Strickland, Kasich, and LeBron James

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


You probably haven’t heard, but NBA star LeBron James is leaving Cleveland to join the Miami Heat. What impact will “King James'” decision have on the Ohio gubernatorial race? More than you might think. As part of an ongoing effort to paint his opponent as “out-of-touch” with Ohio, allies of Dem Gov. Ted Strickland (one of the stars of the already-embarassing video above) have been pushing a video of Republican nominee John Kasich saying “the last guy” he “worries about is LeBron James.” This is actually a bit misleading. Here’s some more context (via the National Review‘s Jim Geraghty) from Kasich’s interview with Alan Colmes:

“Alan, we’ve lost 400,000 jobs out here and the last guy I worry about is LeBron James. You know I mean, we all hope he’ll stay in Cleveland. We think we’ve got a great guy there that can turn everything around, but we got some serious problems,” Kasich said.

Kasich, flashing a bit of sports knowledge, did sympathize with Cleveland fans who are still waiting for a championship from the Cavs, Browns or Indians.

“It’d have been so great for the Cavs to be playing because Cleveland has struggled with its sports teams and we need a little, we need a little victory so we might need to steal some players out of New York to help us out,” Kasich told Colmes.

Now that James has left Cleveland in the worst possible way, Kasich’s mixed feelings about his departure could actually play well. Does anyone in Ohio feel good about LeBron James today? There’s little doubt that the Strickland campaign will keep trying to make the election about Kasich—with his Lehman Brothers past, the Republican is just too juicy of a target. The huge amounts of money that will be poured into this race—perhaps north of $20 million by the time it’s over—will almost ensure that it gets nasty. Not every voter is going to like that. If Strickland can’t make Kasich radioactive, he has to at least do some damage. I’m not sure the LeBron angle is going to do the trick.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate