If the election were today: 47 percent for Johh Kasich, 33 percent for Ed FitzGerald, 15 percent undecided
Opinion of John Kasich: 47 percent favorable, 28 percent unfavorable, 22 percent haven’t heard enough about him
Opinion of Ed FitzGerald: 15 percent favorable, 9 percent unfavorable, 76 percent haven’t heard enough about him
Source: Quinnipiac University poll conducted June 18-23 of 941 registered Ohio voters. Margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percent.
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As executive of Cuyahoga County, which is home to 11 percent of Ohio’s residents, Democrat Ed FitzGerald holds what is arguably the state’s second most powerful elected job.
But if FitzGerald is to succeed in making the leap to what is inarguably the top post — governor — he’ll have to overcome some sizable obstacles in the next 18 months.
FitzGerald, 44, has never run statewide, needs to raise $20 million, and is unknown by three out of four Ohio voters. His likely opponent, incumbent Republican John Kasich on the other hand, is a virtual household name in Ohio as well as a national figure, has little problem raising money and is currently ahead by 14 points, according to a recent poll.
But FitzGerald and several Democrats say the race is winnable for the same reason President Barack Obama twice won Ohio. They say they can close the gap by emphasizing the stark contrasts between the two parties on economic issues such as tax fairness, and social issues such as abortion.
Kasich last week signed a 5,500-page, $62 billion two-year state operating budget that includes new anti-abortion measures and income and business tax cuts that are paid for by increasing the state sales tax from 5.5 percent to 5.75 percent and no longer having the state cover 12.5 percent of the cost of new property tax levies.
Republicans say the tax changes will help spur job growth and continue Ohio on the path of recovery. But not a single Democrat voted for the budget, and FitzGerald made clear he wouldn’t have either.
“This isn’t just a tax cut for the wealthiest in Ohio,” he told the Dayton Daily News. “It’s a tax cut financed by raising taxes on, literally, the poorest people in the state. I have trouble even conceiving how anyone could think that was a good idea. It is just indefensible.”
FitzGerald said if economic development was the goal, the legislature should have enacted tax credits for companies that create jobs, rather than use an expansion of the sales tax to fund an income tax cut.
The budget may also have elevated abortion to an instant 2014 campaign issue when several anti-abortion measures got tucked into the budget without public debate. Kasich signed the budget with the anti-abortion measures intact.
FitzGerald called the measures some of the most extreme in the nation. They include requiring an ultra-sound of all women seeking an abortion, threatening to pull public funding if rape crisis counselors advise clients about abortion, and setting up a new pecking order for federal family planning money so that Planned Parenthood is unlikely to receive government funding.
“We are putting restrictions on rape crisis centers?” FitzGerald asked. “To what end?”
Republicans are clear on that point. The measures are designed to limit the number of abortions in Ohio.
Study in contrasts
Assuming next year’s race will pit FitzGerald against the 61-year-old Kasich (no other prominent Democrat has indicated an interest in running), it will mark a study in contrasts. Kasich can come off as brash, even abrasive, and often takes over a room when he arrives, seemingly in constant hurry. He often speaks without notes, and has been known to misspeak, later issuing corrections or clarifications. His state of the state speeches are packed with ad libs and shout outs, touching on topics and looping back to them again and again. He is conservative, but with an occasional maverick streak. He angered some Republicans with his insistence that the legislature expand Medicaid coverage as part of the federal Affordable Care Act. Although he tried to distance the proposal from “Obamacare,” which he opposed, the expansion was not made part of the final budget bill, nor was his idea for raising taxes on oil and gas companies engaged in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Unlike Kasich, FitzGerald appears to weigh his words more carefully and would never be accused of engaging in excessive schmoozing. His press conferences are short, to the point and serious. Kasich likes to crack jokes, come back at reporters whose questions he doesn’t care for and makes little effort to hide his mood. FitzGerald is more guarded, possible scripted, and strays little from the original agenda.
Perhaps the biggest difference in the two candidates, though, is in their politics. Although polls show the public gives Kasich high marks for his handling of the economy, FitzGerald said both two-year budgets signed by Kasich take the state down the wrong path. He criticized the governor for slashing funding to schools and local governments in his first budget, and for signing Senate Bill 5, the anti-collective bargaining bill that voters blocked in a statewide referendum. He also said he never would have signed House Bill 194, an elections reform bill that called for collapsing the number of early voting days.
