John Kasich, a man who likes to get to the point, wants to talk about Cleveland.
The governor of Ohio goes about his day on the 30th floor of the Riffe Center in Columbus focusing on the business of government that has driven him since college. The fact that the boy from a tiny borough near Pittsburgh went to The Ohio State University is not an insignificant factor in his passion for all things Ohio. And boyhood vacations in Vermilion helped shaped his love for our particular corner of the state.
So it is that he agreed to break from his workday routine to reflect on Cleveland’s past, its progress and its promise. Months after leaving his primary race for the White House and two years from being term-limited out as governor, he affably recalled how his Ohio life began, where Cleveland figures into his vision and his heart, and why, despite a host of challenges, he remains optimistic — you might say buoyant — about our future.
Here is some of our conversation.
Q&A
You’re a kid from Mckees Rocks, just minutes from Pittsburgh, and you’re governor of Ohio. Not only that, but you seem to have a special affection for Cleveland. Where did that come from?
When I was a kid we used to go to Vermilion on vacation. That’s when I started to be interested in Ohio, but also in Northeast Ohio. I just felt a connection with Cleveland. A lot of people think Pittsburgh and Cleveland are not connected. That’s just nonsense. Frankly, they are the same side of the same coin. They’re ethnic, the people are caring, they’re hard-working. When I became governor, one of the goals I had was how I could contribute to the people of Cleveland, to make Cleveland really a great town.
Were those family vacations why you chose to go to Ohio State?
The reason I went to Ohio State is that my mother worked with a lady whose son went to Ohio State, and my mother raised the issue with me one day and I thought, well, that sounds cool. I knew nothing about it. And then my father and I drove out here and I toured the campus and walked across the Oval and I really loved it.
You got very involved in student politics.
I was involved in a lot of stuff. I had a lot of fun at Ohio State.
Were you thinking about a career in Ohio politics?
Politics didn’t really cross my mind. I thought I would become a lawyer. I went to Ohio State, and I majored in political science. Frankly, it was easy for me and I had an interest in it. It was when I was 18, my first quarter, that I went in to see the president of the university — you know the story and how that led to a meeting with the president of the United States.
[The freshman Kasich handed OSU President Novice Fawcett a letter addressed to U.S. President Richard Nixon, and asked him to deliver it. The exchange led to a meeting with Nixon in the Oval Office.]
When I graduated in December 1974, I went looking for a job. I saw the Ohio Statehouse and walked in and a man offered to hire me writing resolutions. A couple of days later, they had an opening in an internship program, and I went to work as a legislative aide. Later I decided to run [for State Senate], figuring that if I don’t win, I’ll just go to law school. And either fortunately or unfortunately, it worked out.
Let’s talk about Cleveland.
As you know, we’ve had tough times dating back to the days when you were still in college. Now spirits in Cleveland are soaring.
The people of Cleveland are tough. The neighborhoods — they’re firm, they’re strong. There’s something about that ethnicity, where we’ve been able to retain those values. I think that Cleveland suffered from a lot of outside criticism. Am I surprised that Cleveland has come roaring back? It doesn’t mean we can hang a “Mission Accomplished” sign up, but am I surprised? Not really. You can only hold good things down for so long.
One of the most important things was when the Cleveland community, represented by just a handful of people, came and said we need to fix the schools. That was a big deal. The Cavs’ winning, and the Indians. And, of course, the [Republican] convention was another remarkable thing. The great thing about the convention is that people from all over the country came in to see Cleveland and they were stunned at everything they saw. That’s a result of many years of outsiders trying to pick on us, you know? And you notice I did say “us.”
Yes, I did notice.
And now we’re getting our just due. I mean, we still have our share of challenges. Every city has [problems], but when you hear the testimonies from people who had a chance to spend a week in Cleveland, it’s remarkable.
You mentioned the schools.
We’re a few years into the Cleveland Plan. What’s your assessment?
Look, here’s what happens with the schools: We take so many of our social problems — whether it’s broken families, broken neighborhoods, the problem of drugs, violence, all these things that a lot of our kids are exposed to — and then we send them to school and we just think that somehow they go to school and all these social problems will be fixed. They can’t all be fixed, which is why we have mentoring programs, why we need economic growth, why we need to make sure our families can stay together.
I have a great relationship with a lot of the ministers in the Cleveland community. We talk about these things. We’re headed in the right direction. I’m optimistic. You have bumps in the road but I think we’re doing better and better. I’m proud of what’s going on. I’m proud of what we’ve done. It’s just going to take time.
What’s on Cleveland’shorizon that makes you most enthusiastic?
