Kasich nearly sweeps newspaper endorsements; FitzGerald's driver's license trouble dooms him

John Kasich’s slouch said it all. The governor showed up to the Plain Dealer endorsement interview without a tie, and he leaned back in his chair, one arm off to the side. He never talked to his Democratic opponent, Ed FitzGerald, even ignored his questions until reporters repeated them. The governor figured he had the endorsement in the bag.

He was right. The centrist Plain Dealer gave Kasich a surprisingly enthusiastic thumbs-up on Friday. In fact, the governor won the endorsements of nearly all of the major-city newspapers in Ohio.

Final score: Kasich 6, FitzGerald 0, none of the above 1.

It’s not easy to run the table with Ohio’s newspapers, since their editorial pages range from conservative to progressive. Kasich came close. The Columbus Dispatch, Canton Repository and Plain Dealer praised his four years as governor.

“John Kasich’s first term as governor has been one of the most consequential, successful and remarkable in Ohio’s history,” wrote the conservative Dispatch, which credited him for cutting the state’s budget and filling the rainy-day fund after the recession, and called him a “social moderate and reformer.”

The Akron Beacon Journal, Youngstown Vindicator and Toledo Blade editorial pages had a tougher decision. How could they reconcile their frequent criticisms of Kasich with the dilemma posed by FitzGerald’s campaign?

“Inept,” the Blade described FitzGerald’s run, politely. “Pathetic performance,” the Beacon Journal said.

Here’s the official scorers' ruling on FitzGerald’s errors -- how many newspapers cited them as a reason not to endorse him:

No drivers license for 10 years: 7 of 7 

First running mate’s tax troubles: 2 of 7

Found in car with Irish trade delegate: 2 of 7 

“If you can't trust a politician to take care of the small but necessary things – for TEN years – how can you trust him with the futures of nearly 11.6 million citizens and 53,000 state employees?” asked The Cincinnati Enquirer. The Dispatch, which said much the same, didn’t even deign to print FitzGerald’s name.

The Beacon Journal and The Vindicator went for Kasich on balance, hinting they might’ve endorsed a stronger challenger. The Blade compiled a long list of criticisms of Kasich, then endorsed no one. “These failings argue for a change in the governor’s office,” it wrote. “But Mr. FitzGerald does not make a persuasive case that he is that change.”

FitzGerald, The Beacon Journal argued, has been successful as Cuyahoga County executive, but is unready to be governor. “The shame is that he did not seek a second term to build on what has been started and sharpen his skills.” A shame, the Beacon implies, because FitzGerald is unlikely to get another shot at a major office.

FitzGerald and the Greens shadowbox Kasich at the City Club

photo by Donn Nottage

So it’s come to this. Ed FitzGerald -- spurned by the press, the polls, campaign donors and the governor -- took the City Club of Cleveland’s lonely stage last night with the only opponent willing to debate him.

Anita Rios, the Green Party candidate for governor, sat beside FitzGerald before an audience of more Greens than Democrats. John Kasich was a no-show, unwilling to let pesky challengers chink his armor and chip at his 22-point lead.

So “the only gubernatorial debate in the state of Ohio in 2014” (as City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop noted) became a shadow play of the debate Ohio could’ve had, if not for the car trouble that drove FitzGerald to the curb.

There wasn’t much debating in this debate. FitzGerald and Rios tag-teamed, slamming Kasich’s policies on jobs, taxes, local government cuts, gay marriage and Lake Erie.

“Yes, we woke up one morning and couldn’t drink the water,” said Rios. Like many Toledoans, she drove to Michigan for bottled water after the lake’s algae bloom made tap water undrinkable for 400,000 people this summer. She and FitzGerald said they’d regulate fertilizer use on farms to protect the lake.

“It’s not rocket science to fix the runoff issue,” Rios said. “There are many things farmers can do to correct that. It’s just that there have been no regulations put in place. Our leaders do not have the will.”

“Gov. Kasich and his friends are still having conversations about how they’re going to balance the concerns of the fertilizer industry and everybody’s need for safe drinking water,” FitzGerald said. “When it comes to safe drinking water, you don’t balance it. It’s a moral issue. It’s a human right. Anything poisoning it needs to be regulated immediately.”

It was a night for issues, not the character questions that have dominated press coverage of the governor’s race.

Moderator Robert Higgs of the Plain Dealer’s Columbus bureau asked FitzGerald, almost apologetically, about his ten years of driving without a license and his late-night appearance in a car with an Irish trade delegate. What role should character issues play? he asked.

FitzGerald said he should be judged by his record as Cuyahoga County executive, such as cleaning up after corruption. Kasich, he argued, revealed his character by not showing up for the debate and by working for the defunct Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers. Kasich once lobbied public pension funds to invest with the firm; pension funds in Ohio later lost about $500 million because of its collapse. “What’s a greater moral issue?” FitzGerald asked, to applause.

