Election Results

"The battle for Rohan has ended. The battle for Middle Earth is about to begin"

-Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (movie....)

With an interesting political season coming to a conclusion with the election results yesterday, I would like to recap the results and the effects they will have on Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. 

In Congress, Republicans regained control of the House while Democrats barely held onto the Senate Majority. An Ohioan (cool) Jim Boehner appears to be the heir apparent for Speaker of the House. Portman won the U.S. Senate seat from Ohio, replacing fellow Republican George Voinovich. 

These results have little effect on Ohio directly, however I predict the Republicans will continue to freeze movement in the federal government over the next two years and try to blame Obama for their own partisanship in the next Presidential campaign. 

Dennis Kucinich and Marcia Fudge withheld their positions in the House over the inner city areas of Cleveland, so we'll have the same old same old out of them. 

Most importantly towards my aims in planning and policy, John Kasich beat out Ted Strickland for Governor of Ohio. I fear removal of the performance-based education system which has caused improvements in our inner city school districts, as well as funding cutbacks in the new industry (green technologies) and secondary education funding critical to our state's future. 

I do have hope that Kasich can find a way to balance the budget, but at whose cost? I will personally give him four years to improve the quality of our state's business environment and I expect exponential job growth. If not, throw him out with the bath water in the next election. 

Our state needs economic growth and a nurturing environment, and I am hoping he can provide that. 

I have difficulty trusting his integrity and that he is not another pawn of big business and the wealthy to take advantage of our state's desperation for more jobs. 

But we'll see. 

I believe he will remove the estate tax, cut education and social service funding, and attempt to stop the 3-C "High speed" rail corridor from Cleveland to Cincinnati. He will try to lower taxes across the board but will likely only provide benefits to the rich. The business environment for finance and service sectors will get better (whatever that means) but he'll focus too much on retaining old industrial jobs (coal, car manufacturing) and remove the focus on creating to industry (linear solar and wind energy production and exportation). Education will take a hit, although charter schools will see a resurgence. I expect job growth in Columbus and Cincinnati, but another mayor who forgets about the most important region of the state (Northeast Ohio). It will be up to local leaders, just as it was with Strickland, to turn our area of the state around. Although maybe with a better business environment some of the potential prosperity will spread to us. 

At the County level, I'm extremely pleased Ed Fitzgerald won Cuyahoga County Executive. His platform aligns nearly identical to what mine would have been. He has an emphasis on Urban Renewal, encouraging investment in new green industry, county investment in lakefront development, and stopping suburbs from preying on Cleveland-located employers. He seems to understand that we will fail as a region if Cleveland dies. 

Let's pray that Fitzgerald accomplishes his aims and Kasich causes more good than harm for all people. We don't need a greater mess. We need to clean government up and re-prioritize.