ICYMI: National Journal: Ted Strickland Drifts Left

Working as a high-paid lobbyist for the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress might have been retread Ted Strickland’s "dream job," but his out-of-touch policies are a nightmare for Ohio.

National Journal reports that Strickland’s drift to the left – particularly his aggressive push for stricter gun-control laws and support for President Obama’s war on coal, is cause for concern among Ohioans.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

After leav­ing the gov­ernor’s of­fice in 2010 and spend­ing a few years con­sult­ing, Strick­land moved to Wash­ing­ton to be­come the pres­id­ent of the Cen­ter for Amer­ic­an Pro­gress Ac­tion Fund…it has been an ag­gress­ive ad­voc­ate for much of Pres­id­ent Obama’s policy agenda, in­clud­ing stricter gun-con­trol laws and com­bat­ing cli­mate change…

And Strick­land isn’t merely tied to these is­sues by as­so­ci­ation with CAP. Since leav­ing of­fice, he’s come out in fa­vor of back­ground checks for gun pur­chasers and dis­cussed in depth the dangers of cli­mate change. Most re­cently, he told Na­tion­al Journ­al that he likely would not sup­port con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline, a hot-but­ton is­sue for busi­ness, labor, en­ergy, and en­vir­on­ment­al groups that he has long de­clined to take a po­s­i­tion on…

…he has drif­ted to the left of where he once stood on their is­sues. When Strick­land de­clared his Sen­ate can­did­acy this spring, both the Ohio Coal As­so­ci­ation and loc­al Buck­eye Fire­arms As­so­ci­ation quickly put out dis­ap­prov­ing state­ments…

Then there’s the push­back Strick­land faces over Demo­crats’ ag­gress­ive cli­mate agenda, which has taken the blame for a sig­ni­fic­ant loss of coal jobs in Ohio. The Ohio Coal As­so­ci­ation in par­tic­u­lar has high­lighted his work along­side Car­ol Brown­er, Pres­id­ent Obama’s former en­vir­on­ment­al ad­viser, dur­ing his time at CAP…

Jeff Al­brecht, a Ports­mouth hotel own­er who sev­er­al years back hos­ted Strick­land’s first gubernat­ori­al cam­paign launch party, said he had high hopes about send­ing a loc­al to the gov­ernor’s of­fice. But Al­brecht ended up dis­ap­poin­ted by Strick­land’s ac­com­plish­ments for the area. He is sup­port­ing Port­man for reelec­tion. “Ted’s a nice guy, and I al­ways just thought, ‘Wow, if some­how he were elec­ted gov­ernor, it would really help our area,’” said Al­brecht. “We’re kind of a very poor part of the state.… Un­em­ploy­ment is high and fam­ily in­come is very low. But once he be­came gov­ernor, it seemed like he com­pletely for­got about his ho­met­own…. He didn’t really do any­thing to help.”

Can a Democrat Still Win in Appalachia? Ted Strickland Is About to Find Out.

National Journal

By Andrea Drusch

September 27, 2015

http://bit.ly/1h2DQJG

Year after year, just as sum­mer starts turn­ing to fall, loc­al Demo­crats flooded in­to the Sci­oto County fair­grounds for Ted Strick­land’s birth­day party. The tra­di­tion has been on pause since 2010, but this month, the people, the band, even the dec­ades-old cam­paign signs dec­or­at­ing the walls—dug out of gar­ages and dus­ted off for re­use—all came back, for the first time in five years, to greet the former gov­ernor in South­east Ohio as he at­tempts a polit­ic­al comeback.

But much has changed since Strick­land, now run­ning for Sen­ate against Re­pub­lic­an in­cum­bent Rob Port­man, first rep­res­en­ted this area in Con­gress more than 20 years ago. Out­side of the folks gathered at the fair­ground on a drizzly Sat­urday af­ter­noon, fel­low Demo­crats are harder to come by. On the high­way lead­ing to the fair­grounds, Strick­land’s broth­er Ro­ger noted passing cars with Con­fed­er­ate flags on dis­play.