Rios backed him up. “Shame on the media for focusing on that,” she said of FitzGerald’s car trouble.

Higgs asked FitzGerald and Rios how they’d encourage higher-wage jobs. FitzGerald said he’d support small business over large corporations and raise the state’s minimum wage. He bashed Kasich for not opposing free-trade deals. Rios said she wants the state to support worker-owned cooperatives.

Both candidates ripped Kasich’s tax cuts. But when Higgs asked if they’d reverse any, FitzGerald demurred. “I’m not running on a tax increase philosophy,” he said. “I do think we need to fund social services, hunger relief and job creation. [But] is there a way for us to live within our means?” Rios said she’d restore the estate tax, because it mostly taxed the wealthy.

Questions from the Green Party tables swung the debate farther left. FitzGerald searched politely for common ground. Rios supported amnesty for illegal immigrants; FitzGerald endorsed immigration reform and voiced concern about exploitation of migrant workers. Asked about affirmative action, FitzGerald talked about including disadvantaged groups in contracting, while Rios endorsed civil disobedience to preserve racial preferences in college admissions.

One questioner asked a wide-ranging question about the war on terror, militarized police forces, and “subsidizing violence all over the globe, but mostly in Ohio.” Rios promised to assemble a group of anti-war governors, “rather than squandering [money] in some sad place, doing some evil deed.” FitzGerald, not used to debating pacifism, said he endorsed community policing and the need to fight poverty because “you can’t prosecute your way out of a problem.”

Finally, a Green pushed Rios and FitzGerald to disagree about something. “I think I’m a lot more strident on anti-fracking,” Rios said. “I consider the Lucasville 5 on Death Row to be heroes.” (The convicts were found guilty of leading a murderous 1993 prison riot.) FitzGerald agreed to disagree with her on that.

In his closing, FitzGerald fired off the tightest critique of Kasich that I’ve heard from him. He said Kasich is taking credit for a nationwide economic recovery, while Ohio’s job growth has been slower than most states. “That’s one of the reasons John Kasich is not here -- he would love to have a 30-second television commercial conversation about that.” He bashed Kasich’s tax cuts, saying the governor paid for them with higher property taxes and cuts to public schools, local governments and heroin treatment.

“We are one election away from going in a totally different direction if we actually focus on real issues,” FitzGerald said.

He was describing the election Democrats wanted. But because of FitzGerald’s slipups and despite his best efforts, it’s not the election Ohio is getting.

FitzGerald delivers State of the County, with glances statewide

I counted only two rips into Gov. John Kasich in Ed FitzGerald's State of the County address today. Though statewide media came to cover his speech, and a new poll today says FitzGerald is only 5 points behind Kasich in the governor's race, never did the Cuyahoga County executive mention his November opponent by name. He merely criticized the state for cutting the local government fund and not spending more on early childhood education.

Instead, FitzGerald offered a progress report on his agenda, from his early reforms to a lightning-round list of initiatives at the speech's end. He portrayed himself as impatient to create change, not just change jobs.

"Our priority in year one was to restore public trust," said FitzGerald, recounting his role in dismantling the old county government's patronage regime. "The pursuit of excellence replaced politics," he claimed -- true on one level, but funny coming from a candidate for higher office.

Movement, progress, optimism -- FitzGerald aimed to project all three. As usual, he announced new initiatives during the annual address. He wants to wants to issue $50 million in bonds to tear down abandoned houses. "Our economic recovery is still hobbled by thousands of properties which, unfortunately, are beyond salvaging through renovation." It's an issue he hasn't taken on in a big way until now.  

"County government in the last few years has been a battleground between those who have given up on Cleveland and those who will never give up on Cleveland," FitzGerald asserted -- which left me wondering who represents the give-up caucus. 

But the rhetorical move helps him as a local leader and a candidate for governor. Locally, it's the pol's rhetorical version of slipping on a CLE Clothing Co. T-shirt, an embrace of town pride. Statewide, holding his address in the new convention center and declaring that "the list of downtown projects is unlike anything that any of us have seen happen here in a generation" heads off Republican attempts to use Cleveland's struggles against him downstate.

FitzGerald also announced the county will take over operations of the Cleveland and Euclid jails. That gave him a chance to praise Mayor Frank Jackson (whom Kasich has also courted). It also helped him talk about regionalism, an area where he's had to temper expectations.  

Three years ago, FitzGerald helped Orange, Pepper Pike, Moreland Hills and Woodmere launch merger talks.  That idea has faded.  Buzz about a Cleveland-East Cleveland merger arose late last year. FitzGerald implied he doesn't see that happening either. 

