There's no love lost between Jim Petro and Ken Blackwell...
Blackwell's blast at Petro suggests rough campaign
Rivals' breakfast meeting fails to tone down rhetoric along GOP campaign trail
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Mark Niquette
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
With today's filing deadline for statewide offices looming, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell launched a new attack yesterday on Republican rival Jim Petro in a potential preview of the type of gubernatorial campaign that lies ahead.
Blackwell accused Petro, the attorney general, of a pattern of being "asleep at the switch" during financial scandals and of using special-counsel lawyers as "an ATM for campaign funds."
"Jim Petro can't call himself the state's most competent administrator with a public record like this," Blackwell said after a speech Downtown to the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.
It gets better...
[Blackwell] noted Petro was a Cuyahoga County commissioner during an investment scandal in the 1990s and has been attorney general during recent scandals involving the state pension systems and investments at the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.
Blackwell also accused Petro of escalating the awarding of special-counsel contracts to outside lawyers in exchange for campaign contributions.
"The fact of the matter is that he created a system that was more expensive to taxpayers, then he also in the process created a pay-to-play scheme that was his own personal ATM," Blackwell said.
Two special-counsel lawyers in Summit County have said they were contacted by the FBI about their allegations that Petro threatened to cut off contracts if they didn't support him.
Petro denies those allegations and attributes them to his feud with Alex Arshinkoff, chairman of the Summit County Republican Party.
According to The Other Paper (free alternative weekly), Arshinkoff and Petro despise each other more than they despise Democrats.
In recent years, Arshinkoff has been driven by his goal of seeing his favored candidate win the 2006 governor's race. That candidate is Anyone But Jim Petro.
Joe Deters, the former state treasurer, was Arshinkoff's first horse, back in 2001. After Deters decided against challenging Petro for Ohio attorney general--eventually leaving state office under a cloud of scandal--Arshinkoff backed Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery for governor. The moment Montgomery quit the governor's race, Arshinkoff threw his support to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
Folks say Arshinkoff has never much cared for Blackwell. But he really hates Petro.
While intra-party spats are common, it is unusual for a county party chairman to be in such open conflict with a fellow Republican who could be the party's standard-bearer this fall.
It is no coincidence that Akron attorney Jack Morrison, who made a damaging allegation against Petro to The Plain Dealer last month, happens to be Arshinkoff's personal lawyer.
Morrison said to the Cleveland daily that Petro, after getting elected AG in 2002, said to Morrison he would lose state work because he hadn't contributed to his campaign. The FBI is now looking into the allegation, according to newspaper reports this week.
Morrison did not return phone calls for this story, but he told the PD that Petro told him, "Jack, you're going to be very unhappy with me next year...because I have to be loyal to those that were loyal to me and you supported Joe Deters.... You're going to lose your work, but you'll have a chance to get back on board if you make contributions."
Petro denied the story, saying Morrison is an Arshinkoff crony who has received desirable appointments thanks to his buddy.
http://www.dispatch.com/...
http://www.theotherpaper.com/...
In other news, Eric Fingerhut has dropped out of the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Ted Strickland, who recently chose Lee Fisher as his running mate, has the Democratic slot all but wrapped up. Strickland will have plenty of ammo after Petro and Blackwell are through with each other.