Strickland criticizes Romney, advises Obama to talk manufacturing in SOTU

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) - Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland told reporters on a conference call Monday morning that he was invited to the White House last week to speak to President Obama in a private one-on-one meeting about the president's State of the Union address tomorrow and Ohio politics.

 

Strickland, who lost a close race to Gov. John Kasich in 2010 by about 77,000 votes, said he suggested to the president that he talk about a manufacturing policy in his speech to the nation Tuesday evening. 

 

"I hope that you talk about the need to revitalize manufacturing in America and to create for our country what ever one of our competitors has, a specific policy, an industrial policy, to protect American jobs, products and the economy," Strickland told CGE in response to a question. Strickland said Obama's attention to this topic "would be important to Ohio and the Midwest...and could really light a fire under people."

 

Strickland, 70 years old, remembers a time when the media consisted of just three television networks, and a president could use his bully pulpit to reach the nation. With that world effectively obliterated by an onslaught of new media outlets and sources, Strickland acknowledged that reaching voters is more difficult.

 

The purpose of Strickland's call with reporters today was to criticize Mitt Romney for not releasing more than one year of his tax returns. Romney said today that he will release his 2010 tax return and an estimate of his 2011 tax return tomorrow, the same day President Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. Strickland urged Romney to do what his father, a governor of Michigan and later President of American Motors, did in 1967 when he ran for president. According to Romney's father at the time, releasing only one year of tax returns, as his son said he intends to do tomorrow, "could be a fluke, perhaps done for show." The late Jim Rhodes, a Republican Governor of Ohio at the time, famously said of the elder Romney's ill-fated candidacy, "It was like watching a duck try to make love to a football."

 

Making his point, Strickland said, "If you just looked at the 2010 football season for Ohio State, you wouldn't know how fine a football program our great university has."

 

"I believe in transparency," said Strickland, who served in Congress for six terms and who became Governor of Ohio in 2006, when voters turned out Republicans in favor of Democrats for all but one statewide office. Strickland handily defeated the GOP candidate for governor at the time, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, by a nearly 2-1 margin. Strickland said he not only released several years of his tax returns when running for governor but more when he was elected to the office.

 

The first member of a family from Appalachia Ohio to attend and graduate from college, Strickland said Romney's comments that opposition to him is based on envy of his wealth is misplaced. When Romney accuses President Obama and others of attacking free enterprise, Strickland said that what "Mitt doesn't understand is that economic inequality is a real problem, and middle class Ohioans won't think it's fair if they have to pay a much higher tax rate than what Mitt Romney pays." 

 

Moreover, he said Ohioans will not think its fair that Romney is gaming the tax system by hiding large portions of his profits in off shore accounts like those in the Cayman Islands and other tax haven countries. He may do this to avoid paying his fair share of taxes, Strickland said, but "I believe Mitt Romney owes it to the voters of Ohio and the voters of our country to release his tax returns so these questions can be answered." 

 

The former prison psychologist said Romney should not be gaming the system by off-shoring investments. "We agree with Mitt's father, one year doesn't even begin to paint a picture of him as a buyout specialist," Strickland said, reminding reporters that Gov. Kasich, also reported to be a millionaire, only allowed reporters a quick look at one year of his tax returns before Ohioans went to the polls in 2010.

 

Reading from prepared remarks, Strickland said Romney has waged his candidacy on his experience in the private sector, "but the truth is, he has spent most of his time in the corporate world bankrupting companies, outsourcing jobs and laying off workers to line his own pockets." Other criticisms Strickland levied at Romney is that he will put profits over people and stand up for big corporations and the wealthiest among us. "He's put forth a tax plan that benefits the ultra wealthy and he would take us back to a time when Wall Street wrote its own rules." 

 

"Romney has a different approach when it comes to transparency. He must come from the Kasich school of transparency," Strickland jibbed. "Romney should come clean and release" his tax returns, he said. "The truth is, if Ohioans like Gov. Kasich, they will love a President Romney," adding that "Ohioans don't need lip service from candidates asking to be president, they need honest answers." Ohioans need to "know how he made his money, what investments he holds, and what effective tax rate he pays," he said

 

Asked by CGE about his years in Congress, several of which were served when Newt Gingrich was House Speaker and a Congressman from Westerville (Kasich) was one of his leading lieutenants, Strickland said there is a commonality between Gingrich, who won the nasty yet important primary fight in South Carolina Saturday, and Kasich, who has made changes during his first year in office that sparked great controversy and resulted in a major defeat to one his signature proposals, reforming collective bargaining in Ohio.

 

"Both are bright people with lots of ideas, but often times those ideas are not well thought through; they appear to be a little erratic at times," he said. Strickland recalled that when he was a member of Congress, Kasich, as chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, offered a budget that only received about 30 votes. Strickland said members of Kasich's own party were reluctant to vote for it because "it was extreme and unworkable."

 

Responding to another reporter's question, Strickland opined that Romney would be Obama's toughest competitor in Ohio. "Romney may not be as strong as we thought he might be...and Gingrich is a bright guy with his own strengths...but Romney would be the strongest candidate in opposition to Obama in Ohio," he said. Nonetheless, Strickland said "Obama can and will carry Ohio once again."  

 

Strickland, not surprisingly, offered high praise to Ohio's senior U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown in his race against the odds on favorite Republican to challenge him, current Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel. "If there ever was a mismatch in terms of ability and character, it's Mandel against Sherrod Brown," he said. "Josh Mandel is a person that is, I don't know, wishy washy, a flip flopper...he entertains an attitude of being willing to do anything to win an election." Strickland accused Mandel of running a campaign against Kevin Boyce that was unethical, racial, bigoted and prejudiced. "I haven't heard him apologize for that," he said. 

 

But in terms of experience, intellect and character, Strickland, who many wonder if he'll run against Kasich again in 2014, said "there is no comparison between Brown and Mandel. "Sherrod will do really well," he said. People see Sherrod Brown in the same way they saw John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum, both former Democratic U.S. Senators, who were "willing to stand up for Ohio's working class workers...and if Mandel thinks he can take environment issues and damage Brown with working class folks, he's in for a big surprise."

 

Strickland revealed that he lived in the same apartment building in Washington as Gingrich when the two worked in Congress. But he declined to comment on what he thought of Gingrich's live off the House floor, given the recent revelations by Gingrich's second wife that he wanted an open marriage.

 

Strickland did acknowledged that Gingrich is skillful. "He knows how to appeal to people's biases and prejudices," he said, noting that about 40 Catholic leaders have written to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and to Gingrich, objecting to their divisive, racially tinged rhetoric. That won't help either of them in Ohio, he said, noting that "it will be less helpful to him in Ohio because Ohioans are much more fair minded because they are more inclusive, more tolerant and accepting than perhaps the average republican voter in South Carolina."