"Regionalism in the near term is only likely to be expressed through shared services," he said. He touted the services the county offers to towns, and again suggested they could build the trust necessary for a big metropolitan government someday. Working on shared services is "not as exciting as a merger in one fell swoop, but it has the distinct advantage of being real."

The City Club sponsored the event, and in its traditional Q and A, FitzGerald faced only one tough, conservative questioner: David Tryon, an attorney and local Federalist Society leader. Their exchange sounded more like the debate ahead in the governor's race than anything else today. 

"Cuyahoga County has the highest taxes and fees" in Ohio, Tryon said. "They hurt people who can’t afford tickets to events like this. Why not decrease the sales tax and reduce fees?"

FitzGerald portrayed the questioner as a laissez-faire libertarian and argued that his a has justified a government with a larger role. "I suppose we could have cut taxes," he said rhetorically, "and reduced the number of sheriff’s deputies, or not funded universal pre-kindergarten or early childhood education." 

Can FitzGerald’s reformer persona work in governor’s race?

Ed FitzGerald has a gift for timing. He’s the Cuyahoga County executive today because he sensed the leadership vacuum left by the county corruption scandal and filled it. A former FBI agent as well as Lakewood mayor, he promised to restore honest government after the fall of Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo. The ambitious FitzGerald was the right candidate at the right time.

But yesterday, when FitzGerald announced he’ll challenge Gov. John Kasich, he took a big risk. Can he win a very different race with very different issues? Will his record as a reformer propel him past Kasich, or will the race transform him into a conventional Democratic politician?

Before a cheering crowd at the Hilton Garden Inn downtown, FitzGerald tried to take his reformer persona statewide and connect the job he holds with the job he seeks.

“As the first county executive, I helped to dismantle a corrupt patronage regime that was choking our county government,” he said. “The people in this county had lost faith that county government could be effective, efficient, transparent, and honest. And we did restore that faith.”

Boldly, FitzGerald then turned his reformer’s eye on Kasich. Ohio has been “on a much different path” than Cuyahoga County since Kasich’s election, he argued. “The pay-to-play system in state government is as bad as it’s ever been, with the governor’s lobbyist friends making millions.”

FitzGerald doesn’t have a corruption scandal to run against this time, so he’s trying to compare Kasich and Columbus lobbyists with Dimora and the contractors he partied with. Can FitzGerald make this stick? It’ll be interesting to see him try.

From there, FitzGerald made the turn to politics in ordinary times and the standard Democratic critiques of the governor. “The budget was balanced by making one of the worst decisions possible: defunding our local schools,” he said.

He denounced Kasich’s cuts to the local government fund, saying they’d led to police and firefighter layoffs. He attacked the failed Republican election law, HB 194, calling it the “voter suppression law.” He cast Kasich’s complex plan to expand the sales tax’s reach as a tax increase on poorer families. And, in one of the speech’s biggest applause lines, he claimed Kasich “attacked working people” by signing the voter-rejected Senate Bill 5.

In contrast, FitzGerald offered changes he’s implemented here as county executive: expansions of early childhood education and sheriff’s patrols, the new $100 million county job creation fund, and the county’s just-approved college education accounts for local youth. (A heckler pointed out each kid gets only $100.) He balanced the county’s budget without raising taxes or cutting education, he said, implying that he could manage the state’s budget better than Kasich, even in tough times.

But FitzGerald’s positive agenda, as he outlined it yesterday, showed little of the innovation he’s brought to Cuyahoga County (and his web site’s “issues” page doesn’t add much). It’s mostly a collection of Democratic grievances from the past two years: “respect all workers, not demonize them,” support the right to vote “instead of suppressing it,” “partner with cities and townships instead of using them as an ATM.”

FitzGerald said he wants to create a jobs strategy based on local businesses and high-wage jobs, “not corporate giveaways.” That suggests he’s going to run against parts of Kasich’s jobs strategy and vow to do better. He also says he wants to invest in early childhood education.

Where will he get the money to spend more and restore cuts, without raising taxes? His website says he’ll find strategic cuts in the state budget, as he did in Cuyahoga County’s. But if state government isn’t as bloated as the county was under the Dimora-Russo regime, that may not be so easy.

Yesterday, FitzGerald showed his political talents and appeal as a candidate: his record of accomplishment in his short time as county executive, his trustworthy biography (he investigated corruption while with the FBI). But many reasons he gave for running for governor will rally loyal Democrats more than independent voters. He can’t win just by re-fighting the battles against SB5 and the election law.

With his issues that do have broad appeal -- funding schools, encouraging job growth -- FitzGerald’s challenge is to explain exactly how he’ll do better than Kasich and why he’s the guy to do it. But his record as executive is incomplete, his jobs and education initiatives still new.

