Live from Music Row Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed The Ohio Star Managing Editor Jack Windsor to the newsmakers line.
During the third hour, Windsor questioned recent polling showing Biden in Ohio with a two-point lead over Trump and dismissed it since Trump had won 18 of the electoral votes in 2016. He found it nearly impossible that Ohioans that voted for him in the last election would change their minds after seeing promises kept.
Leahy: We are here in the studio with our good friend the original all-star panelist and we are joined now on our newsmakers line by the most effective, the most feared conservative journalist in the state of Ohio. The man The New York Times has been trying to bring down and they can’t. And the man that Governor DeWine hates to have his hand up and have a question. The Managing Editor of The Ohio Star Jack Windsor.
Windsor: Good morning Mike. Good morning Crom. Good to be with you both. Thank you for choosing me.
Leahy: We always chose you on Wednesday’s at 7:30 a.m. Jack, I want to ask you this question. Ohio has 18 electoral college votes. President Trump won those 18 electoral votes. And yet the polls show the Real Clear Politics average polls show Biden now with a two-point four percent lead. Rasmussen reports had Biden up four. Back in July CBS News UGov had Trump up one. What on earth is going on in Ohio?
Windsor: You know I take the polls like that with a grain of salt. I really do. If you remember back to 2016, no one and I mean no one gave our president any chance. And there was one data modeler I’ve actually had the honor of working with on some data modeling for COVID. His name is Dr. Frank. And I believe he’s the only modeler who accurately predicted the outcome of that election. So I suspect one, I need to get with him and find out.
Leahy: What does he think is going on in Ohio?
Windsor: Number two. We have a governor right now in Ohio and I don’t know if a lot of people understand this who has really lost favor with his own party.
Leahy: We are talking Mike DeWine ostensibly a Republican who was elected in 2018 over the very far-left Democrat Richard Cordite. And awful candidate and a lefty.
Windsor: He looks more conservative right now than Mike DeWine does.
Leahy: I think you are right.
Windsor: We have a left-side of the aisle that is actually supporting the governor and backing the governor rabidly. And coming to his defense. We have Republicans that are acting like Democrats and Democrats that are supporting Republicans.
I think that the governor has tried to tread water where our president is concerned when he’s asked questions. These coronavirus news conferences now, he will get peppered. Yesterday he got peppered with two questions. One from a reporter trying to criticize Trump’s words by downplaying the coronavirus.
Leahy: Oh when he did that Bob Woodward yawing interview that they are trying to make a big deal.
Windsor: Right. Right. And look, I’ve talked to a lot of people who are in special operations. Navy Seals for example. Not a lot but a couple. The kind of leader you want is someone that can have a steady hand and keep people focused and calm. I think that was his approach.
They are throwing softballs at him trying to get him to knock Trump out of the park. There was another one yesterday trying to compare COVID to the Spanish Flu of 1918. The governor treads water. He doesn’t necessarily go against the president but at times he’s been just lukewarm.
And then the governor that preceded him John Kasich obviously came out at the Democratic National Convention and said, hey, this is who we need to support. I think many people are scratching their heads. For many years you either voted R or you voted D.
And this election particularly in the state of Ohio people are going to have to really get in touch with what are the values and what are the issues that are significant to them. And they are going to have to do the research. I don’t buy that Biden is ahead by two points.
Leahy: You mentioned former Republican Governor John Kasich. He was the two-term governor there. He ran for president and only won in Ohio in 2016 and refused to attend the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland because they were nominating Donald Trump. Then he endorses Joe Biden. What impact does that endorsement have on voting behavior in Ohio?
Windsor: Well you have Independents and then you have kind of soft Democrats and soft Republicans. And for people that maybe struggle with President Trump’s handling, he’s a little crass sometimes and I think intentionally because he brings opposition to the surface where he just crushes it. But I think for people like that it can have an impact.
But at the same time, I think if you were to poll people in Ohio who are true conservatives they will tell you that John Kasich spent a ton of money and got our state budget to a level that is just insane both in terms of what we spend on programs. And what we pay our elected officials.
And then how we allow them to bolster their salaries over the course of three years so that when they actually retire they get a much higher defined benefit when they are out of office. I think people that are soft Democrats and soft Republicans, that’s the audience right now that if I’m President Trump I’m looking at and going OK. How do we help them understand what we are all about? And what are the agenda is? And why it’s so important to vote for America and not vote for globalism.
Carmichael: If somebody voted for Trump in 2016 in Ohio, are they going to vote for Trump this time?
Windsor:Â I don’t know how they wouldn’t.
Carmichael: When you win a state by eight points and you have a competitor like Kamala Harris leading the ticket which is what she now is doing.
Leahy:Â The Harris-Biden ticket is what we are calling it Jack.
Carmichael: She is now calling herself the Harris-Biden administration. (Leahy chuckles) I don’t know how voters who voted for Trump, he has done more to keep his word than any president in my lifetime. Reagan would be the only one that would be in the contest. So I can’t imagine that the people of Ohio that voted for Trump wouldn’t be at least as enthusiastic as they were last time.
Windsor: I agree with that. The one challenge that you have is and I think this is the play of the left. If the economy is a little bit stinky in some areas. If there is unrest it creates instability. That might have an impact. And I think the opposition has done a heck of a job trying to point the finger at President Trump for his handling of the virus.
You know I scratched my head how when Trump said things on the front end of this virus. Sometimes I like to compare it to a duck. A duck is really calm on the top and under the water, he’s paddling paddling paddling. And the things that he was doing in his administration obviously shows that things were taken seriously. It just confuses me when I hear questions like that.
But I don’t hear anybody talking about Joe Biden tweeting on February 1 when we are in the midst of a crisis coronavirus and we need to lead the way of science and not Trump’s hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.
The opposition was actually criticizing him for restricting travel. I think people and I just pray that people read between the lines and get real honest with themselves. And if they do that I think Trump actually has an eight to ten-point advantage in Ohio at the end of the day.
Carmichael: Are there any other statewide races like senate or governor?
Windsor: No. There are some House of Reps stuff. But Mike DeWine is set for the next couple of years. I think some of the rumors now is does he make it to the end of the term? And I think he does. Articles of Impeachment have been drafted.
They have not been popular at least on the conservative side. I think representatives are afraid to jump on that bandwagon right now so close to the election because some of their funding has already been hamstrung with other issues from earlier in the year.
And I think they’ve been told look if you come out and you oppose this governor we’re just going to cut your funding for your race in November. No, the presidential election is the presidential election. There are some judges, I think there is French and Kennedy who are the two conservative judges that are up. But DeWine is set for the next two years.
Leahy: There is a report that DeWine has said privately that he’s very comfortable with a potential Biden administration because they were pals when they were in the United States Senate. Is there any teeth to that report? What do you think of that?
Windsor: Look, you watch their mouthless and their feet more. And you watch where they move. And Governor DeWine is showing me in everything from the handling of the management of the virus to his appointment to director of health and his second attempt at an appointment of the director of the health. This guy leans more to the left and I would say a lot more like a globalist.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.Â
