Strickland Wall St. ties assailed

COLUMBUS - Ohio Republicans yesterday accused Gov. Ted Strickland of hypocrisy for criticizing Wall Street in his re-election battle against John Kasich while accepting millions in campaign contributions from the financial-services industry.

"Here's a guy who bashes an entire industry and takes their campaign cash without any sort of regard to the fact that the reality and his rhetoric just simply don't match up,'' said state party Chairman Kevin DeWine.

The party cast a wide net in pointing to nearly $1.5 million in contributions that the Democratic governor's campaign committee has accepted since 2005 from banks, mortgage brokers, insurance companies, financial advisors, and related businesses and individuals on Wall Street, in Ohio, or elsewhere.

Mr. Kasich, a former Columbus-area congressman, was a regional manager for Lehman Brothers from 2001 through its collapse in September, 2008, under the weight of toxic mortgage-security investments.

At every opportunity, Mr. Strickland has tried to keep his Republican opponent tethered to the Wall Street crisis, blaming it for the national recession and Ohio's struggling economy.

As a result, Mr. Kasich recently used the first TV ad directly financed by his campaign to downplay his role in Lehman decisions.

"Only one candidate in this race made millions of dollars on Wall Street, lied about his role there, and helped pitch doomed Lehman Brothers investments to Ohio pensions, and it is not Ted Strickland,'' said Strickland campaign manager Aaron Pickrell.

"Like Ohio retirees who lost their life savings and Ohio workers who lost their jobs due to Lehman's collapse, the state of Ohio was a victim of the deceptive practices of Lehman.''

Mr. Strickland's campaign is expected to get a financial boost from President Obama on Aug. 18 when he visits Columbus for a public speech and then participates in a fund-raiser for the governor and the Ohio Democratic Party.

The GOP specifically criticized the governor for accepting $25,000 from two great-grandsons of a Lehman founder who were not actively involved in the company and for accepting a $10,000 check from New Jersey governor and former Goldman Sachs executive Jon Corzine.

"If the governor really feels that way about the financial services industry, as important as it is in this state and as many jobs as it provides, then he should not be gathering up funds from those folks as he has been doing in the millions of dollars … '' said House Minority Leader Bill Batchelder (R., Medina).

"In this business, you either have a consistent view of what you believe or else you're a hypocrite,'' he said.

The party said the state has done $6 billion in business with Lehman and its successor since Mr. Strickland took office.

Included in that is the $5.5 billion securitization of the state's settlement with major tobacco companies in 2007 to directly finance school construction and, through interest savings, indirectly underwrite a property tax cut for senior citizen homeowners.

Lehman was one of about two dozen firms involved in that bond sale.

Contact Jim Provance at:

jprovance@theblade.com,

or 614-221-0496.