He has a year and a half to make his case, of course. But so far, it’s not clear that the governor’s race is the right fit for him.

My new Frank Jackson profile, out now

It’s time to stop underestimating Frank Jackson — that’s the headline of my new profile of Cleveland’s mayor, in the March issue of Cleveland Magazine and online now.

For years, people have dismissed Jackson with clichés. He's not a cheerleader for Cleveland. He doesn't use the bully pulpit to champion causes. He's not inspirational. Not a visionary. Those clichés persist because Jackson belongs to that rarest of species, the introverted politician. We’re used to being governed by glad-handing extroverts.

But seven years into Jackson’s time as mayor, it’s time to judge him by different standards. After his unlikely political victories for school reform and the school levy, it’s time to acknowledge his successes and understand his talents. That will actually help us demand more of him.

My profile explores how Jackson used his shrewd understanding of people’s motivations to get the school reforms and levy passed. It follows him from Glenville to the Cleveland Clinic to City Hall and catches him dropping witty side comments, near-riddles and risky, blunt comments that provoke nervous laughter in audiences. It examines his surprising, up and down relationship with Gov. John Kasich. It explores how his belief in equity and fairness and his instincts for consistency and patience play out in how he governs.

The story also probes the most consistent and illuminating criticism of Jackson in political circles, that he has a small circle of trust, yet can be overly loyal to those he does trust. And it looks at how all those habits and beliefs affect how he’s handling some of his biggest challenges of 2013, including the investigation into the November police chase and shooting and his latest efforts to develop the waterfront.

Meanwhile, 40 pages away in the March issue, our columnist, Michael D. Roberts, offers a different perspective on the mayor. Less impressed with Jackson’s school victories than I am, Roberts argues that the mayor’s record is disappointing and ought to invite a strong challenger when he runs for re-election this fall. Roberts’ column in our Talking Points commentary section, “Inaction Jackson,” is online here.

I’ve often written about the mayor on this blog, but the March profile is my first magazine-length look at Jackson since he took office in 2006. If the conventional wisdom is right and Jackson coasts to a third term this November, he’ll be mayor through 2017. So now’s the time to ask, what more do we expect of him?

If you’d like to link to my profile, please use this shortcut: http://j.mp/FrankJackson.

FitzGerald the reformer, FitzGerald the loyal Democrat

Ed FitzGerald, scourge of patronage machines and ally of public employee unions -– the Cuyahoga County executive will have to lay claim to both reputations if he’s going to run for governor. He tried to do that in one key part of his State of the County address yesterday, but if you slow it down for the replay, you can hear the strain.

First, he cited some figures that, if you weren’t listening carefully, might’ve led you to think he’s cut county government by 30 percent.

Personnel costs are our number one expenditure, and that was our number one focus for reducing costs. There is a frequently repeated myth about government that it always gets larger, it can never become more efficient, and we have proven that wrong. In 2007, there were 6,374 county employees, and at the end of 2012 we were down to 4,507, a reduction of over 1,800 positions.

Today, that last line made it to the front page of The Plain Dealer, without anyone asking, hey, how much of that reduction is FitzGerald responsible for? The answer, according to county budget documents I looked at, is somewhere around 280 to 433 positions. FitzGerald took office in January 2011. Before that, the old county commissioners actually shed roughly 1,500 employees because declining tax revenues forced them to.

FitzGerald did take on the harder work of cutting union employees. He’s eliminated at least 350 unionized positions, county records show -- about as many as the county commissioners cut in 3½ years. But of course he can’t brag about that if he’s going to run for governor. Public employee unions, still enraged at Gov. John Kasich for signing Senate Bill 5, will provide a lot of the fervor, volunteers and cash for Kasich’s challenger next year.

So FitzGerald executed this quick reverse-twirl in his speech, a move from reformer to union-friendly liberal.

We have 31 separate bargaining units we negotiate with, and we have asked all of them to work with us to contain costs, and they have responded. Now, I know there are some who believe the road to good government runs right over the government worker. But I don’t believe that you can serve the people by attacking the people’s employees. In this process, our unions agreed to unprecedented concessions. County employees were part of the solution.

That, of course, is a dig at Kasich -- FitzGerald’s biggest one-eye-on-Columbus line of the day.

FitzGerald burnishes reformer credentials, floats new Great Lakes Expo in State of County speech

Ed FitzGerald tackled a political challenge of his own making today. How could he deliver a State of the County address without sounding like he’s running for governor? His answer: a pair of headline-making announcements and the latest hard sell of his reformer credentials.

