No longer supporting abortion? Debs made an agitation appearance in Ohio.
Republicans who put into place “the most radical, extreme anti-women agenda in the history of the state” are going to face a backlash in the November election, predicted the Democratic candidate for governor, Ed FitzGerald.
“We’ve never gone to the extremes with what we’ve seen in the state in the past few years,” the Cuyahoga County executive said yesterday during a women’s roundtable discussion at Ohio Democratic Party headquarters. He said 2010 voters had no idea what would happen when they elected Gov. John Kasich and other Republicans.
“This is not what the voters thought they were signing up for,’’ agreed U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “This state needs a shower, and our candidates are that shower. … We need to make sure that voters can have confidence in who’s governing again.”
But later, even though she called Ohio’s statewide races “incredibly important,” she would not respond to questions about how much help the national party will provide to FitzGerald.
Instead, she chided Ohio Republicans for in effect defunding Planned Parenthood of state money, forbidding state-funded rape-crisis counselors from advising clients to get an abortion, and being “totally ignorant and insensitive and callous and indifferent” toward women’s economic opportunities.
Chris Schrimpf, spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, responded, “One of the most important ways to improve the lives of women and all Ohioans is to create a stronger, more prosperous Ohio. Since Republicans took office over 250,000 jobs have been created improving the lives of thousands of Ohio families. Republicans were also the first to put dedicated state funding toward rape-crisis centers, and under Gov. Kasich 130,000 women have gained access to health care, cancer screenings and prenatal care.”
Meanwhile, Republicans crowed about another FitzGerald stumble with a key appointment.
“Ed FitzGerald continues to prove to Ohioans how unprepared and unfit he is to be governor. He has routinely mismanaged Cuyahoga County and continues to ignore serious ethical issues within his administration,” said Connie Wehrkamp, spokeswoman for the Kasich campaign.
FitzGerald nominated acting county Treasurer Jeannet Wright for the permanent post, but withdrew the nomination after news broke that Wright had failed to disclose income she earned from rental properties in Cleveland. The move drew comparisons with his selection of initial running mate Eric Kearney, a Cincinnati state senator forced to drop out because of hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes and debts.