They've gone so far as to say things like...
"Given his record of supporting the outsourcing of Ohio jobs, unfair trade deals like NAFTA that cost Ohio hundreds of thousands of jobs..."...in press releases.
They even spent millions making sure Ohioans knew about it when they made it a primary focus of their attack ads.
Now, for Ted's sake, we'll ignore the fact that when he had an opportunity to denounce NAFTA last year, he supported President Obama's decision not to reopen the deal with Canada and Mexico.But what's particularly interesting is who Strickland is hanging out with all day today.
President Clinton.
This President Clinton.
So how do you think Ted Strickland will introduce the former President?
"Outsourcer-in-Chief"? "The man that cost Ohio hundreds of thousands of jobs"?
If Ted really believed those things, then I'd like to think he'd have the heart to not appear with the President.
That said, this is politics. Ted's hypocrisy will likely go largely unnoticed simply because that's the world we've created for ourselves.
But make no mistake, the voters will make him feel accountable for his failure to "Turnaround Ohio" in 49 days.
Clinton's a great campaign companion for Strickland at this point: It all depends what the definition of "outsourcing" is.
ReplyDeleteIf free trade = outsourcing = bad, then sure, NAFTA is the worst. There's still the issue of Strickland's hypocrisy on NAFTA, but that's small potatoes when you're trying for 51% on a naked class-warfare platform.
What Jon Keeling won't be talking about today: How John Kasich has already broken his "no new taxes" pledge he signed in June already.
ReplyDeleteI won't?
ReplyDeleteGrover Norquist, the guy responsible for the pledge Kasich took and who has no problem attacking Republicans who break it, made a great point that I failed to make when first discussing tax loopholes not too long ago.
From today's Dispatch:
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, told The Dispatch yesterday that any move to close tax loopholes would be a tax increase and a violation of the pledge without offsetting tax cuts of equal value.
"The pledge is no net tax increases," Norquist said. "As long as you have offsetting cuts somewhere else, that's OK. As long as it's not a dirty trick to raise taxes."
Nichols said Kasich understands the pledge and won't violate it because "he is not going to raise the tax burden on Ohioans."
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So there ya go. As long as Kasich makes offsetting cuts, he won't break the pledge. And that comes from the man who created the pledge.
Case closed. Thanks for playing.
Now here's a challenge for you. Will you talk about the hypocrisy of Ted Strickland campaigning hand in hand with the man responsible for signing NAFTA, the trade deal that, according to Ted, left hundreds of thousands of Ohioans out of jobs?
Except that Kasich said he was looking to eliminating tax expenditures AS A MEANS TO REDUCE THE DEFICIT... which means you can't do that if you offset them with tax cuts elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, yes Norquist noted that it's possible for Kasich to eliminate them if he offsets them with other tax cuts. However, if Kasich did it to balance the budget (AS KASICH SAID HE would) that WOULD violate the pledge.
Case hardly closes, especially since back in June the Kasich campaign had originally said that repealing tax expenditures were ENTIRELY off the table as they would be a tax increase.
YOU even wrote that doing what Kasich says he is now considering to do WOULD BE A TAX INCREASE.
Maybe you should look in the mirror before you start throwing the hypocrisy label around, Jon.
way to bury your "failure" - only address in the comments section of your blog in response to someone calling you out on it.
ReplyDeleteJung,
ReplyDeleteThis is where he asked about it. I answered. Not sure what else you want.
Brian/Modern,
Complain to Norquist. Not me. He was responding directly to Kasich. It's his pledge. He knows what Kasich must do. So does Kasich. As his record shows, if Kasich's statement was a threat to the pledge, Grover would call him out.
Now try responding to the actual post. I dare ya.