Published: Thursday, January 12, 2012, 5:25 AM
Though Gov. John Kasich's poll numbers are in a hole deeper than
hidden shale, (any chance of telling your readers just what exactly the numbers are, out of the deep hole he must, assumedly want to climb? - or would that take a little bit of RESEARCH that, as a reporter, you simply don't have time to do?) he hasn't suffered any loss of confidence as a result. (Who would even WANT for a governor a man who would let his self esteem ride on the results of a poll? I bet he (the governor) sleeps REAL good at night!)
That's the impression he left behind after a visit to the Plain
Dealer this week to talk about what he hopes to accomplish in his second
year.
What a concept - a politician that actually hopes to accomplish something!
"One day I wake up and there are lions and bears running around; the
next day I get tremors from earthquakes," he said, breaking into a light
chuckle. He was referring to a rogue animal dealer from Zanesville who
killed himself after setting free several dozen wild animals and to a
string of earthquakes in Youngstown area that could be related to the
gas well industry.
"It's a heck of a job and I've learned a lot in this first year," he said.
I covered Kasich's 2010 run for governor and have sat close to him in
all his meetings at the Plain Dealer. On Tuesday, he displayed some of
the same tendencies to entertain that he showed in the campaign, and he
is still afflicted with a touch of adult attention deficit disorder that
leaves him bouncing between topics with few breaths.
This is a very troubling sentence - we now have a reporter, whose job it is to REPORT facts offering up his (entirely unprofessional, unqualified to make) judgement on a sitting governor - thankfully, ADD is merely a set of behaviors that grade school teachers use in order to drug children and pharmaceutical companies use to make big bucks. For a visionary, ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED, and what might sound, to a non-visionary, to be a bunch of bouncing between apparently disconnected topics, might in fact be part of a seamless whole that suggests a very simple and straight forward path to accomplishing some real good in the world.
But he also showed political maturing, reflecting that he's more comfortable as governor than a candidate for governor.
He effortlessly lobbed criticisms at nearly everyone he hopes will be
[a part] of Ohio's comeback as he envisions it, from big businesses,
colleges and universities, and hospitals, to the competing coal and gas
companies.
We can say this is a governor with an incredible vision - entire segments of the community working TOGETHER to do some good for the state!
His charges didn't sound strident or arrogant – as some of his
criticisms clearly came across during the campaign (some days one man's strident and arrogant are another man's righteous anger and indignation - a reporter with no real conviction, who likes to read his own words, and is safely cocooned behind a computer screen would not really be expected to have much of a vision) -- because his
complaints were more measured and largely on the mark (which is one HECK of a job for an attention-deficit-disordered politician! - the reporter just disproved his own hypothesis!).
He complained, for example, that Ohio offers too many disconnected
job-training programs. Without better coordination these programs "add
up to zero," he said. (The governor is clearly NOT a point no fingers man - he is laying it on the line - the state has failed to be organized!)
He's right that the programs need to better coordination and more
honest benchmarking. The old Kasich might have left the topic there. (OH? Really? Just how in the world can you possibly know this - you are just bending the storyline to suit your original ADD allegation - sloppy reporting - looking VERY bad) But
he also knocked big employers who complain about the lack of skilled
workers but refuse to work with the state in identifying exactly what
jobs they need (This is a VERY special pet peeve of mine. As a regular attendant at the Kiwanis twice-monthly dinner meeting here in Barrington, IL, I was sickened to listen to rational men (and women) rip a high school that graduates 99.8+% of its students and sends almost 100% of these on to college / university / junior college - and SOME of these students enter college with a full years academic credit because of the adavnced placement courses that the students were blessed by the Grace of God and the best intentions and operation of the Barrington consolidated Unit District 220 - this stuff does NOT happen by accident; the foundation is laid very early; those kinds of lame ass complaints one can only get from watching an over dosage of FAUX NUDES.
Kasich said he's found it difficult to get answers from these
companies and the business groups that represent them. He vowed to push
them.
He complained again about the lack of cooperation among the state's hospital systems and the related entities.
Health CARE - if your state's hospital systems and related entities are not coordinated, you are pissing money down the gutter. No state can afford to do this.
"It's like trying to get five Michael Jordans together to pass the ball around," he said.
I wouldn't hold my breath.
Absolutely horrible analogy - Michael Jordan was happy to pass the ball around, when passing it around was the right play ... but as long as he was being guarded by Cleveland's Craig Ehlo, he was ALWAYS gonna take it to the hoop.