“They’ve prob­ably nev­er even been down South,” Ro­ger Strick­land grumbled. “We’re al­most like a for­eign coun­try these days, once you go be­low Chil­li­cothe.”

Ted Strick­land star­ted his polit­ic­al ca­reer when Demo­crats still drew strength from Ap­palachia, be­fore Re­pub­lic­ans meth­od­ic­ally re­painted the cul­tur­ally con­ser­vat­ive re­gion a deep shade of red. Even as Strick­land lost his reelec­tion cam­paign for gov­ernor in 2010, he still won 17 of Ohio’s 32 Ap­palachi­an counties in a year when voters there fired most oth­er Demo­crats run­ning for of­fice. Two years later, Pres­id­ent Obama lost all but four of those counties to Mitt Rom­ney.

The prom­ise and per­il of Strick­land’s Sen­ate cam­paign lies here, in South­east Ohio. Strick­land’s demon­strated abil­ity to pull votes from the Re­pub­lic­an-trend­ing re­gion could be a huge boon in Demo­crats’ quest to re­take the Sen­ate ma­jor­ity. But it’s not so simple for a Demo­crat in the Obama era. The na­tion­al party’s left­ward march on so­cial and cul­tur­al is­sues could leave even Strick­land—one of Demo­crats’ greatest re­main­ing am­bas­sad­ors to Ap­palachia but also a loy­al party mem­ber who worked for a pro­gress­ive non­profit in D.C. after leav­ing the gov­ernor’s man­sion—un­able to con­nect with the same voters who once elec­ted him eagerly.

Re­pub­lic­ans are fond of point­ing out the former gov­ernor’s age, 74, call­ing him “yes­ter­day’s news.” Strick­land’s cam­paign is a test of wheth­er Demo­crats like him really are thing of the past, or if he can still grab votes across geo­graph­ic­al and cul­tur­al bound­ar­ies.

“I sup­pose time will tell,” Strick­land said simply.

When Strick­land notched his first con­gres­sion­al vic­tory in 1992, after los­ing three pri­or races, his House dis­trict ran along Ohio’s south­ern bor­der. He won nar­rowly that year, lost reelec­tion in the 1994 Re­pub­lic­an wave des­pite buck­ing the Clin­ton ad­min­is­tra­tion on gun con­trol and NAF­TA, and then won the dis­trict back in 1996. Strick­land in­creased his mar­gin of vic­tory every two years after that; in his fi­nal House run in 2004, Re­pub­lic­ans didn’t even put up a can­did­ate.

As the dis­trict’s bound­ar­ies shif­ted, Strick­land ended up rep­res­ent­ing al­most the whole of South­east Ohio at one time or an­oth­er. His un­usu­al suc­cess in some of the most Re­pub­lic­an-lean­ing por­tions of Ohio is what got Demo­crats like Dav­id Le­land think­ing about run­ning Strick­land for gov­ernor.

“I thought that if we could do what we nor­mally do in Demo­crat­ic areas, and then do bet­ter than Demo­crats his­tor­ic­ally do in areas that he used to rep­res­ent in Con­gress, which was ba­sic­ally two whole dis­tricts, then we would win the elec­tion—quite simple,” said Le­land, who chaired the Ohio Demo­crat­ic Party from 1995 to 2002.

And they did: Strick­land won more than 60 per­cent of the vote for gov­ernor in 2006. Even when he lost four years later, un­usu­al strength in the re­gion nearly saved him from de­feat at the hands of Re­pub­lic­an John Kasich. The Na­tion­al Rifle As­so­ci­ation en­dorsed Strick­land for reelec­tion that year.

“It’s true that I think I have per­haps an ad­vant­age in this re­gion that oth­ers don’t, simply be­cause I have been at it a long time,” Strick­land said, sit­ting at an old pic­nic table as the band packed up after his birth­day fun­draiser. “In the past, I have been able to com­mu­nic­ate with gun own­ers, I have been able to com­mu­nic­ate with coal miners—with folks who may have con­ser­vat­ive so­cial views about a lot of things. But I think they have al­ways seen me as someone who is on their side, someone who cares about them and their op­por­tun­it­ies in life, need for edu­ca­tion, job op­por­tun­it­ies.”

