Ohio: Ohio Republican Party

Taylor made her announcement at the Statehouse a week after informing the Ohio Republican Party central committee that she would not run for the U.S. Senate against former U.S. Rep. Rob Portman of Cincinnati in next May's GOP primary election.

"I want to continue the progress we've made helping to provide Ohio taxpayers with a more accountable and affordable government," Taylor said at a press conference.

Taylor said she "seriously considered" a Senate bid and denied receiving any pressure from the state GOP to run for re-election. Her decision, she said, was based on "where do I fit in to be of the best service" to Ohioans.

The auditor is one of five members of the State Apportionment Board, which will reconfigure Ohio's 99 House and 33 Senate districts for the next decade after the 2010 census.

Gov. Ted Strickland came here Wednesday, his 11th school visit in two weeks, taking his landmark school-reform and funding plan directly to the people and away from the Statehouse's politically charged anterooms.

"It's not that everybody agrees with me when I come to these schools; quite the contrary," Strickland said in an interview after addressing an assembly in the lone school building of the 1,250-student Adena district in Ross County.

"But there's a different attitude about it. Everything in Columbus, Ohio, is politicized."

After two years of smooth sailing, a disastrous economy has put a strain on state finances and Strickland himself. As the governor travels about seeking support for his plan to transform Ohio's education system, Republicans and independent observers say Strickland is risking his credibility by not being forthright about a state budget that they equate to a house of cards, ready to collapse in little more than two years.

Here's the position the Ohio GOP and their Attorney General Michael Crites took when talking about the ODJFS Helen Jones-Kelly/"Joe the Plumber" fiasco:

“Public resources should never be used for partisan political activity by any office."

That's a direct quote the Ohio Republican Party promoted in agreement from Michael Crites in regards to the improper snooping and use of government e-mail for fundraising by the former Director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Funny.  The ORP was quick with the press releases then.  But when it comes to one of their gubernatorial candidates?  Nothin' but crickets.

In listening to the Governor's education proposal's in Tuesday's State of the State address, and as the Columbus Dispatch (R-Columbus) put it, the "usual dissension", I think it's time for us to focus on the larger rhetorical issue raised in Strickland's address. Over two hundred years ago, a bunch of privileged, white-wigged gentlemen, crammed into a stuffy, hotter than hell hall in Phillidelphia decided to pledge their fortunes, lives, and sacred honor in the name of liberty and in defiance of the established order.  Not even the British loyalists at the time used budgetary projections as an argument for the status quo.

Two brothers in Dayton, Ohio decided to put their bicycle business on the backburner on the naive and overly optimistic idea that they had the ability to design the first manned powered flying machine in human history.