Columbus Dispatch
Friday, July 18, 2003
DARREL ROWLAND

This ought to sound a wee bit familiar to anyone who has followed Ohio politics over the past year.

The incumbent governor acknowledges that the state faces severe financial problems but refuses to offer even an estimate of the coming shortfall.

A couple of months before November’s general election, his challenger tosses out a projected deficit that the governor ridicules. Despite criticism that the incumbent is covering up the extent of the state’s budget woes for political reasons, he wins reelection.

Months later, however, the challenger is vindicated when his seemingly radical deficit projection turns out to be on the conservative side. The governor’s approval rating sinks toward a historic low.

And now, more than 1.6 million people — nearly double the total necessary — have signed a petition calling for a recall election.

What, you thought I was still talking about Ohio?

Sorry. I’ve been on vacation, and a couple of weeks reading news accounts in sunny California.

Aside from the substantial difference in the scale of the fiscal problem, the self-inflicted woes faced by California’s Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, and Ohio’s Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican, are remarkably similar.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

July 18, 2003
Akron Beacon-Journal

Plan B?

For so many years, we law-abiding gun lovers have begged Gov. Taft for clemency. Maybe condemned killer Richard Wade Cooey should get his lawyers to petition the commander of the Ohio Highway Patrol for it.

Homer M. Long
Barberton