Strickland finally gets the message.

If only Strickland listened to me back in May, maybe he wouldn't be in this bad a position.

Back then I recommended he go positive in his advertising and leave the attacks on Kasich to the DGA and other surrogates.

Why? His approval numbers were far too low for him to stand a chance. As I said before his first spot went up:

...voters aren't ready for attack ads straight from the candidate quite yet, especially when it's coming from someone they feel has let them down. Strickland can't be a trusted voice on Kasich until he has fixed his own image.

And what has happened since Strickland ignored my advice and went harshly negative?

Kasich is up 10.3 points in aggregate polling and his approval number is now an absolute disaster. As of this morning it's now under 40 points. Amazing.


And Kasich's favorable rating? Well, if you believe Quinnipiac this morning, it sits at 47-27 (46-26 among Indies). If you believe Rasmussen, it's 50-37 (54-29 among Indies). In other words, the Strickland campaign's hopes of defining Kasich first didn't work. And how many millions were wasted on that effort?

So now it seems the Strickland team has finally gotten the message.

As painful as it may be for Chris Redfern to watch, they are trying going positive.

Most assuredly, these spots will improve his numbers. The question is by how much. Unfortunately for Ted, election day is 47 days away. Is that enough time to flip around approval numbers that are so shockingly low? Can they make people forget that more than 1 in 10 Ohioans are out of work? The very likely answer, of course, is no.

Too little, too late.

But the good news? Meghan Cofield, the actress who appeared in Ted's first attack ad talking about losing her factory job back in May, now apparently has THREE JOBS!

We learned about the first new factory job in the August 27th attack ad.

Now here she is in commercial #1 pretending to work for Quasar Energy Group:


And here she is in commercial #2 pretending to work for Scotts Miracle-Gro:


Yep, those screencaps come from the two different commercials released today.

Are Strickland's folks so lazy that they can't put together stock footage from more than one location?

But hey, whatever, at least Cofield is overemployed. Good job, Meghan!

UPDATE: Interesting update from the RGA on the man behind one of the Strickland ads:

As Ted Strickland’s campaign continues to fall apart, he has now resorted to having a New York CEO, whose company received $500,000 in state incentives last year, give a testimonial for him. Strickland’s campaign released an ad starring James Hagedorn, CEO of Scotts Miracle-Gro today. Though the ad makes it appear that Hagedorn is from Ohio, he is in fact a New York registered voter.

Also, the RGA is grateful for Scotts Miracle-Gro’s contribution which it received in August, for $10,000. Apparently, the company knows that Republican governors, like John Kasich, will grow more jobs, while its New York CEO uses his company as a front to support his friend, Ted Strickland.

“Taxpayers aren’t going to like the fact that Strickland spent $500,000 of their money to earn the endorsement of a New York CEO,” said RGA spokesman Chris Schrimpf.