A new attack ad by a super PAC created exclusively to support Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman’s re-election is playing on television in Toledo this week and around the state, attacking Democrat former Gov. Ted Strickland over the same issues that dominated his unsuccessful 2010 re-election effort, along with some fresh video.
The super PAC Fighting for Ohio contracted for $1.5 million in TV advertising around Ohio with a 30-second spot it calls “Spotty” through Thursday, according to its announcement.
The ad shows a video clip in which Mr. Strickland refers to his own record as “spotty.” It says Ohio lost 350,000 jobs and had more than $800 million in tax increases during his tenure as governor. Mr. Strickland’s 2007-2010 term coincided with a national recession in which an estimated 8 million jobs were lost and the state budget faced an $8 billion budget hole in his final year in office.
He was defeated by Republican John Kasich in 2010 in a campaign in which the same claims of job loss and tax increases were used.
Mr. Strickland said in a February meeting with the Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial board that “my record is mixed and spotty and I can be criticized for that.” The ad does not explain the context of the quote. Mr. Strickland was describing his position on gun control.
The outside ad drew criticism from the Strickland campaign.
“There is no amount of shadowy, special interest Super PAC money or false attacks that can distract Ohioans from Senator Portman’s record as the ultimate Washington insider, his decades-long support for unfair trade deals that have shipped hundreds of thousands of jobs to places like China — or Portman’s refusal to do his job and consider the Supreme Court nominee,” said Strickland spokesman David Bergstein.
”This false attack is just the latest evidence that Portman and his team are panicking over the prospect of running with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket,” he said.
A Fighting for Ohio announcement of the ad buy says its claims are supported by labor statistics and media coverage and analysis.
Whether Mr. Strickland “increased taxes” by $800 million is debatable. Mr. Strickland and the General Assembly in 2009 delayed the final year of a five-year, 21-percent across-the-board income tax cut. The move saved the state approximately $800 million. The tax cut of about 4.2 percent went into effect two years later.
Fighting for Ohio is a Super PAC, which is allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate — in this case, Mr. Portman — as long as it doesn’t coordinate with the candidate.
The nonprofit website www.opensecrets.org lists 54 contributors that gave a total of $3,091,000 to the organization. The biggest contributor is FreedomVote Inc. based in Dayton, which gave $500,000.
Fighting for Ohio has reserved $25,054 worth of time on WTOL-TV, Channel 11, starting last Friday and continuing through Thursday.
Contact Tom Troy: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058 or on Twitter @TomFTroy.
First Published May 10, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