First, FitzGerald announced that the Medical Mart has a new name, more vague, less blatantly commercial, more aspirational: the Global Center for Health Innovation. The name change seems inspired by the Cleveland Clinic’s Medical Innovation Summit, which will open in the Mart Center in October. It could also be borrowed from the latest announced tenant. FitzGerald announced that the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society will locate its Innovation Center here. It’s another win for the ever-strengthening project. The HIMSS center, which will take up most of a floor, was going to be an anchor in the failed Nashville medical mart.

Next, FitzGerald called for Cleveland to host a sequel to the Great Lakes Exposition of 1936-1937 in three years. Indulging a bit of history geekiness, he talked about how FDR pressed a button on the White House desk to open the Expo gate and later visited the grounds. Maybe, he speculated in the Q and A, a new expo could be based on medicine and music, like the 1930s expo was based on Cleveland’s industries of the time. Or it could be based on music and performing arts, entrepreneurship and local food. Or “it could be all those things or none of those things,” he said, trying to leave room for others in town to add their ideas.

Ever since the Great Lakes Expo lit up our waterfront with its carnival midway, its exotic Streets of the World and its towering art deco architecture, reviving it has been a recurring civic dream. Dennis Kucinich floated the idea in the 1970s. But world’s fairs, or almost-world’s-fairs, have a tougher go of it today than in those Depression years before the Travel Channel and frequent-flier flights to Europe. My advice to FitzGerald: think less about a sequel to the Romance of Iron and Steel and more about recruiting great characters who can stir up a bit of scandal. Who’ll be our Billy Rose, our Eleanor Holm, our Toto Laverne?

Near the start of the speech, you could learn a lot about FitzGerald by listening to him execute a pair of moves. First, he gave thanks for the federal corruption investigation, singling out U.S. Attorney Steve Dettelbach in the audience and issuing him a “long overdue thank you for your zealous pursuit of corruption and support for integrity.” (The corruption probe started before Dettelbach took the job, and he’s had to recuse himself from it, but minor point, I guess.)

Then FitzGerald called the corruption probe Phase One of the effort to clean up Cuyahoga County government and called his administration’s efforts Phase Two. “We dismantled the political patronage machine which was choking county government,” he said. FitzGerald’s opposition to patronage seems genuine and proven. But he’s still executing a clever pirouette, dancing past the real Phase Two, the Issue 6 campaign that created a new county government system. FitzGerald, awkwardly, opposed the charter he now governs under, a fact that still complicates his reformer persona.

FitzGerald made one other revealing move. It was the one moment when you could hear his gubernatorial ambitions loud and clear. I'll post about it tomorrow.

Roldo: Will Plain Dealer endorse Romney?

Veteran alternative journalist Roldo Bartimole is out with a prediction: He thinks the Plain Dealer will endorse Mitt Romney for president -- and maybe set off another controversy like the paper’s embarrassing 2004 non-endorsement.

He doesn’t explain his prediction, but his spider sense is tingling. I think he may be on to something.

The PD boldly will endorse Sen. Sherrod Brown for the U. S. Senate. A Democrat over Republican. Josh Mandel, Brown’s opponent, has been shooting himself in the foot. The Pee Dee has been taking note of these self-inflicted wounds. ...

Having shown itself as willing to nominate a Democrat, I figure the editorial board (which is a misnomer for “the boss” Terry Egger) will nominate Mitt the Romney for President. Making Republicans (and Kevin O’Brien) happy. …

I read the Plain Dealer’s editorials, just like Roldo does, and I think he’s catching on to a trend. But first, a little background, from Roldo’s column:

You may remember the debacle in 2004 after the board chose John Kerry as its Presidential endorsee. Oh, wait. Publisher Alex Machaskee then ordered it changed to the other guy – George Bush. After some internal wrangling, the PD choose the silliest way out. The paper punted. It didn’t endorse anyone. It made a fool of the paper nationally.

After Terrance Egger succeeded Machaskee in 2006, he was often asked about the 2004 non-endorsement. Though Egger is a Republican who nudged a liberal editorial board toward the center as St. Louis Post-Dispatch publisher, he reassured Clevelanders he wouldn’t pull a Machaskee.

“We will endorse,” Egger told a City Club audience in August 2006. “Whose decision that will be will be the editorial board’s. And I mean that.”

He was implying that, as publisher, he wouldn’t use his authority to overrule the rest of the board. (See my Jan. 2007 story "The New Dealer" for more on this.)

Sure enough, when the paper endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, the editorial carried an unusual tagline that named all the members of the usually anonymous editorial board who voted on the endorsement.

The PD’s endorsements have swung back to the right since then. The paper recommended John Kasich for governor in 2010 and endorsed last year’s Issue 2, also known as Senate Bill 5, which would’ve severely restricted the power of public-employee unions. Both editorials sounded strained, written by committee, like unsuccessful efforts to reconcile deep internal divisions.

