Strickland goes negative in first campaign ad
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/05/04/art.stricklandad.gi.jpg caption="Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s new ad features Meghan Cofield, a Dayton factory worker whose job ‘got shipped to China’ thanks to trade deals like NAFTA."]
Washington (CNN) - Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, locked in a tough re-election fight against Republican John Kasich, is going negative in his first television ad of the campaign.
The tough new ad features Meghan Cofield, a Dayton factory worker whose job "got shipped to China" thanks to trade deals like NAFTA, which Kasich voted for when he served in Congress.
The ad also takes on Kasich for his ties to Lehman Brothers, the collapsed Wall Street investment firm. Kasich spent seven years in Lehman's Ohio branch.
"Congressman Kasich couldn't possibly understand what Ohioans are going through right now," Cofield narrates. "And now he wants to be Governor? Does Ohio really need a Congressman from Wall Street for Governor?"
But if the commercial is new, the ad's main character - and some of its footage - is not.
The Kasich campaign points out that Cofield, the very same Dayton factory worker, lent her services to the Service Employees International Union in 2008, when the labor group ran ads in Ohio attacking Sen. John McCain during the presidential campaign.
Both ads use the same stock video of Cofield walking forlornly alongside her shuttered brake-pad production facility.
UPDATE: The two campaigns traded words after the ad was released Tuesday. The Kasich camp called the spot a "recycled attack ad from the 2008 presidential campaign" and said Ohoians are ready for a change.
"Ted Strickland is in political jeopardy because his chronic mismanagement of state government worsened the recession’s impact on Ohio, and he thinks his only chance is to go negative to distract voters from his failures," said Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols. "How sad for Ted Strickland and how sad for Ohio."
Strickland's team, meanwhile, chided the Kasich campaign for seizing on the similarities between the ads.
"When the Kasich campaign doesn't like the message, they resort to attacking the messenger," said Strickland spokeswoman Lis Smith. "It's disgraceful that they'd stoop so low as to attack a woman who lost her job thanks to unfair trade deals like the ones Congressman Kasich supported during his time in Washington. Their silence on these trade deals is deafening."
Today's Republican Party just can't possibly govern. It is simply impossible with their current neoconservative ideology that is totally anti-government as it is like asking an atheist to lead us in prayer. It is clearly seen in who speaks for the Republican Party: Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Rielly, Michael Steele,, the crazies, the extreme, the bazaar, the BSrs. Then we also have the pretending 'puppets': like John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and so on, all eager, anxious and committed to serve the few who 'pull their strings'.
Together, with the overt and covert support of Special Interests and the powerful, influential and extremely wealthy few who they serve, they stubbornly and arrogantly focus only on benefit for those few (less than five percent) and on giving the many (more than ninety percent) just apathy, the costs and an abundance of subterfuge to manipulate public opinion and to rationalize everything. They coerce and intimidate their own to force unity and squelch individual consciences. They offer nothing, nothing constructive, no answers and no cooperation, only criticisms and obstructions as they seek to sell their con and maintain advantage. Their mentality offers no conscience and without hesitation they will say anything, do whatever and then with an in-your-face arrogance rationalize all of it while moving on to their next self-serving effort. They are formidable but unconscionable and without responsible constraint.
Their current history and the drastic costs incurred tell the story, yet they strive to return to 'more of the same', as if having had Bush-Cheney literally use their offices and America's resources in their self-serving and irresponsible pursuit of a private agenda to serve the few wasn't enough. If we sincerely don't like what happened, what we lost, being manipulated without their having any hesitation or guilt and we really want to see them change, then we have to firmly reject what they have become – 'puppets' for the very few and totally incapable of responsibly governing.
"The tough new ad features Meghan Cofield, a Dayton factory worker whose job 'got shipped to China' thanks to trade deals like NAFTA, which Kasich voted for when he served in Congress."
Huh, China in North America now? Please, I'm guessing this woman's job was getting shipped somewhere no matter what. It probably doesn't help that her and her co-workers couldn't do the job as economically efficiently as a Chinese worker. Blaming NAFTA or Kasich for this is ridiculous.
Peter Hamby, do you ever have anything negative to say about a Republican, or anything positive to say about a Democrat?
Thank the Democrats for Nafta and the wrost isn't over with yet.
Well maybe if people went out and got educations instead of working in factories, they wouldn't be in such financial messes. There are student loans people! But I guess it's easier just to blame "Wall Street" for all your problems even when you have zero common sense over you own finances.
Good show. Remind the people of Ohio who these republicans really are. People of Ohio unless you are filthy rich or a wall street fat cat, the republicans will lie to you until they get into office and then back in the pockets of these rich, wallstreet fat cats, leaving you to fend for youself. Please this country is on it's way back to a recovery thanks to the president and the democratic congress. The republicans have vote no to any legislation that would benefit the regular hard working americans.
How Green of Gov Strickland to re-use and recycle...
Welcome to politics 101. Just one thing. NAFTA was formulated by Bush, Sr and signed into law by Clinton. The Governor should know his party was just as guilty as the GOP on this. Politics 101: Blame others while doing the very same thing! It's the Americvan way!
Losing jobs to China because of unfair trade deals is not going negative, it's the truth.
Governors can't re-negotiate international trade agreements. Strickland is a demagogue.
i wonder how many jobs were created when kasich was in office and how many since strickland...
"Does Ohio really need a Congressman from Wall Street for Governor?""
What you CLEARLY don't understand, Ms Cofield, is that John Kasich isn't to blame for your plight. Look at yourself in the mirror. You union workers with your inflated salaries and inflated benefits packages are the reason you are where you are. Strickland didn't do a darn thing to help you. Why are you supporting him now?
Strickland HAS to go negative. It's all he's got. He's certainly not going to win this campaign on the issues, not after 434,000 jobs have been lost on his watch.
Sorry, Ted, your days are numbered.
Gee, wasn't it a Democrat named Bill Clinton as President that signed NAFTA Into law? Sure some Republicans came along for the ride, but so did the democrats.
John Kasich is one of the most level-headed politicians you'll ever meet! Ohio would do well to elect him Governor.
It figures the pathetic DemocRAT running the state has nothing good to say about himself or his accomplishments but instead spends money on pathetic attack ads like this. I doubt the voters in Ohio will be so stupid as to fall for this idiocy.
the republicans will not be happy until all jobs and middleclass are all gone to china
Nothing negative about the truth.
Lehman Brothers were not successful
but for 145 years. What a slap in the
face to be associated with a firm that
great. A firm that was brought down by
the mishandling of Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac by a couple of arrogant democrats.
Great ad. NAFTA endorsed by Bush, then later by Clinton was one of the main reason why America has lost so many jobs. NAFTA is a piece of garbage and needs to be repealed....along with the Bush Admin's policy of tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas.