Swearing Over Swearing In

Update 3:45 p.m. The Governor-elect will now allow folks "in the house" for the ceremony. I'm told his staff was working on this before the yelping started Tuesday, but it sure makes the media feel like it won one...

All my friends in the media are having a conniption (meaning: tantrum) over Governor-elect John Kasich's desire to keep his private home private, even as he's sworn in with a midnight technicality ceremony. My first question is: why is his house now considered public? This really isn't about the First Amendment or government transparency. It's about politics, silly

Kasich's decision to remain at home in a Columbus suburb -- providing stability for his family while he works his "day job" in the Governor's office -- tosses a monkey wrench of sorts in the land of government transparency.

Is this really at the same level as the swearing-in of LBJ with widow Jackie Kennedy by his side, at left, with the slain JFK in the hold below?

Prior Governors who called the Mansion home lived in a building owned by the state; the expenses of running the place, records of phone calls, all considered the people's business and therefore open to examination by friend and foe alike. That's the price one pays for serving their fellow citizens.

But Kasich's decision to stay at home and use the Bexley Governor's Residence for ceremonial purposes adds a wrinkle to how the people's business gets done. When he's living in his house, it's not the "people's house" but his private residence where his family lives. I think most of us, when pressed, would sympathize with his desire to offer as normal a life as possible for his family.

Which brings us to being sworn in as Governor at midnight, a largely technical exercise ahead of the more ceremonial inaugural bash set for January 10th in Columbus. It's to legally allow Kasich to act as Governor in the event of an emergency before the public show.

We're told there's plenty of precedent in modern Ohio political history to have the moment captured on film. At least that's the argument offered by the Associated Press and other journalism organizations, equating coverage of the act as a show of transparency in government. They want to be there to capture the moment, and make a good argument it is part of the people's business and should be open press.

But this isn't taking place in a state-owned building; it's in someone's personal, private residence. If "a man's home is his castle" is a dictum you embrace, then it stands to reason the homeowner decides who to admit to their home and is not bound to do so because that's the way others have done so in the past. I doubt many of us would consider giving up the privacy of our own homes as a price to be paid for serving our fellow citizens and neighbors. The Kasich home is still the Kasich home, regardless of what he does for a living, so long as the taxpayers aren't footing the bill.

And no, just because he's Governor doesn't mean we're footing the bill for his family's home. That would be like saying your employer has a right to inspect and enter your house on demand.

This "midnight swearing ceremony" may be part of history, but other public officials here and across the country have similar ceremonies without having a news photographer on hand. Even when new statehouse lawmakers were sworn in this week, I doubt every newspaper was lined up to have photos of the official event. Fact is, the candidates themselves usually send the media a photo. It's no different than life behind the curtain at the White House; it's not always an AP photographer snapping history. Some of the most iconic photos of our Presidents are taken by the official White House photographer, a surrogate for the press corps.

I'm not inclined to buy in to the outcry over transparency for a ceremony taking part in Kasich's private residence, and think it highlights for every potential public servant a good reason to think twice before putting their name on a ballot. A balance should be struck, and in this particular case a technical ceremony in an official's private home at midnight doesn't exactly rise as a litmus test of transparency for me.

That said, there are compelling reasons why the Governor-elect and his advisors should heed the protest letters likely to come from media and critics alike. Those reasons aren't in defense of open government; they are offered here because of the politics.

Governor Kasich, you have far more on your agenda than wasting time fighting over this. The most important times in any politician's career are those moments building support to get elected, and then the message you send on your first steps in office. What you will be doing in Columbus over the next four -- or eight -- years begins with how you project your leadership these next few weeks.

Your fellow citizens are far more concerned with how you intend to plug up to a $10 billion dollar shortfall -- that's $10,000,000,000.00, approximately $909 and change for every man, woman and child in Ohio -- in the budget without raising our taxes or cutting off our services. We're far more interested in the reforms you and your team will try to push through the Legislature while every Tom, Dick and Harry special interest squeals like a stuck pig and pulls out all the stops to protect their way of life. It matters more to Ohio how you get us and our neighbors working again, with jobs that make a difference to our community and provide a real future for our families without packing up the moving van and heading to Texas.

It starts with being on the up-and-up and building trust. Yes, it's your house. Yes, the histrionics from both sides over whether they'll get a picture of you swearing the oath before going to bed at midnight seems silly. But this is politics and the media, both of which you are all-to-familiar with.

Use some common sense: let the AP or a pool photographer enjoy a brief moment of hospitality in your home to take a photo for posterity. If you absolutely protect the privacy of your own home (I'm with you on that one, by the way) see if the local city hall or library if they mind you using their building to be sworn in at midnight. Get the Ohio State University's official photographer to snap away and send the images to the media. It was good enough for John F. Kennedy; it should be good enough for John R. Kasich.

You accepted the transition of private citizen to public leader when you filed the papers to run for Governor. Leadership is knowing when to pick a fight, and this small potatoes isn't worth the time, energy and political capital as you prepare to undertake the hardest job in Ohio.

