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William Hershey: In a crisis, Strickland's stage a little quieter than Rhodes'
Sunday, September 21, 2008
COLUMBUS — — When Gov. Ted Strickland stepped off the military helicopter last week at Moraine Air Park to inspect damage in the Dayton area caused by the vicious winds that had roared across the state, Strickland looked like the man in charge.
Flanked by Adjutant Gen. Greg Wayt of the Ohio National Guard, and other top aides, he was doing what governors need to do in a crisis.
He showed up.
Strickland couldn't clear the roads with an executive order or turn a switch and return power to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans still in the dark.
On Tuesday, Sept. 16, when Strickland visited Dayton, electricity was out at the governor's mansion, too.
He also showed up in Cincinnati and suburban Columbus, other parts of the state that took the brunt of the wind's force.
By showing up, he showed that, despite the chaos, he was taking charge and, more importantly, that he cared.
Strickland's declaration of a statewide emergency marked only the second time in 30 years that a governor has made such a call and brought to mind the governor in charge back on Jan. 26, 1978, the last time such a statewide declaration was issued.
Nobody showed up like the late James A. Rhodes, Ohio's four-term governor who died in 2001 at the age of 91.
While Democrat Strickland affects low-key leadership, Republican Rhodes was the P.T. Barnum of crisis management.
Rhodes, like Strickland a native of southern Ohio, declared war on the 1978 "killer blizzard" that dumped record snowfalls across the state, including 12.9 inches in 24 hours in the Dayton area.
It was a vicious storm.
As retired Statehouse reporter Lee Leonard recounted in the book "Ohio Politics," 30 to 35 deaths were attributed to the blizzard, more than four times the seven Ohioans who have lost their lives in the current disaster. Property damage reached $192 million, Leonard wrote.
"This is a killer blizzard looking for victims," Rhodes said with tears in his eyes. He set up a command post, conducted military-style briefings and badgered President Jimmy Carter for federal aid to help clean up the snow, Leonard wrote. Carter came through with federal reimbursement for 75 percent of the removal.
Rhodes didn't stop there, recalled John Mahaney, longtime president of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants.
Rhodes conducted a prayer breakfast in the Statehouse rotunda, Mahaney said.
"A lot of the Democrats weren't going to attend," added Mahaney.
Then Democratic state Rep. Gene Branstool, a farmer from Utica in Licking County, spoke up.
"People don't think this prayer breakfast is funny in my county," Branstool said. Branstool went to the prayer breakfast and took everybody else with him, said Mahaney.
Rhodes had a philosophy that guided him in such crises, said Mahaney.
"It's not what we're doing. It's what they think we're doing," Rhodes told Mahaney. Perception, Mahaney concluded, is everything.
It may not be everything but it counts.
Strickland benefits because he follows Republican Bob Taft in office. Taft failed the perception and reality test back in August 2003 when he continued to vacation near Quebec City while victims of a blackout in 20 counties, including the Cleveland area, lit candles, boiled their water and waited until sewers started working.
Rhodes, by the way, won re-election in 1978.