Of course, one-time House Demo­crats like Za­ck Space and the late Charlie Wilson, the man who re­placed Strick­land in Con­gress, could have said the same thing, but that didn’t stop voters from boot­ing them in 2010. Two years later, those voters handed Wilson an­oth­er de­feat, and by a wider mar­gin, when he tried to take his seat back in 2012, a much more fa­vor­able year for Demo­crats na­tion­ally.

“The No. 1 is­sue I heard and I heard count­less times is, ‘Charlie is a friend of mine, but he’s vot­ing with [then-House Speak­er Nancy] Pelosi and Obama,’” said Chris­ti­an Pa­l­ich, the pres­id­ent of the Ohio Coal As­so­ci­ation. Pa­l­ich served as the polit­ic­al dir­ect­or for Rep. Bill John­son, the Re­pub­lic­an who un­seated Wilson in 2010. “No mat­ter what, you’re go­ing to have this na­tion­al is­sue where the Demo­crat­ic Party went the way of Tom Stey­er and the Si­erra Club.”

Plus, neither Wilson nor Space went to work for a lib­er­al think tank be­fore their cam­paigns.

After leav­ing the gov­ernor’s of­fice in 2010 and spend­ing a few years con­sult­ing, Strick­land moved to Wash­ing­ton to be­come the pres­id­ent of the Cen­ter for Amer­ic­an Pro­gress Ac­tion Fund, the ad­vocacy arm of a ma­jor pro­gress­ive think tank. CAP has em­ployed many cur­rent and former of­fi­cials in the Clin­ton and Obama ad­min­is­tra­tions, and it has been an ag­gress­ive ad­voc­ate for much of Pres­id­ent Obama’s policy agenda, in­clud­ing stricter gun-con­trol laws and com­bat­ing cli­mate change.

And Strick­land isn’t merely tied to these is­sues by as­so­ci­ation with CAP. Since leav­ing of­fice, he’s come out in fa­vor of back­ground checks for gun pur­chasers and dis­cussed in depth the dangers of cli­mate change. Most re­cently, he told Na­tion­al Journ­al that he likely would not sup­port con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline, a hot-but­ton is­sue for busi­ness, labor, en­ergy, and en­vir­on­ment­al groups that he has long de­clined to take a po­s­i­tion on.

Strick­land may still have a rap­port with loc­al gun own­ers and coal miners, but he has drif­ted to the left of where he once stood on their is­sues. When Strick­land de­clared his Sen­ate can­did­acy this spring, both the Ohio Coal As­so­ci­ation and loc­al Buck­eye Fire­arms As­so­ci­ation quickly put out dis­ap­prov­ing state­ments.

“When he ran for gov­ernor, my friends badgered the day­light out of me, said ‘Strick­land is go­ing to be ter­rible on guns,’” said Jim Irvine, the pres­id­ent of Buck­eye Fire­arms. “I said, ‘You guys are totally miss­ing the boat; he’s a gun guy, he helped put food on the table for a fam­ily that some­times went hungry with a gun.’ I was a very staunch sup­port­er of him be­cause I knew his back­ground and his his­tory.”

Irvine, once a prime ex­ample of Strick­land’s un­usu­ally broad base of sup­port, said the Demo­crat’s switch on back­ground checks was a big turnoff—par­tic­u­larly be­cause Strick­land un­der­stood their is­sues and did it any­way.

“He can’t say he got misled,” said Irvine. “He knew this is­sue really well; he lived it.”

Strick­land ar­gues that his sup­port for back­ground checks was not out of line with what many gun-rights ad­voc­ates want. “Do I be­lieve that we need to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have ac­cess to them? I ab­so­lutely do,” said Strick­land. “That doesn’t mean I’m not a sup­port­er of cit­izens’ right to have a gun and to use it to pro­tect them­selves.”

Then there’s the push­back Strick­land faces over Demo­crats’ ag­gress­ive cli­mate agenda, which has taken the blame for a sig­ni­fic­ant loss of coal jobs in Ohio. The Ohio Coal As­so­ci­ation in par­tic­u­lar has high­lighted his work along­side Car­ol Brown­er, Pres­id­ent Obama’s former en­vir­on­ment­al ad­viser, dur­ing his time at CAP.