At times his glibness weakens his message. Hopefully, we are gonna get an offering of what exactly this means - by way of example. OH - here comes the example: For example, about the
resistance to privatizing the Ohio Turnpike, he asked that people hold
off on judgment until they see details (Which seems quite reasonable). He said critics refuse to open
their minds (This seems quite likely - a critic gets an idea in his head, and he's a'gonna' keep it like it was the word of the Lord God Almighty handed down from on high). He deadpanned, "Some people are married to a spouse and the
turnpike."(He deadpanned this? You mean, he didn't laugh? You mean he was deathly serious about it - some people just can't shake their minds open, to free up the cobwebs and dust.
He highlighted a half-dozen or so examples of high-tech manufacturing
taking place at companies around Ohio, then warned, "If we are not
careful, we may enter the 21st Century." HINT: This is levity, a comedic light touch - understantment!
Kasich, a former Fox News personality, became most lively So, you mean, he was dull, dry, and boring while being a topic flitting ADD-afflicted guy? Which is it? MOST LIVELY? Care to explain THAT value judgement - here's my guess - it is a topic about which he is VERY passionate, and has studied at great lengths) when he was
alternating between support for and caution about fracking, the
controversial drilling process that removes natural gas from deep in the
earth in Ohio.
Speaking about the issue, Kasich spotted a dry-erase board in the
corner of the room, popped out of his seat, and headed for it.
"Where's the chalk," he joked -- or maybe not – Good Lord, if you can't tell whether or not the man is joking, please, don't clue us in on your cluelessnes. It is entirely possibly that he was joking, but in a serous way! before reaching for a red dry-erase marker.
The governor drew an elementary diagram of a gas well, noting the
ground, the underground water table and the gas deposit. He circled the
ground, arguing that this is the spot at the greatest risk for
contamination. He pledged to put in regulations that minimize potential
contamination.One picture sounds as if it was worth 1,000 words in this instance.
At one point, comfortable at the board and clearly self aware, he said, "I sound like I know something about this."(Clearly self-aware? Like, for the first time? You are DAMN straight, this guy KNOWS this stuff, has studied it at great length, and made it simple enough so that an idiot report could even report it in a manner that makes sense to an 8-year old reading the article. That is one hell of a job of explanation!
Kasich said he will not roll over for drilling companies. (A promise that his constitutents PLUS the local newspapers ought to hold him to!) He said he
sends he reads every negative articles about fracking and sends them to
his staff research to demand research and answers about the issues the
articles raise.THE MAN reads negative stuff - about things that oil companies {always the most trusted energy providers on the block, or in the water} want us to accept as having no (or very little) downside! WOWSA!
He also said the state can't afford to screw up the opportunity to create what could be tens of thousands of new
jobs. He argued that a thriving gas drilling industry in Ohio would
free us from our dependence on coal, acknowledging this won't sit well
with coal companies.Sounds SO much like a big picture guy who is aware of BOTH sides of the possibilities here.
Flashing his irreverent side, he said coal and gas people don't like each other. WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE - what is irreverent about this? It is the God's Own Truth - no, they DO NOT like each other; and both of them are dinasaur industries and relying on one or the other to provide 10's of 1,000's of Ohioans with jobs is a sure fire strategy for 10's of 1,000's of out-of-work with no good skill set Ohioans several decades (if not sooner) down the road.
"They don't like to go camping together because one of them might not come back," he said. In other words, they REALLY don't like each other - once again, they are chasing the same (somewhat limited) pool of consumer energy dollars. Right, no shit, they REALLY don't like one another.
In his most serious moments, Kasich repeated the lesson he's learned
from his first year: You can't spring big ideas on the public without
first preparing them. I have NEVER seen such an elementary concept so well expressed and his is 100% correct - and serious!
Without saying it, the statement was a nod to the ugly battle he
fought to dramatically reform the state's collective bargaining law,
which pitted the Republican-controlled legislature against teachers,
firefighters and others. Voters overwhelmingly sided with workers. The
fight, combined with dramatic cuts to local governments in his first
budget, have hurt Kasich's popularity. How has it hurt his popularity? Do both factions - the Republican-controlled legislature and the teachers / firefighters / and others find him now hugely unpopular? Or is one of those cohorts (or the other) more, and perhaps far more, favorably persuaded as to his intentions at helping out a majority constituency?
But Kasich showed no bitterness at The Plain Dealer and did not criticize unions. This seems remarkably mature for an ADD-addled politician. And just why would he be bitter at the Plain Dealer, and why would he want to criticize the unions?
His new cautious approach to unveiling big change may be one reason
he's delayed unveiling a new formula for funding schools in Ohio. Or it may not be. Did you think to ask him?
From a distance, Kasich still resembles the Kasich I got to know
during the campaign. But up close, he looks more like a governor. It hardly matters what he LOOKS like, (unless you are a big Maureen Dowd freak and want to write the kind of cheep, trashy, cheesy approved story-line irrelevant columns she can produce on a moment's notice - the drunken, lesbo, Irish bitch - always showing off how she knows Shakespeare).
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