The Kasich endorsement called on the governor to cut out his “Red Bull style” and his habits as a “Fox News provocateur.” And the pro-SB5 editorial was probably the paper’s worst-argued in years. Naively, it called for Kasich to go back to the bargaining table if voters approved SB5 to negotiate away its most divisive provisions. But the law would’ve given Kasich total victory over the unions, leaving them with no leverage and the governor with no reason to bargain. It was as if the Plain Dealer had no idea how power works.

Roldo implies Egger controls the endorsements. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s safe to say that Egger is one of the board’s more conservative members. He’s likely to have played a major role in the Kasich and SB5 decisions.

Follow the trend from the last two years, and it’s easy to imagine the PD dismissing Obama as a disappointment and endorsing Romney, while trying to appease the dissenters with a rose-colored call for him to embrace his Massachusetts-moderate past once elected.

Editorial page endorsements aren’t as influential as they were in newspapers’ golden age, especially in presidential elections. A thousand voices are deluging Ohioans with screams and roars and tweets about Romney and Obama. Voters can make up their minds about a president without the Big Voice of the Big City Paper weighing in.

Still, Clevelanders’ reaction to the 2004 cop-out suggests they'll still care what the Plain Dealer says. Major endorsements let readers know where an editorial page stands, what its values are. And as Roldo says, the paper’s in an interesting position: it has a centrist editorial page in a Democratic metro area, so a Romney endorsement could anger a lot of readers.

So, yes, Clevelanders will pay attention to the paper’s presidential decision. Even if it says more about the editorial page than it does about Obama or Romney.

Update, 7/23: A Plain Dealer editorial yesterday called on Romney to release more tax returns.  "He is basing his candidacy largely on his success in the private sector and first-hand knowledge of job creation," it says. "Voters expect and deserve a look behind the curtain."  Hmm, is that a hint of skepticism?

Will Ohio reject half of health care reform? Or will voters reject all of it?

Well, that was a wild ride.  For politics junkies, yesterday was a huge fix -- the most anticipated, most important, most surprising Supreme Court decision since Bush vs. Gore, complete with a no-wait-yes reveal.

I was sitting in my doctor's office at 10:09 when CNN.com misfired and posted, "The Supreme Court has struck down the individual mandate for health care." I pulled it up on my phone. My doctor was mostly rooting for the health care law (he's from Canada), but even he got the breaking-news junkie gleam on his face when I told him.

I left and walked into the least boring waiting room experience ever, 20 Cleveland Clinic patients looking expectantly at a TV, reading the CNN captions.  Wait, CNN was saying by 10:16... some reporter was finally reading past page 2... not under the commerce clause, but under the power to tax... 

Thanks to Walter Dellinger, who should've earned thousands on InTrade for his prediction, I knew what that meant.

"Dewey Defeats Truman -- LIVE!" the Atlantic's Megan Garber called CNN's flub. 

The network flipped at 10:19. "Supreme Court upholds entirety of health care law," it announced.

That was pretty close.  But still not right.

The Court snipped one line out of the Affordable Care Act, but it's a big one.  It ruled the states can choose not to go along with the law's expansion of Medicaid. That could lead to a weird split in the country -- liberal states going along with all of health care reform, conservative states going along with half of it.

When I say half, I mean half.  You've heard that the new law will give 30 million people health insurance, right?  Well, today the New York Times ran a chart, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, that says 22 million people will get health care coverage through new insurance exchanges, while 17 million will get it from the Medicaid expansion.  Now, that means 17 million would get it if their state goes along.

The Medicaid expansion will be 100 percent funded by the federal government -- for a few years.  Then 95 percent. Then 90 percent.  Even though it's a generous subsidy, conservative states that feel extra-cautious about their financial future (or, not as concerned about the uninsured as others) might decide to turn it down.  See this Washington Post story for more.

Gov. John Kasich and Lt. Gov Mary Taylor have strongly resisted the health care law. Yesterday they issued a statement saying they're "very concerned" about "a sudden, dramatic increase in Medicaid spending."

They're hinting that they might decide to turn down the federal money and not expand Medicaid to cover everyone in or near poverty in Ohio.  That could become a huge issue in state politics by next year.

But I'm a step ahead.  For now, the real question isn't, will Ohio's government say no to half of health care reform?  It's, will Ohio voters say no to all of it?

What I mean is, everyone says this election is about the economy and jobs.  But what if it's really about health care? 

The economy may decide the election, but the election will decide whether the health-care law stays or goes. Romney promises to repeal it.

Republicans in Congress think they only need 51 senators, not 60, to repeal parts of it. They need to pick up four Senate seats, and they have a shot.

