Welcome, Dennis.

Word is that Dennis Willard, the longtime Statehouse bureau chief of the Akron Beacon Journal is leaving to go work for the Ohio Democratic Party.

If other statehouse bureau chiefs never get a straight answer from a GOP communications operative, I'm sure they'll understand.

But I'm particularly interested in welcoming to the Ohio Democratic Party that said the following about Ted Strickland after he proposed to raise taxes late last year.

Gov. Ted Strickland did not unveil a tax-neutral plan Wednesday or a temporary freeze on the income-tax reduction.

Strickland proposed raising income taxes, plain and simple, to generate $844 million in the next 21 months.

The vast majority of people working in Ohio this year will pay more income taxes in 2010, and again in 2011, if the state legislature goes along with Strickland.

And that is a tax increase.

Dennis Willard, new ODP operative, said Ted StricBlogger: Third Base Politics - Create Postkland raised taxes.

Also, new ODP operative Dennis Willard thought Ted Strickland was responsible of 2 out of the 5 worst decisions in Ohio last year.

Oh, and lest I forget, new ODP operative Dennis Willard also in known to have written this:

The promise to ''Turnaround Ohio'' that Strickland made in running for office in 2006 has gone unfulfilled.

It has. And apparently the Ohio Democratic Party agrees.