Chris Schrimpf, spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, said FitzGerald would have vetoed tax cuts and spent more money — the same policies that led to job losses under former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.
“They’re focused on everything except jobs, taxes and the economy. And the reason is because John Kasich has a stellar record on those issues,” Schrimpf said. “Ohio has created 170,000 jobs while Ed FitzGerald’s region has led the nation with job losses.”
Little drama
FitzGerald says his accomplishments as county executive include instituting an ethics code, hiring an internal auditor, barring vendors convicted of ethics violations from doing business with the county, establishing a board to publicly approve county purchasing contracts, expanding preschool enrollment and starting a college savings account program.
But he also created a $100 million economic development fund that stands in stark contrast to one of Kasich’s signature creations: JobsOhio.
FitzGerald said he ignored advice that the development fund be routed through a non-profit agency, which is what Kasich did with JobsOhio, his development arm. The governor established JobsOhio as a private non-profit organization funded with bonds backed by state liquor business profits and shielded it from public scrutiny by making exempt from public records disclosures, open meetings and audits by the state auditor.
“The more secretive government is and the less people are watching, that’s when bad things happen,” said FitzGerald, who served as a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent from 1995 to 1998 where he worked on political corruption cases out of the FBI’s Chicago office.
Neither candidate grew up in Ohio. Kasich was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Ohio to attend Ohio State University, where he graduated in 1974. He served in the Ohio Senate at age 26, served nine terms in Congress, briefly ran for president in 2000, and then left public service to work for the financial services firm, Lehman Brothers, and also Fox News. He returned to politics in 2010, when he defeated Strickland during a big year for Republicans across the country.
FitzGerald was the seventh of eight children in an Irish Catholic family in Indianapolis and started working in the political world 20 years ago as Congressional staffer to former U.S. Rep. Edward Feighan of Cleveland, then for former Indiana Secretary of State Evan Bayh. He too graduated from Ohio State, receiving his law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law before joining the FBI as a young lawyer.
Maureen FitzGerald, who is the sixth of the eight kids, said her brother was drawn to history and the Kennedy clan. His interest in politics and government began to gel in high school and college, she said, and he developed a concern for others from the values instilled by their parents.
“Ed does have a really strong sense of social justice,” she said.
Tom Bourgeois, who served as FitzGerald’s supervisor in the FBI’s Chicago office, said FitzGerald was a bright lawyer and tenacious investigator who had a hand in a political corruption case involving the mob and officials in a Chicago suburb. “Ed was a good agent. I respected Ed. He was a man of strong character when he was here,” said Bourgeois who is now a security director for a health care corporation.
FitzGerald, though, said he wanted to return to Cleveland and raise his children there. He worked in the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office before embarking on his political career. He was appointed to a seat on the Lakewood City Council and later pulled off an upset over incumbent Tom George in the Lakewood mayor’s 2007 race.
George is not a fan. He said FitzGerald is a “consummate politician” who is motivated by self-interest and a job hopper.
“There’s a lot of us up in Cuyahoga County who feel the same way,” he said.
‘Ohio miracle’
FitzGerald originally wanted to run for county auditor, but that seat was eliminated after voters embraced wholesale reforms for Cuyahoga County government and created the county executive’s post. FitzGerald emerged as the top vote getter in a field of six candidates.
The race for governor will be considerably more high-profile, expensive and difficult. By FitzGerald’s political calculus he has to swing about 39,000 voters who supported Kasich in 2010. After all, Strickland lost the governor’s seat to Kasich by 77,127 votes.
But this time Kasich is the incumbent and unlike 2008, when Ohio was in the throes of a crippling recession, the economy appears to be on an upswing. FitzGerald says Kasich’s poll numbers are soft, even as he gets improving points for his economic policies. He pointed out that in the same Quinnipiac University poll that found Kasich with a 14-point lead over FitzGerald, 53 percent of the respondents said the economy is either staying the same or getting worse.
According to FitzGerald, that falls far short of the “Ohio miracle” that Kasich is trumpeting.
Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said although the election is still more than a year away and things could change, Kasich is in good shape.
“The voters like him. They like the way he’s handling the economy. It’s pretty clear he is benefiting from an economic optimism in the state of Ohio,” Brown said. “It’s a cliche but it’s true: incumbents prosper when times are good. Voters here think times are pretty good and they think they’re getting better.”
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