I love the Opportunity Corridor. I love all the infrastructure improvements we made that are modernizing the city. I think that we have good leadership in Cleveland, CEO leadership. I think that we now are putting in enormous resources in terms of taking care of Lake Erie, although, you know, it’s like smoking cigarettes. You smoke and you quit. I used to smoke cigarettes. I said to the doctor, “When are my lungs going to be clear?” He said, “No longer than 25 or 30 years.” So here you have a case where, you know, we’ve damaged the environment there for a long time. Now we’re fixing it, improving it, but it’s still a work in progress. Most things in life are a work in progress.
When you talk to job creators, what do you tell them about Cleveland?
Cleveland has great schools. Cleveland has great businesses that are already there. Cleveland has a strong business community, and it’s business friendly. We created JobsOhio, which is filled with people that really know business. Before, we didn’t have people that ran economic development that really knew that much about business in some cases. Now we have only people that really know about business. And they’ve created partnerships with the organizations in Cleveland. You put it all together and you have great synergy. That’s why we’ve seen significant success.
Let me tell you another thing we have that we have to be very cognizant of and very proud of: There is nothing like the Cleveland Clinic in the world. That is such an incredible institution. And then you look at Case Western, which, you know, is educating some of the smartest people in the world. And you look at the growth in significance of Cleveland State. They have become a change-agent institution in the set of institutions that are always reluctant to change.
What grade would you give JobsOhio for its impact on the state overall but also specifically on Cleveland?
Well, we went from a loss of 350,000 [jobs] to a gain of 430,000 so I think that kind of a change merits an A. But I’m not a grader. I think they’re doing their job. In economic development, things go up and down. Everything’s not a straight line, but we’ve been trending up.
We have challenges in the state. We’re still heavily dependent on manufacturing. It’s good to have a very vibrant manufacturing industry but I have been making an effort to try to diversify so that we’re not known as “The Rust Belt” but instead as “The Knowledge Belt.” Today, Ohio is involved in things like autonomous vehicles, drones, sensors and predictive analytics and we have logistics companies and financial services and an amazing healthcare industry.
We really want to have the state almost look like our financial portfolio. That requires diversification. We don’t want to be reliant on just one thing. If manufacturing turns sour in Ohio, or if it’s not as strong as we want it to be for a whole variety of reasons, that’s difficult on us. I think we’re suffering a little bit of that right now, but we’re making progress.
You talk about the Knowledge Belt.
Is healthcare at the top of the list in Cleveland?
It’s enormous, but you never want to say it’s this and not something else. Look at KeyBank. In some ways, they’re a financial services company, but today, all banks are technology companies. We have had a long history of venture capital in Cleveland. The startups are also a very big part of Cleveland.
And we are seeing a return to the urban area. You see more young people excited about being in Cleveland. One of the challenges we have is to not only keep our young people in Ohio, but we have to recruit them to Ohio. Now, we are developing the cool factor, whether it’s the Flats, whether it’s the sports, whether it’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whether it’s the theater district, the Cleveland Orchestra. There’s another one, the Cleveland Orchestra. Unbelievable. Mixon Hall. My dear friend Mal Mixon gave the gift of one of the greatest places to hear music. And how about the Cleveland Museum of Art?
When we talk about retaining young people and having them move into leadership positions, that brings us back to the schools. You’re a strong proponent of charter schools.
I’m a proponent of choice. That doesn’t mean I think that’s a panacea. You can’t say, well, we’re going to have charter schools, and that’s going to fix everything. The traditional public school has to be fixed, too. I support charter schools, I support school vouchers, but I also don’t believe that we can just dismiss or go casual when it comes to the traditional public school. I don’t think the traditional public school is going away. And it shouldn’t go away.
Where are we in bringing the Cleveland public schools to where they should be?
I know that the leadership, both the management with the CEO [Eric Gordon] and the head of the union, Mr. [David] Quolke, can make progress. They’re having good measures. But again, when you throw a whole host of social problems into the schoolhouse and you say, OK schoolhouse, fix all these, it’s just not easy. It takes an entire community.
It’s like that on a lot of things. You want to turn a life around? Become a mentor. Don’t be looking at somebody outside of your community for the answers. What are you doing? We’ll help you.
What role does the state have in helping the Cleveland Police Department meet the challenges it faces in the community?
We’re training the Cleveland Police in Columbus right now at the Ohio State Patrol Academy. We also have our community and police collaborative. I will say that [former Democratic state senator and Cleveland progressive] Nina Turner has been a hero on this. I think we’re developing stronger relations between police and community. Ultimately, you want to have integration so that the community can understand the challenges of the police, and the police can understand the concerns that exist in the community. It’s a relationship. It’s communication.
We look at decisions that have been made that could have rocked other cities — not that we didn’t have consternation, not that we didn’t have protests — but I think Ohio’s community leaders have realized that violence in our towns is going to set us back, not move us forward.
Your forecast for Cleveland?
Progress can be slow, particularly when you are unwinding many, many years of almost, in some ways, benign neglect. And now, I think the sun is rising. Is it at the zenith? No. But it’s rising.