Frat House Political Ads

I've been going over the swamp of political mailings -- I admit it, I'm a masochist and actually save this garbage through the election season. One thing screams at me: there's got to be a better system than allowing fraternity houses during "beer night" to develop ad campaigns for politicians.

Updated from Nielsen 4:32p: TV viewers in the Cleveland market were exposed to the highest proportion of political TV ads (23.4%) over the last month. Ohio’s capital city Columbus placed a very close second in the ranking with an estimated 23.37% of paid ads bought by political entities. Columbus, Portland, Sacramento, and Seattle rounded out the top five.

We need more grown-ups in the process. Ones who understand there's life after an election and flaming the crap out of an opponent only destroys the process because it makes voters want to vomit.

It's time to hold the frat boys (and girls) who dream up these stupid campaigns accountable. In some sense, that's what happened Tuesday in at least two of the Summit County state representative races.

Brian Williams is and has been an honorable, thoughtful community leader and politician. So has Lynn Slaby. Kristina Daley Roegner cares about her community and wants to work to make it better. So does Mike Moran.

So why can't they articulate the vision instead of spending all their resources to re-define their opponent?

Case in point: the ads targeting Lynn Slaby as pro-NAFTA, can't-wait to unload American jobs overseas, and frothing at the mouth to layoff 40,000 teachers.

The problem with these Columbus-originated attack ads -- remarkably in line with the aggressive personal slash-and-burn "f-bomb" style of Ohio Democratic Party chief Chris Redfern -- is that Summit County voters were already familiar with Slaby. It was common to hear voters both Democrat and Republican observe that the Summit County Prosecutor and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had little to do with NAFTA when it was passed seventeen years ago.

This would have been the time for an adult to step up and remind the out-of-town creative advertising geniuses that voters really aren't that dumb, and they were going after someone people had voted for before, not a blank slate where "defining your opponent" would work.

Do negative attack ads work? Sometimes. Governor Strickland, handicapped by the worst economy in generations, had little choice but to present Congressman Kasich as a Wall Street insider. Where that strategy went astray is when Kasich re-defined the definition by pointing out the Lehman office wasn't on Wall Street but Columbus -- and then hammered his positive "morning in Ohio" message while standing at a crossroads.

Josh Mandel correctly earned the scorn heaped upon him for the despicable ads against Kevin Boyce in the campaign for State Treasurer, misleading voters to think Boyce was Muslim. The outrage -- across the board, mind you -- put Mandel on the defensive personally but he coasted in the election. Did he need to stoop so low to win against such an underfunded competitor? I worry that Mandel -- who led the statewide executive offices with the more than two million votes and the widest margin of victory -- won't heed the danger of just how much he hurt himself in the eyes of people who expected better. The electorate has a long memory when it comes to judging personal character, and in Mandel's case he's already disappointed and demeaned himself in a cakewalk. What would he be like when the contest is truly competitive? Mandel won, but at a cost of defining himself as a candidate who couldn't control his own message at a time when he didn't need to muddy himself or his opponent.

Here's the take Mandel had on the ad in October:



Look to the U.S. Senate contest. Rob Portman didn't need to attack Lee Fisher on a personal level, and set a higher standard in his advertising. Highlight Ohio's job creation record under Fisher was fair game because it reflected on policy and the record. Fisher himself, far behind with nothing to lose by going extreme negative, instead took a higher role even in defeat by staying on issue, tying Portman to trade policies that two years ago would have worked. But he remained on message and even employed humor in the closing days. Lee Fisher may have lost the race, but at least he could look at himself in the mirror the next morning with honor intact.

Would the three Akron issues that lost -- 11, 16 and 17 -- have had a better chance if supporters, funded mostly by Akron's corporations, concentrated not on getting even with opponents but presenting their reasoning to reasonable people? Or has the political discourse sunk to the level where only personal attacks and vituperative rhetoric cuts through the clutter of the voter's mindset to set the issue?

According to their campaign finance filing, Citizens for Akron spent money that came largely from Akron's corporate interests -- led by FirstEnergy, GOJO, Goodyear, Roetzel and Andress, Brouse McDowell, Thomarios -- amassing $86,000 to get that message across. There's an irony that increasing campaign spending limits was helped largely by a campaign funded almost exclusively by corporate campaign contributions.

I can't imagine any of those companies using a similar strategy marketing a new product or service to their customers. In the realm of community service and public debate, however, they willingly underwrote the smear strategy targeting the usual group of critics. Think this type of campaign is employed by these companies when their own names are on the ad?

The Beacon Journal was right, in it's "Covered In Mud" editorial of November 1, to point out:

"It is most disappointing, then, that Citizens for Akron, a group promoting the amendments, has chosen the very low road of personal attacks. In a mailing, ''Busted,'' it dishes dirt on a group of opponents dubbed a ''gang of scoundrels.''

In a political season that has produced its share of tripe and worse, ''Busted'' ranks among the lowest. It is classless. It is cheap. It is irrelevant to the pros and cons of the issues at stake. It does not advance the worthy cause it seeks to promote.

We in the media need to do a better job of holding the political ad fraternity to task for these ads. Voters need to do a better job of holding the candidates and political parties -- and yes, the companies and individuals who write the checks used to slime somebody accountable for smear strategies.