Today, Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich became the 16th major candidate to enter the GOP race for the 2016 Presidential nomination — for some reason.
On today’s BradCast, I’m joined by Buckeye State journalist John Michael Spinelli of Ohio’s influential progressive blog Plunderbund.com to discuss the second term Governor’s record and why he might be running.
All of that, even as Donald Trump skyrockets beyond the front of the pack (told ya so!) in the latest Washington Post/ABC News national poll of GOP voters. (Though there is a small but noteworthy caveat.)
Also, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report as the climate crisis comes home to Southern California and as 2015 is on course to be the planet’s hottest year ever recorded…
Just to clarify the Ohio passenger rail situation, What Ohioans call the “3C corridor” – Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati – has been “in the works” for nearly 40 years by state rail passenger advocates. The effort that collapsed with the election of Kasich in 2010 was the closest they had ever come to actually getting to the start of service. While former Governor Strickland was a major proponent of the service, his support was by no means the impetus for it. The members of the Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers/All Aboard Ohio have worked since the mid-1970’s for that service, and Kasich’s ripping it out from under them was devastating. In Kasich’s Dept. of Transportation, speaking of passenger rail service is as verboten as speaking of climate change is in Florida. He just absolutely hates the idea of Amtrak and passenger trains. Ohio desperately needs decent rail passenger service. All of Ohio’s Amtrak trains serve the state in the middle of the night, and Columbus is the largest city in the U. S. without any rail passenger service.