Strange to see Strickland's approvals slide by these margins in just a month. It's not like the economy wasn't bad before as well ... Or did he do something unpopular I´m not aware of ?
First biannual budget was passed by acclimation--almost unheard of. Due to the economy this year's is turning VERY ugly. Strickland came outwith a budget promising a nearly 50% cut in state library funding.
The budget battle is probably the biggest issue right now and its looking bad. Strickland also did a complete 180 on gambling. He ran on a position of being against all forms of gambling but since being elected he's expanded the state lottery to include keno and now he wants to authorize slot machines at race tracks in order to raise nearly $1 billion to prevent more budget cuts.
The Republicans really aren't helping themselves either though. They control the state Senate and they're being obstructionist without offering any sort of compromise or alternatives. They just keep balking at everything the Dems propose but they never offer any of their own ideas. Its all childish bullsh**t.
Sadly, I'm not sure most voters will hold individual GOP state senators as accountable for the senate's intransigence and lack of an alternative as they will take Strickland to task for "lack of leadership" (i.e. making the state's massive budget woes disappear without painful cuts in services or increased taxes). It's notable how silent John Kasich is being. He's probably praying that no one in the media will press him on his own proposal for the budget so he can criticize Strickland endlessly next year for the inevitable hard decisions coming, and blithely claim he would've somehow done it better ("cutting wasteful spending, etc.).
I used to think my state rep was
the stupidest man in Ohio for proposing elimination of the state income tax, the source of about half of government revenue, without proposing replacement source of revenue on the quaint theory that resulting economic growth will replace about 50% of the state treasury.
Apparently I was wrong; my state rep has at least one competitor in the pinhead competition....
http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2009/07/02/news/local/doc4a4a665bed3e7687599032.txtAnd eliminating the state inheritance tax too. Nice. Somebody peel this guy off the billionaire's jocks, please.