Yesterday, Governor Kasich’s team tried to scrub a Romney sign from a campaign photo, and today, they’re back at it again with the release of their first ad – trying to rewrite history and reintroduce the incumbent Governor as leader in job growth with blue-collar roots who has the best interest of working Ohioans at heart.
Here’s just a few examples of why that’s misleading:
Advertisement: “He grew up in a hardworking, steel town on the Ohio River”
Fact Check: Kasich Has Refused to Meet With 1,000 Laid Off Steelworkers from Factory on the Ohio River: “Kasich has not met with company officials or the steelworkers who lost their jobs, despite requests from both sides and a petition with 10,000 signatures asking him to get involved.” [Dispatch, 2/16/2014 ]
Fact Check: Kasich Has Refused to Meet With 1,000 Laid Off Steelworkers from Factory on the Ohio River: “Kasich has not met with company officials or the steelworkers who lost their jobs, despite requests from both sides and a petition with 10,000 signatures asking him to get involved.” [Dispatch, 2/16/2014 ]
Advertisement: “Here, John Kasich’s father carried the mail on his back six days a week”
Fact Check: Kasich Voted to Privatize U.S. Postal Service and Lay Off Public Employees: “If Senate Bill 5 is not repealed, about 51,000 public employees across the state could lose their jobs.” [The Washington Independent, 9/28/2011] “The latest challenge to the agency’s mail monopoly came two days after Republicans, many of them eager to privatize government functions, took charge of Congress. Gene A. Del Polito, executive director of the Advertising Mail Marketing Association, said that the timing was not accidental. ‘This will probably accelerate the discussion on the future of the Postal Service, which is exactly what we intend to do,’ he said. Del Polito said Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Budget Committee, has told the mailers ‘point blank that we are going to privatize’ the Postal Service. ‘That’s on their agenda, not during their first 100 days, but they are going to do it.'” [Washington Post, 1/7/1995]
Advertisement: “His mother was the daughter of immigrants”
Fact Check: Kasich Voted Against Expanding Legal Immigration. In 1990, Kasich voted against increasing the number of immigrants allowed into the country by 235,000, including tripling the number of “employment based” visas for workers filling jobs Americans are not qualified for, increasing the number of immigrants allowed due to relatives living in the United States by nearly 100,000, and creating a special category of visas for immigrants from European and African countries from which there had been little immigration allowed. [HR 4300, Vote #406, 10/03/1990; Washington Post, 10/4/90]
Advertisement: “Here, John Kasich learned the value of a job, the dignity of work, and a passion for helping others.”
Fact Check: Kasich Cut Half a Billion From Public Education to Fund Tax Cuts for Wealthiest, Shifted Burden to Middle Class: “As a direct result of the $1.8 billion in school funding cuts approved by Gov. Kasich and the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature, local taxpayers have been asked to approve 393 school levies representing $1.34 billion in new operating money since May, 2011. Levies representing $492 million in new operating funds have passed.” [Innovation Ohio, 4/25/13]
Advertisement: “Here, he led a team that balanced the federal budget and ignited an era of job growth.”
Fact Check: John Kasich Helped Orchestrate 1995 Government Shutdown: “Although Gov. John Kasich has called for an end to the current partial shutdown of the federal government, as a senior U.S. House Republican in 1995 he supported GOP threats to close the government during a budget impasse with President Bill Clinton.”[Dispatch, 10/9/2013]
Advertisement: “Today, as John Kasich leads Ohio to a new day of job creation…”
Fact Check: Ohio Lost 4,600 Jobs in February, lead mostly by the loss of 8,100 jobs in construction. The January jobs totals were also revised downward by a 1,000. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, 3/21/2014]