Pros, cons for Kasich of speech outside Statehouse

Ohio Gov. John Kasich deliv­ers his State of the State address at Wells Academy/Steubenville High School Tues­day, in Steubenville. The first-term Repub­li­can made his plea for leg­is­la­tors to put pol­i­tics aside and focus on what’s good for Ohio. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Tony Dejak)

JULIE CARR SMYTH

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLUMBUS — He’s fresh off a bruis­ing fight and ulti­mate defeat over the rights of union­ized pub­lic work­ers. His approval rat­ings among vot­ers are low.

And some fel­low Repub­li­cans in the Leg­is­la­ture have grum­bled openly over Gov. John Kasich’s deci­sion to move his State of the State speech out­side the cap­i­tal to east­ern Ohio.

Against this back­drop, Kasich lays out his second-year agenda Tues­day — one focused on edu­ca­tion and the eco­nomic promise of oil and nat­ural gas drilling.

Polit­i­cal experts say mov­ing the speech to an ele­men­tary school in Steubenville allows Kasich to recon­nect with the pub­lic after last fall’s bit­ter col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing bat­tle. He has said he wants to uplift the once-proud steel val­ley by turn­ing pub­lic atten­tion on its assets.

But the deci­sion also miffed some law­mak­ers — includ­ing a hand­ful in his own party, whose sup­port is nec­es­sary to push his poli­cies through the state Legislature.

Besides requir­ing dri­ves of more than four hours in some cases, the relo­ca­tion was crit­i­cized by some as dis­re­spect­ing an hon­ored state tra­di­tion. Kasich is believed to be the first gov­er­nor in Ohio his­tory to give his address out­side the Statehouse.

The move is also an incon­ve­nience to other Columbus-based dig­ni­taries who tra­di­tion­ally attend.

Attor­ney Gen­eral Mike DeWine has said he can’t make the speech. Sec­re­tary of State Jon Husted has a sched­ule con­flict he’s try­ing to work out. Both are fel­low Republicans.

The GOP-controlled Ohio Supreme Court also won’t be there because court is in ses­sion that day.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said the gov­er­nor is ded­i­cated to the uncon­ven­tional venue.

He said this year’s speech will reach a larger audi­ence than ever. The school’s audi­to­rium holds more peo­ple than the House cham­ber, so 50 mem­bers of the pub­lic received tick­ets to attend through a lot­tery. Gov­ern­ment and pub­lic tele­vi­sion net­works are team­ing up to broad­cast the speech and stream it online, he said.

“How this could be viewed as any­thing but a good thing, I don’t know. We’re shin­ing light on a part of the state that’s been a door­mat for a long time,” said Nichols. “We think not all news hap­pens at the cor­ner of Broad and High (where the Capi­tol is). Some­times you have to get out of your com­fort zone.”

But such calls by Kasich may be tougher sells after vot­ers resound­ingly repealed his col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing over­haul last year, said Nancy Miller, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence at the Uni­ver­sity of Dayton.

He’s lost some polit­i­cal cap­i­tal, she said.

“He’s going to have a hard time keep­ing the agenda as bold as it is, even though he has Repub­li­can majori­ties in both cham­bers of the Leg­is­la­ture. Some of those indi­vid­u­als are now wary,” she said.

Leg­isla­tive Repub­li­cans face poten­tially tough elec­tions this year, she said, “so they may be more reluc­tant to push for some of his more con­tro­ver­sial prerogatives.”

Kasich’s poll num­bers don’t help. As of last month, Quin­nip­iac Uni­ver­sity found 48 per­cent of Ohioans dis­ap­prove of the job Kasich is doing, com­pared with 39 per­cent who approve.

Kasich has made a habit of trav­el­ing out­side Colum­bus, and that that plays to his polit­i­cal strength as a folksy, every­man politi­cian, said Jason Pierce, who chairs the Uni­ver­sity of Dayton’s polit­i­cal sci­ence department.

“The pol­i­tics of get­ting out of Colum­bus and con­nect­ing with the vot­ers seems to be moti­vat­ing this deci­sion, and dis­pens­ing with the for­mal­ity of the State of the State address,” Pierce said.

Win­ning over a few Democ­rats in blue-collar Steubenville wouldn’t hurt Kasich, either. Steubenville state Sen. Lou Gen­tile, a Demo­c­rat, is hold­ing a leg­isla­tive recep­tion Mon­day night, and House Minor­ity Leader Armond Bud­ish was among Democ­rats whose votes helped clear relo­ca­tion of the speech.

That sup­port is matched by oppo­si­tion that will take the form Tues­day of protests by union work­ers, vet­er­ans and envi­ron­men­tal­ists opposed to hydraulic frac­tur­ing, or frack­ing, the con­tro­ver­sial shale drilling tech­nique that’s sweep­ing the region.

“Given the polit­i­cal cli­mate, I’m not sure he’s going to win over too many Democ­rats with what he’s doing,” Miller said. “Even though I think his motives for going to Steubenville are pure and good.”

John Green, direc­tor of the Bliss Insti­tute of Applied Pol­i­tics at The Uni­ver­sity of Akron, agreed.

He said Kasich mov­ing the speech out­side the State­house shouldn’t come as a sur­prise to anyone.

“Gov. Kasich, in the cam­paign, made a point of want­ing to do things dif­fer­ently, and he really wants to reform state gov­ern­ment in a wide vari­ety of ways,” Green said. “If noth­ing else, this is a sym­bol of the fact that he wants to do things dif­fer­ently in state government.”

Posted by AP News on Feb 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.