Eagle-Gazette - Kasich Rallies County Republicans Weeks Before Vote

News Article

By Carl Burnett Jr.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich stopped by Fairfield County Republican Headquarters on Tuesday afternoon to encourage county Republicans to get out the vote and support the Republican ticket.

"Listen, I know we are doing pretty good right now," Kasich said. "But I remember what Woody Hayes used to say when the team was up. He used to tell the team to go out and get a couple more touchdowns. That's what we need to do. Pick up a campaign sign and put a bumper sticker on your car. We in this state need to send a message to the nation that it can work."

Fairfield County Republican Executive Chairman Jeff Fix said having the governor in town was a boost to the local party and the get-out-the-vote effort.

"Whenever you have someone here from one of the state's major offices, it helps energize your base," Fix said.

During his address to the overflow meeting room crowd, Kasich said his administration was able to increase employment, take a deficit to a $1.5 billion surplus and give $1.6 billion more to the schools across the state.

He said his goals were to bring vocational education back to the seventh-grade classrooms, deal with the drug addiction problem in the state, lower taxes and increase job opportunities.

The state needs to work on drug prevention before people are on drugs and on better ways to get them off if they are addicted, he said.

He also said the state needed to do more in dealing with mental health problems, saying there are people in jails in Fairfield County and across the state that have mental health problems and should be treated by other means.

Local funeral director Frank Smith mentioned he had a problem with Ohio's Department of Health and getting proper documentation to help grieving families, saying it sometimes took two hours online to get through.

Kasich, acknowledging he wasn't aware of the problem, asked if Smith was available the next day to sit down with the director of the Ohio Department of Health to see whether something could be done about it.

Kasich said he had no plans to send any of the state's surplus back to counties, cities and townships via a return of local government funding unless they are unable to pay for needed services by themselves.

"That's for emergencies. This county has a 15 percent surplus, and that's better than the state," Kasich said.

He also said 85 percent of what the state collects goes back to local governments.

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