Monday, November 3, 2008

DISCUSSION: CORDRAY - STATE TREASURER, ATTORNEY GENERAL NEXT? - THEN GOVERNOR?

Richard Cordray can best be described as the "newest" rising star as a statewide Democratic Ohio politician.

He rode the the Democratic high tide to the state treasurer's office in the November, 2006 election which saw Ted Strickland trounce Republican Ken Blackwell by about about 20 percentage points.

Also part of the statewide Democratic victory in 2006 was Marc Dann winning the attorney general's office.

But Dann couldn't stand success and embarked on a course of abusing power and consequently fell from grace and left the office under pressure from Governor Strickland and other leading Ohio Democrats.

Strickland appointed a caretaker attorney general who from the outset said she would not run for the office. Up stepped Richard Cordray and in less than two years as treasurer and becomes the Democrat nominee for attorney general. Attorney Mike Crites is the Republican candidate and Attorney Robert Owens in an independent candidate.

The STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) sees this move by Cordray as a "stepping-stone" towards his longer term goal as succeeding Ted Strickland as governor.

One thing we were spared in Cordray's Canal Fulton was Stark County Party chair Johnnie A. Maier's perennial introduction of Cordray as a former Jeopardy game TV show champion (undoubtedly, only because Maier didn't introduce Cordray)

But The Report offers a few details of the Jeopardy caper as, perhaps, relevant in a "pun" sort of way as being apropos since the public's confidence and trust in the attorney general's office was put in jeopardy by Marc Dann.

Wikipedia describes Cordray, in part, as follows:
Cordray has the distinction of being an undefeated five-time champion and Tournament of Champions semifinalist on Jeopardy! In 1987, he won $45,303, which he used to pay law school debt, to pay taxes and to buy a used car.
But pun treatment aside, the question is whether or not Richard Cordray is the best person to complete the rescue (now being implement by the interim attorney general) from the "public confidence" jeopardy that Marc Dann placed the agency in?

See Cordray's Canal Fulton talk below.

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