Ohio's looking a lot like the ultimate swing state again.  It could clinch the presidency for Obama, or put Romney very close to winning.  So the future of the health care law may have passed from the Supreme Court's hands to Ohio voters'.

Fresh thinking about SB5

Gov. John Kasich e-mailed his supporters this week, asking them to spread the word about SB5's "common sense reforms." The other side, gathering petition signatures to stop SB5, says the new law will "destroy jobs and harm communities."

Republicans or unions? Teachers and cops or budget-cutters? The arguments are polarized, and they'll get more so by November, when Ohioans will likely vote on whether to overturn the law's limits on government employees' collective bargaining.

It's easy to take a side, and most commentators do. But who's actually writing for the undecided voter? Not many.

That's why I think Dan Moulthrop's commentary on SB5 and the teaching profession is the best, most thoughtful piece I've read on the law -- which is why we published it in the Talking Points section of this month's Cleveland Magazine.

You may know Moulthrop from his role with The Civic Commons, the new civic-journalism website in town, or his previous job as WCPN's morning show host.

He's also a former teacher and co-author of a book, the ironically titled Teachers Have It Easy, on how to improve the teaching profession. (One of his co-authors is Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, co-founder of McSweeney's and the writing and tutoring program 826 Valencia.) The book's just been made into a documentary, American Teacher.

Moulthrop makes it clear he'll vote to repeal SB5 if it's on the November ballot. He thinks its restrictions on unions' dues and memberships amount to a political power grab.

Yet SB5's education reforms go right at an issue he's passionate about: how to define and reward good teaching. He writes:

Despite my feelings about the law, I think it may have created a chance to improve schools.

SB 5 and Gov. John Kasich's budget deal will radically change how teachers get paid. Raises will be based on performance evaluations, peer review (where it's in place), value-added measures (which measure growth in students' test scores rather than just the score itself) and any other criteria established by a local school board.

Many educators complain these requirements are vague. That's not a problem, though. It's an opportunity.

To read Moulthrop's commentary, "Lesson Plan," click here. To see his blog post about it on the Civic Commons, click here.

Jackson to lay off 350-400 city workers, blames state cuts

For five years as mayor, Frank Jackson has prided himself on managing Cleveland's budget with very few layoffs. He can't do that anymore.

Jackson has just announced that he'll have to lay off 350 to 400 city workers because of a $36 million cut in funds from the state. He calls out Gov. John Kasich, who called the mayor his "new best friend" in January.

Typically, Jackson is judging the governor by deeds, not words. The mayor's statement clearly blames Kasich's budget for the layoffs and defends his own management of the budget.

The mayor's complaint to Kasich and the legislature, re-released today, argues that since the state needs to cut 17 percent of its budget to close a deficit, it should cut the local government fund 17 percent, or at most 25 percent. Instead, it'll be slashed in half by next year.

The mayor also released a list of all the cuts he expects to make to city services: in police patrols, fire protection, slower snow removal, fewer flu vaccinations, delays in building and housing inspections. Layoff notices are coming in mid-May.

Here's the press release:

Earlier this month, I shared with you my concerns regarding Governor Kasich’s proposed budget and the drastic impact it would have on the City of Cleveland if it is adopted. Since then, I have continued to analyze the proposed state budget to determine what course of action the City of Cleveland must take to handle the proposed loss $35.7 million in state revenue by the end of 2012.

This state-imposed deficit situation comes after five years of strong budget management by the City, including the use of five-year budget projects, strategic cost cutting measures and significant increases in efficiency. By using these management tools, the City had the flexibility it needed in order to balance the budget every year with few layoffs and very little impact on service delivery, despite a global recession. Today, the state-imposed budget deficit takes away that flexibility.

Now, in order to balance the budget for the remainder of 2011 and to prepare for 2012, the city must reduce its workforce by 350 to 400 employees by the end of May. This will include seasonal, part-time and full-time employees.

These state-imposed cuts will result in service reductions. Despite these cuts, my goal is to continue to provide the best service to the City of Cleveland that we can. For that reason, I am continuing to analyze staffing levels and will finalize the specifics of our plan to cure this state-imposed deficit in the near future. As we move forward, I will provide you with additional updates so that you can understand the impact the state-imposed budget cuts will have on Cleveland.

Until then, you can find more information in the impact statement (pdf) I delivered to Governor Kasich and the Ohio General Assembly and the presentation (pdf) I gave to my management team this morning.

How is Ohio different from Wisconsin?

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he talks to John Kasich every day. Ohio’s governor is pushing just as hard as Walker to curb the power of public employee unions, sparking massive protests at both state capitols. Both governors are looking at Mitch Daniels’ union-taming, debt-slashing success in Indiana and saying that’s the way to cure their state’s financial illness.

