BY SANDY THEIS and MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS -- Ohio's race for governor, which had been characterized by two men staking out similar positions on similar issues, is showing signs of change.
Republican nominee Bob Taft -- touring the state in a 45-foot customized bus -- called Tuesday for creation of college tuition and job training state income tax deductions.
Anyone with a federal adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less would be eligible. Deductions would be capped at $2,500 per year for two years.
Calling Ohio's lack of skilled workers the state's "No. 1 economic development challenge," Mr. Taft said the proposal would encourage more people to upgrade their job skills.
Democratic nominee Lee Fisher -- touring the state in an RV -- said the Taft plan would put no more than $125 annually in a taxpayer's pocket.
"We ought to be talking about real change as opposed to loose change," Mr. Fisher said.
Instead, he called for college scholarships of an undetermined amount that would be tied to family income and performance on the 12th-grade proficiency tests.
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ON THE ISSUES
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Ohio's major party candidates for governor, who have staked out similar positions on some issues, differ on the following:
Abortion
Taft: He opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother's life. If the courts strike down Ohio's ban on a late-term abortion procedure critics call "partial-birth abortion," he wants the law rewritten to pass constitutional muster.
Fisher: He supports abortion rights but would not work to overturn existing restrictions. He would veto any further restrictions but would support the late-term abortion procedure ban if it includes exceptions to protect risks to the mother's life and health.
Affirmative action
Taft: Opposes any programs with race- or gender-based quotas. Wants to change a law that currently sets aside a percentage of state contracts for minorities. He would base eligibility on income.
Fisher: Supports the current set-aside law, but he wants to get rid of unspecified abuses in it.
Private prisons
Taft: Supports private prisons, but wants more state control over them.
Fisher: Opposes private prisons and will veto any attempt to create more of them. Is studying ways to have the state take over the existing one in Youngstown.
Vouchers
Taft: Supports the current experiment in Cleveland but thinks it is too early to expand it to other cities. Any expansion should be based on academic and financial criteria.
Fisher: Wants to end state funding for vouchers and phase out the existing experiment in Cleveland. |
Details haven't been worked out, but Mr. Fisher said the idea is patterned after a Georgia program.
He also called for requiring high schoolers to pass the 12th-grade test in order to obtain a diploma. Students currently must pass a test that measures eighth-grade learning in order to graduate. A recently enacted state law will move that standard up to 10th-grade learning.
To help ensure higher education is affordable, Mr. Fisher said he also would expand a program that rewards state-funded colleges that avoid tuition increases.
"A more appropriate and direct way to help families would be with this scholarship program and by reducing tuition," Mr. Fisher said. "That would mean more money in families' pockets when a child starts college, as opposed to the back end months later when they have to pay their taxes."
Earlier in the campaign season, both men endorsed a sales tax hike for schools. But voters defeated it.
Both also called for changes that would give patients more clout when dealing with health maintenance organizations, and both unveiled similar school-safety initiatives.
On Tuesday, they emphasized their differences.
The Taft campaign visited a two-year college in Columbus, talked with police at Cincinnati's Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) lodge, and toured an employment and career center in Dayton.
Campaign manager Brian Hicks said the sites were selected to emphasize Mr. Taft's focus on jobs, education and public safety. They also played to his strengths.
The FOP, Ohio's largest law enforcement union, endorsed Mr. Taft and his running mate, Summit County Prosecutor Maureen O'Connor. The endorsement was a coup for the Taft campaign, and Cincinnati FOP President Keith Fangman gave Ms. O'Connor much of the credit for the endorsement.
He said Michael Coleman, Mr. Fisher's running mate, gave the FOP's screening committee "somewhat conflicting answers" about his position on the death penalty.
"He said he spent his life opposed to it and did not support it until he came to be Lee's running mate," Mr. Fangman said. "It was very clear where Maureen O'Connor stands."
At a senior citizens center in Dayton, however, Mr. Coleman helped win over a predominantly African-American crowd by telling them of his great-grandmother who had been born into slavery.
"She barely knew how to read, barely knew how to write," Mr. Coleman said. "And now here, her great-grandchild is running for lieutenant governor of Ohio."
He and Mr. Fisher also traveled to a diner, a discount store and a family farm before ending at the Lockland High School football field.
At each stop, Mr. Fisher told anybody within earshot that he was there to answer their questions, not to make speeches. But he couldn't resist jumping in from time to time to tout his plan to reform managed health care or to take a jab at Mr. Taft.
At a diner in Grove City, a couple eating breakfast said their top concern this fall is ending split sessions in the Southwestern Local School District. To deal with crowding, the district has some kids attending in the morning while others go into the early evening.
"All these builders who are making the profits off these houses and this land should have to do something to help the schools," said Rick Hornung, whose two children attend school in the district. Siting across the booth, Mr. Fisher said the answer is to reduce the reliance on local property taxes to fund schools. He didn't tell the couple how he would accomplish that goal, but said later that increasing state funding for education would be his top priority as governor.
In addition to talk of jobs and education, Mr. Taft began to distance himself from Gov. George Voinovich -- careful not to directly criticize him. He volunteered that the Ohio Department of Insurance should have been more aggressive in its dealing with a former top appointee who has pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme involving a company regulated by the department.
He also called for changes in the way Ohio appoints its state architect. The architect -- now a political appointee -- helps select contractors for state building projects.
The administrations of Mr. Voinovich and his Democratic predecessor, Richard Celeste, were criticized for allowing politics to affect the selection process.
Mr. Taft isn't certain how it should be changed but said the goal of the change is to appoint a qualified person who would be free from political pressures.
When asked whether the system had been politicized under Mr. Voinovich, he replied "There was a lot of smoke in the newspapers." Alan Melamed, Mr. Fisher's campaign chairman, responded this way: "If there was smoke, is Mr. Taft aware if there was any fire?"
