Commentary: GOP in danger of misreading November mandate

(Dayton Daily News)

By Jack Torry, Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — When he campaigned for governor last year, Republican John Kasich said he would take another look at Ohio law that grants collective bargaining rights to public employees. But he did not favor anti-union, right-to-work laws.

During the congressional campaign last year, Republican John Boehner of West Chester Twp. said that if the GOP took the House and he became speaker, he would make every effort to reduce federal spending. He did not, however, suggest he would close the federal government.

Both Ohio Republicans, however, are running the risk of misreading the mandate of the 2010 election, much like the Democrats had trouble figuring out what the voters were saying in 2008 when they won the presidency and retained control of the U.S. House and Senate.

“There was a misreading of the results two years ago and an even bigger one (last year), particularly in the case of Governor Kasich,’’ said Greg Haas, a Democratic consultant in Columbus. “The governor has been talking about running over people with a bus. He won by a point and he’s acting like he won by 20.’’

John Green, director of the Ray Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, said “there is a danger that the Republicans will make the same mistake that the Democrats made and overstate their sense of what the public wants.’’

It wasn’t all that difficult to figure out the message of the 2008 election. Voters were sick of President George W. Bush and the Republicans, sick of the war in Iraq, and scared by the collapse on Wall Street. They wanted a big change. To win, a candidate only needed to say, “Hey, I’m a Democrat.’’

But President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saw the results as a permission slip to launch a new Great Society. Largely on party lines, they pushed through Congress a $787 billion economic stimulus package and an overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

Voters were not thrilled. And last November, they responded by taking control of the House and handing it to Boehner and the Republicans.

Now Kasich and Boehner are running the same risks.

Kasich is backing a bill that would sharply restrict collective bargaining for public employees. State unions could only bargain for wages and would be prohibited from striking.

Boehner has been in the middle of a showdown with Obama and congressional Democrats on cutting federal spending. Although a compromise may avoid a shutdown as early as Friday, the issue will come to a head again in mid-March.

Kasich, who has never been known for being shy and retiring, seems to be approaching his fight with gusto. By contrast, Boehner — while a conservative — also is a deal-maker. He was in the House Republican leadership in 1995 when the government last shut down, a move that helped re-elect President Clinton.

“I think if Boehner had his druthers, he’d figure out a way to work it out, get into a negotiation and pull back from the cliff,’’ said one Democratic lobbyist in Washington. “But I honestly think, through no fault of his own, that he doesn’t have control over his caucus to sell that as a strategy.’’