Maybe I missed the interviews, but, on key issue after key issue, Ohio’s statewide leaders, especially Governor Mike DeWine and Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, have become men without voices. They’ve spent decades accumulating political power and higher and higher office only to lose their voices when Ohioans need them most. Like Barack Obama, they lamely “lead from behind,” which is to say they don’t lead at all.
After all, where have their voices been on
enacting universal school choice,
keeping woke ideology out of the classroom,
protecting girls in the bathroom and on the sports pitch,
stopping doctors from mutilating children and injecting them with chemicals to alter their God-given bodies,
eliminating Ohio’s state income tax,
making Ohio a right-to-work state,
reforming Ohio’s political system to bring pay-for-performance to them and the legislature and to replace term limits the Establishment figured out how to evade with a 20-year unbreakable time limit,
freezing state spending and repealing John Kasich’s budget-busting Medicaid expansion, or
ending the utterly useless JobsOhio boondoogle and directing its funds to build a world-class airport so Ohio’s business and citizens don’t have to fly somewhere to get somewhere and so Ohio becomes far more attractive to non-Ohio businesses.
I could list dozens of more issues where they’ve been AWOL. It is almost as if the only word they are capable of uttering is “Intel.” They sound like Jan Brady with her “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” lament.
“Intel. Intel. Intel.” Intel—a company of yesterday in deep crisis that is bleeding cash and market share each passing month. A project that eventually may benefit Central Ohio, but one that is draining resources (people, material, labor, and funding) from around the state today, thereby preventing important work from getting done in other counties. Counties, I may add, that continue to hollow out as the Greater Cincinnati and Columbus areas get disproportionate shares of taxes, economic development attention, resources, and government employment. To those counties, Intel is little more than another punch to the stomach.
As President Donald Trump showed us in Washington and Governor Ron DeSantis has shown us in Florida, it is imperative to use your voice to do good when the opportunity presents itself. With a supermajority Republican legislature and conservative majority on the Ohio Supreme Court, there has never been a better time to get the bold color ideas done for Ohioans. Yet, all we get are more pale pastels—a little more school choice here and a little lower state taxes there. What is the point of political power if you remain silent and fail to use it to do good?
Speaking of losing their voices. Check out this video of Husted being asked to justify his $22,000 private sector bank job WHILE HE IS ALSO GETTING $184,000 from taxpayers as Lieutenant Governor. Husted doesn’t think he owes Ohioans struggling to make ends meet an explanation on why he should be able to work a private sector job while “serving Ohioans.” As I’ve noted before, we need leaders who ask “should I do X” not “can I get away with doing X.” When I’m governor, we will close the “Husted Loophole” no one thought needed to be closed because no one thought a governor or lieutenant governor would be greedy enough to add a private sector job while already having a full-time job as governor or lieutenant governor.
Let me assure you. When I am governor, I will use every fiber of my being, including my voice, to do exactly as President Ronald Reagan urged us to do by painting with bold colors, no pale pastels. Hopefully, you’ll get sick of hearing my voice, as I will use it on all of the issues listed above and more.
In case you missed it, you can listen to my weekly visit with Bruce Hooley on The Answer where we talked about men without voices, why House Republicans should suspend the lying Jamie Raskin, and more. Bruce asked me to return to his show on Friday to talk about the indictment of Donald Trump.
For those in or near Licking County, I’ll be speaking at the Trout Club on Thursday night at 6:30pm, so stop by to hear the case I make for my bold colors leadership. See the pictures below for other speeches around Ohio from now until October. If you are part of a group and want me to come speak in your county, please email Lizzie at MAYER4GOVERNORADMIN@proton.me to get it booked. We are aiming to hit all 88 counties by next July.
Men Without Voices