Strick­land con­tends that he spent his time at CAP in­vest­ing sig­ni­fic­ant re­sources in­to re­search­ing solu­tions for the fu­ture of the coal in­dustry. “I be­lieve cli­mate change is a prob­lem; we’ve got to trans­ition,” Strick­land said. “But there’s lots of reas­ons why coal-mine jobs have been lost.”

He’s in fa­vor of stop­ping coal im­ports and rais­ing roy­al­ties. “That would bring in, we be­lieve, ac­cord­ing to the re­search that was done at CAP, about a bil­lion dol­lars per year. And then that bil­lion dol­lars ought to be used to help these com­munit­ies ad­just to the loss of jobs in the coal fields,” said Strick­land. “That may not be as suc­cinct as ‘war on coal,’ but I think people can deal with the truth.”

The Port­man cam­paign says it’s ready to strike on both is­sues. “We look for­ward to talk­ing to voters about what Ted Strick­land was do­ing in Wash­ing­ton,” said Port­man cam­paign man­ager Corry Bliss. “When people learn that he was paid $250,000 a year to move to Wash­ing­ton to run Pres­id­ent Obama’s war on coal … it’s go­ing to be dif­fi­cult to find a single per­son will­ing to vote for Ted Strick­land in South­east Ohio.”

Obama proved in 2012 that Demo­crats don’t need to win large swathes of South­east Ohio any­more to win the whole state. But cob­bling to­geth­er a few ex­tra per­cent­age points from the old Strick­land co­ali­tion could mean the dif­fer­ence between a win and a loss in one of the na­tion’s most tightly di­vided swing states. Strick­land’s per­son­al con­nec­tions might still be worth that much.

“I think I can re­late to them bet­ter than Rob Port­man can,” said Strick­land, who spent part of his child­hood in the area liv­ing in a chick­en coop, after a fire took his fam­ily’s home. “You saw these folks here—there are no mil­lion­aires.”

In­deed, at a fun­draiser the next day in Hamilton, loc­al Demo­crats held a live auc­tion to help Strick­land fight off the out­side at­tacks already flow­ing in from the U.S. Cham­ber of Com­merce and Koch broth­ers-backed groups. Among the big­ger-tick­et items: a hand-stitched afghan, a homemade black­berry cake, a signed copy of a John Glenn book. It’s not your usu­al big-tick­et polit­ic­al fare, but Strick­land has long had a knack for get­ting people in­volved.

“When Ted Strick­land an­nounced he was run­ning, I re­ceived calls from people I have not seen act­ive in elec­tions in the past eight years,” said Lou Gen­tile, a state sen­at­or who got his start in polit­ics as Strick­land’s driver.

“We’ve had a de­cline in the num­ber of Demo­crats, there’s no doubt about it,” said Judy New­man, one of the birth­day party or­gan­izers who has worked on Strick­land’s cam­paigns since he was in the House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives. But “Ted con­tin­ues to win,” New­man said. “There are a lot of Re­pub­lic­ans in this area who don’t vote for any oth­er Demo­crat, but they vote for Ted Strick­land.”

Yet even that in­clin­a­tion has faded among some.

Jeff Al­brecht, a Ports­mouth hotel own­er who sev­er­al years back hos­ted Strick­land’s first gubernat­ori­al cam­paign launch party, said he had high hopes about send­ing a loc­al to the gov­ernor’s of­fice. But Al­brecht ended up dis­ap­poin­ted by Strick­land’s ac­com­plish­ments for the area. He is sup­port­ing Port­man for reelec­tion.

“Ted’s a nice guy, and I al­ways just thought, ‘Wow, if some­how he were elec­ted gov­ernor, it would really help our area,’” said Al­brecht. “We’re kind of a very poor part of the state.… Un­em­ploy­ment is high and fam­ily in­come is very low. But once he be­came gov­ernor, it seemed like he com­pletely for­got about his ho­met­own…. He didn’t really do any­thing to help.”

Read the full article here.