Ted Strickland’s Lesson in Political Double-Speak

On the heels of his Howard Deanesque rant and after he stood by the rant, Ted Strickland is now offering voters a lesson in political double-speak. 

First, Strickland’s campaign issued a demand that Ohio television stations stop airing RGA’s ad that points out that last year Strickland signed into law a more than 800 million dollar tax increase, a fact that has been widely reported.  According to Strickland’s letter, “there was not any 800 million dollar tax increase.”  Strickland’s logic is that a tax increase is not a tax increase if it just eliminates previously enacted income tax cuts for Ohioans.

Then,  meeting with the Columbus Dispatch’s editorial board, when the paper asked if Strickland was going to raise taxes to balance Ohio’s budget next year, Strickland gave the same wink-and-nod response he’s given in the past, “I’ll do whatever it takes and you can interpret that however you want to interpret that, my friends. I’m not giving anybody in this room a sound bite.”

Ted Strickland’s affection for tax increases is well known.  He previously voted for the 1993 Clinton tax increase, the largest in American history.  Then, in 1994, Strickland said that taxes might need to be raised even higher.  That comment has widely been blamed for his defeat in that year’s congressional race.

 “Strickland appears to be a man afraid of his own shadow,” said RGA spokesman Chris Schrimpf.   “He said he didn’t raise taxes, when he did.  Now he says he’s going to balance the budget by raising taxes, without saying he’s going to raise taxes.  Strickland flatly ruled out reducing spending, leaving only one interpretation of what ‘whatever it takes’ means; it means tax hikes.”