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Portman backs budget deal

stacking coins

Rob Portman is starting to re-establish his moderate credentials. Or at least his reputation for some sanity.

The bi-partisan budget compromise struck by Paul Ryan and Patty Murray

Portman has decided to support the budget. With that he’s clearly aligning himself with the establishment Republicans against the Tea Party groups who want all-out war with the Obama administration. This GOP rift is going to play out in 2014, and hopefully more Senators and Congressmen will be with Portman and Speaker Boaehner. Of course, Boaehner has talked tough before only to succumb to the Tea Party crazies, but hopefully this time he’s serious.

Ohio Tea Party upset with Ohio Republicans

Disputes between lawmakers and Tea Party zealots is leading to a potential split within the Ohio GOP. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as these types of fights are going on all over the country between true believers and more pragmatic Republicans who would like to win another presidential election some day, but recent events have made the battle particularly intense here in Ohio.

But as Republicans look to take back the White House in 2016, the Buckeye State does not appear to be cooperating. Instead, Republicans in Ohio have slipped into an all out civil war, with a Tea Party faction threatening to break away from the GOP machinery.

Their complaints? A Republican senator, Rob Portman, after campaigning last year on his support for marriage being defined as between a man and a woman, abruptly reversed course once his son came out as gay. A Republican governor, John Kasich, pushed to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, despite remaining a vocal supporter of repealing the entire bill. An executive director of the Ohio Republican Party, elected after a bitter intraparty dispute, once worked as a lobbyist for Equality Ohio, a gay-rights group formed after the state voted to outlaw same-sex marriage. And never mind that House Speaker John Boehner, long a scourge of Tea Party types, is also an Ohioan, representing a southwest slice of the state.

It remains to be seen just how far the Tea Party types will go and whether this can hurt Kasich in 2014, but the signs right now point to some serious trouble.

Still, the GOP needs to wake up and start catering to the majority rather than the lunatic fringe, so this is a battle that needs to be fought.

Kasich accepts Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion

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.

Ohio casino revenue not measuring up

Many of us supported the casinos in Ohio, but it’s important to acknowledge that all of the revenue projections used to sell the casino measure to Ohio voters are not being met. Basically, around $1.9 billion per year was projected, while the governor’s new budget has revenues at just around $1.0 billion.

One factor is that the Cleveland casino, which is doing very well, was projected to be much bigger. There will be a phase II, however, so that could definitely help the numbers.

Does Josh Mandel have a future in Ohio politics?

Brent Larkin asks the tough questions in the wake of Josh Mandel’s loss to Sherrod Brown despite million of outside campaign money spent on his behalf.

In 40 years of paying attention to these things, I have never seen a candidate as universally vilified in the mainstream media. By constantly running afoul of campaign fact-checkers, Mandel did immeasurable harm to his image.

Mandel inability to answer simple questions was epic.

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