ohioan who has seen Ohio lose tens of thousands of jobs under Strickland's watch.

Writerbuckeye wrote: When you can't stand on your own record, you do whatever you can to try and win.

That's the position Strickland is in.

By his own words and deeds, he has been an abject failure as governor.

The only way he can hope to be re-elected is by portraying Kasich as some "fat cat" who is out of touch with the average Ohioan...you know, the same average Ohioan who has seen Ohio lose tens of thousands of jobs under Strickland's watch.

I agree. No one does class warfare better than the Democrat party, and in a lot of ways they couldn't have drawn up a better guy on paper (Kasich's situation) to do it to if that is the campaign you want to run. I just worry that in this environment with Wallstreet being about as popular with the public as Al Qaeda that they will be able to run some really brutal ads about Kasich and his connection to Lehman. Big bonuses, blown up pension values because of Lehmans failure, I mean it is a Democrat wet dream; and will give them a chance to retain a governorship I thought was totally gone about 6 months ago given the Ohio economy.

Kasich's anti-gun voting record will lose him some voters too.

Emotions and the gun lobby may very well defeat Kasich. Personally, I'd rather see both of the candidates lose.

I guess, if i had to choose, i would prefer Kasich, despite the fact that i have a vivid memory from when i was in 5th grade where i was excited to see him in my classroom when he visited and i tried to shake his hand and he just walked by like i didn't exist.

I'm still traumatized by that to this day.

Did you shower that week???

No, i was afraid to take my clothes off because i thought Mr. Kasich would touch me again.

As bad as Lehman's reputation is (or was), if we're talking "class warfare" I'd hate to be a government employee running for office. As to the wall streeters that failed, you have Bear, Lehman and in a sense ML. On the other hand everyone is affected by the bloated government workers' wages, pensions and benefits...and general lack of accountability.

Kasich was the main guy (along with Newt) in congress who actually formulated the plans to rein in the the federal deficit in the '90's, AND DID IT!!!!! His proven ability to deal directly, and successfully, with budget issues should help him considerably in the election. We are very fotunate to have him running ............... and he will kick Strickland's arse ------ deservedly so.

Manhattan Buckeye wrote: As bad as Lehman's reputation is (or was), if we're talking "class warfare" I'd hate to be a government employee running for office. As to the wall streeters that failed, you have Bear, Lehman and in a sense ML. On the other hand everyone is affected by the bloated government workers' wages, pensions and benefits...and general lack of accountability.

To an extent I agree with what you're saying, but from the standpoint of trying to demagogue and issue and cut it down into little 30 second campaign ad snippets, this issue with Kasich is tailor made for that.

They are going to beat the drum about his undisclosed bonuses to death, and that will put pressure on him to either release them or look like he is trying to cover something up. The downside to releasing them is then you get another campaign ad touting the millions Kasich was raking in while Ohio's pension fund was taking huge losses because of his firm.

In the 24 hour news cycle the media loves easy to digest short 30 second narratives. Nothing is better at generating faux outrage than talk of Wallstreet bonuses. This will be a swiftboating of the highest order.