This is pretty big news on the national level, as many GP governors have resisted the Medicaid funds. John Kasich will be running for re-election soon, so it’s not too surprising that he went in this direction.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced Monday that he will accept the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, becoming the fifth Republican governor to embrace the provision of the health care reform law that the Supreme Court made optional.

The governor unveiled the decision as part of his budget proposal.

“We are going to extend Medicaid for the working poor and for those who are jobless trying to find work,” Kasich said at a press conference in Columbus. “It makes great sense for the state of Ohio because it will allow us to provide greater care with our own dollars.”

This makes sense, and only those politicians who are obsessed with partisan politics are resisting these dollars.

The voters of Ohio soundly defeated Issue 2, thus repealing SB-5, the union-busting bill pushed by Governor Kasich.

Here is Kasich’s reaction, and you can see that he has been repudiated and perhaps humbled a bit by this smack-down. Kasich has been known for his arrogance and his combative style, so this is a real departure for him.

Kasich’s overreach gets put to the test in tomorrow’s election.

A new survey from Public Policy Polling (D) shows Ohio Democrats and public employee unions likely to win a big victory on Tuesday in the referendum on Republican Gov. John Kasich’s anti-public union bill, SB-5.

The poll shows only 36% of Ohioans will vote to support the law, while a decisive 59% oppose the bill and will vote to repeal it.

Kasich’s own approval mirrors those numbers, with only 33% approval and 57% disapproval. Kasich was elected in the 2010 Republican wave, defeating incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland by a 49%-47% margin. However, when asked if they could vote again, the respondents in this poll chose Strickland by a 55%-37% margin.

Let’s see exactly what happens tomorrow.

In pitching for his Issue 2 (SB5), Governor John Kasich made this blunder:

“We never thought (former Cleveland Browns quarterback) Bernie Kosar would bring the Browns back and win that big championship game,” Kasich said.

Kasich, a Steelers fan who grew up in suburban Pittsburgh, apparently didn’t know that Kosar never won a championship game with the Browns, going 0-3 in AFC title tilts with trips to the Super Bowl on the line.

No wonder this guy is such a terrible governor. How could we elect a Steelers fan?

John Kasich talks about his experiences in Ohio and his days in the House of Representatives. Of course Joe Scarborough loves having him on there.

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The polling has been great for Sherrod Brown for 2012.

Back in December of last year, shortly after Ohio was pretty much ground zero for the Democratic wipeout in the 2010 midterm, Sherrod Brown was looking like he was in dire shape, polling in the low 40s. A funny thing happened since then, though: people got to see what it’s like again to have Republicans in charge (in Ohio’s case, with John Kasich in charge as governor, who at this point would lose to Ted Strickland by 25 points in a PPP hypothetical-rematch poll). The overall shift in the direction of the political winds — particularly pronounced in Ohio — has taken what initially looked like a Tossup, given a decent GOP challenger, and it turned it into what’s looking like a snooze instead, with Brown racking up leads in the vicinity of 20 and hovering around the magic ’50′ mark.

Kasich is a complete disaster for the GOP in Ohio. President Obama should be feeling better as well.

When the GOP swept into power in states like Ohio and Wisconsin, many pundits speculated that this would be terrible news for President Obama and Democrats in 2012. Yet they didn’t take into account some of the radical changes and cuts that would be passed by these governors, and now we’re seeing that Governors like John Kasich might be the best asset for Obama and the Democrats next year if these poll numbers hold up..

In Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich’s approval rating stood at just 30 percent last week, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. Earlier in the month — even before Kasich detailed a budget featuring cuts to Medicaid, local governments and more — the University of Cincinnati had that number at 40 percent. Both surveys showed nearly half of voters disapproved of Kasich.

Kasich has plenty of problems. First, he’s very abrasive. Then, he declared war on the unions in Ohio, including the police and firefighters unions that traditionally support Republicans. Now he’s paying the price.

So much for jobs and the economy. The GOP in Ohio is now pushing the far right social agenda with some pretty extreme proposals on abortion, such as the heartbeat bill.

Will the Ohio electorate like this? My guess is that the GOP is in for a rude awakening . . . again, as they embrace the Ken Blackwell agenda that was so thoroughly rejected four years ago. Meanwhile, John Kasich keeps acting like he’s the new king of Ohio.

It might turn out that the GOP win in Ohio in 2010 might actually help Obama and the Democrats in 2012 as people turn away from these new leaders.

I wonder if Governor Kasich’s decision to kill the high-speed rail project in Ohio will come back to haunt him. Many people who voted for him were surprised when he killed the project, which would be great for Ohio’s transportation infrastructure, Ohio jobs and Ohio technology.

Regardless of your views of John Kasich’s politics, so far he’s gotten off to a rocky start with his arrogant and obnoxious attitude. He’s been a gaffe machine, and Steven Colbert decided to have a field day with him and his all-white cabinet.