So why is Madison the new capital of American protest, our new Cairo-like TV-drama stage, and not Columbus?

It’s not just that Wisconsin Democrats have upped the drama by deciding the only way to stop Walker’s bill is by a filibustering at an out-of-state Best Western. (A run for the border won’t do the Ohio Democrats’ tiny Senate caucus any good.)

It’s not just that protest is part of the culture in Madison, a classic liberal college town, or that the Wisconsin left is tapping a 100-year tradition of feistiness, which goes all the way back to gutsy progressive Fighting Bob La Follette. It’s not just that the Wisconsin state capitol lets people sleep over, giving the cheeseheads an opening to create a 24-hour happening, a marble-pillared commune. Or that Ohio lefties and unionists are more likely to swamp the capitol on hearing day, then go home and go to work.

The difference might be – might be – that Ohio is in a more moderate mood than Wisconsin right now, and that some of our state’s moderate Republicans are looking for a compromise. Some Republican senators are distinctly lukewarm about Senate Bill 5. They’re not spoiling for a fight. Unlike Wisconsin’s Republicans under Walker, they’re thinking independently, looking to reform collective bargaining with public employees but not tear it up.

Already Senate Republicans have snipped a ban on collective bargaining for state employees out of SB5, preserving their right to bargain for wages. This week, the Senate considers more amendments. As they do, pay close attention to two Northeast Ohio Republicans, Tim Grendell and Tom Patton. Grendell, though a member of the hard-right “Caveman Caucus,” is looking for ways to change SB5. Patton, a Republican and union member, is being super-careful – note his no-comment to Phillip Morris last week – but he, too, seems to be looking for a compromise way out.

I’m not saying Grendell and Patton are the swing votes – Kasich may eke out a victory without them. But their intriguing disagreements with their party say a lot about where the debate may be going – both in the legislature and at what’s probably SB5’s ultimate destination, a statewide referendum this fall.

Sun papers endorse McCormack

This summer, I asked Tim McCormack, the former county commissioner who’s running for county executive, what he’d say to voters wary of electing someone who served in the old government.

“I think they’d get best of both worlds,” he replied: “Somebody who knows the government and somebody who has a good reputation.”

That argument won over the editors of the Sun papers. The suburban newspaper chain endorsed McCormack this week.

“At a time when honesty and experience are paramount in this election, Tim McCormack more than fills the bill,” they write.

The editorial dismisses Ed FitzGerald for accepting campaign contributions “tied to the old county regime” (without mentioning he’s gotten rid of most of them) and Matt Dolan for running “divisive” campaign ads. The Sun News admits McCormack isn’t well-funded, but says he “has something worth more than gold: his good name.”

When I interviewed McCormack, I thought he stood out in two ways. He’s the candidate most likely to pursue the ultimate step in regionalism: an actual merger of the city, suburbs, and county. “We can build a region if we unite,” he said at the City Club debate this week. “Pittsburgh has done so. It’s growing.” (Pittsburgh and Allegheny County haven’t merged, but they’re talking about it.)

He’s also the candidate who defends human services most passionately. With a budget briefing in hand, he complained hotly to me about cuts to county child-health programs. He did the same when a City Club questioner asked how to fight human-services cuts if budget-slashing Republican John Kasich is elected governor.

“I served with John Kasich,” McCormack replied. “I know him well. Should he succeed, what I would emphasize [is] -- people die. They will die without funding for these programs. The Help Me Grow program, visiting young women who are pregnant. The Early Childhood [program], the only chance most kids in Cleveland have. … Kids that drop out of school -- we need to heavily invest in those children or they won’t make it.”

This summer, I talked to people who saw McCormack as a short-tempered lone crusader when he was county commissioner. The Sun editors have heard that too. “If elected, we urge McCormack to temper his reported testy demeanor,” he says. McCormack agrees – he told me he’d have to set a “positive tone” as executive.

Reading the Sun editorial, though, and thinking about McCormack’s chances in the unusual six-way race, I wondered about a different scenario. What if McCormack doesn’t win, but pulls just enough liberal voters away from FitzGerald to help Dolan edge him out?

McCormack seems to dislike FitzGerald. He praised Dolan’s temperament during the City Club debate. So maybe that ending wouldn’t bother him too much.

Me on WCPN tomorrow: Mason, Power 100, and more

I'll be on 90.3 WCPN's Reporter's Roundtable tomorrow morning with host Dan Moulthrop, Plain Dealer reporter Mark Puente, and Joe Ingles of the Ohio Public Radio statehouse news bureau.

We'll be talking about Bill Mason, the Inside Business Power 100, Gov. Ted Strickland and challenger John Kasich choosing their running mates, and other stuff. The show starts about 9:06 a.m. and goes to 10.