To the editor:
I’m a Democrat and will be voting for the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor come November. However, I’m also a realist, and I recognize that the state has elected the Republican at every opportunity for more than a decade and will probably do so (against our best interests) again this year. With that probability in mind, I would prefer to be voting against the best possible Republican.
The state threw off the perfectly competent Democrat, Ted Strickland, for the competent if occasionally wrong-headed John Kasich 12 years ago, and then the GOP primaried Kasich’s lieutenant governor for daring to be ept, replacing him with the mealie current Gov. Mike DeWine, who (though generally awful) at least showed some competence during the COVID-19 pandemic. My fear, though, is the Grand Ol’ Party’s Grandparent-old voters are about to oust him for one of his challengers, and the one who seems best poised to be his successor is the guy who looks like a stock character in a B-movie set in Wyoming, Joe Blystone.
Please, Republican voters, heed my warning, the guy’s all hat and beard, no cattle. A perusal of his website shows him to be a champion panderer, hitting all the Republican (Trumpian) touchstones — sanctity of life, guns, election integrity (whatever that means given there were no issues with Ohio’s recent elections at all) and he even pays lip service to some meaningless jibber-jabber about reining in “big tech.” He also blathers for some length about tax-and-spend government (in a state which is firmly in Republican control no-less.) But his arguments are nonsensical.
For example, he contrasts Ohio’s population and budget with a fistful of other states and argues Ohio’s income tax rate is too high by comparison. However, for a number of reasons, his methodology is flawed. Though he correctly notes, for example, that Georgia has a budget of $43.2 billion with a population of 10.6 million while Ohio has a $75 billion budget with a population of 11.7 million; but this is not the whole picture as most cities in Georgia have a much higher sales tax rate. Not to mention, Ohio’s highest income tax rate is about 4.8 percent while Georgia’s is 5.25 percent. Clearly Georgia’s people are taxed more than Ohio’s citizenry, so what does comparing budgets demonstrate?
The other states he offered up for comparison, Michigan, Florida and North Carolina, all have higher excise tax rates or income tax levels than ours, or both. Florida, in fact, has among the highest tax rates in the country.
Luckily (and I can’t believe I’m saying “Luckily” about this) DeWine is leading in the polls. (Yeeech, I need to disinfect my keyboard after this.) Yet, a lot of Republican voters are still angry with him for keeping them alive during the past two years. It wouldn’t surprise me to see low turnout amongst his supporters at the polls come Election Day.
Republicans, please, stick with DeWine. Better the weasel you know than the empty hat you don’t.
J. David Core
Toronto
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