Ted Strickland for Governor (OH)

Ted Strickland is running for Governor of Ohio.

Like many Ohioans, my values are the product of two primary influences: the Church and mom.  Where I grew up in southern Ohio, church was more than just where you went to hear a sermon on Sunday; it was the center of the community, a place of fellowship and laughter and good food.

My mother was good beyond description. Her generous spirit of kindness, her unending gift of love to us nine kids, showed us how to stand up for each other and look out for those around us. She and dad raised us in very tough times.

One of my earliest memories is of a fire that destroyed our home. I vividly remember my sister carrying me out of the burning house in the middle of the night. We were all safe, but the house and everything in it was lost. My folks had nothing. No shoes, no clothes, no insurance. Nothing, except nine kids. Dad ended up taking our old chicken shack and creating a place where we could live until he converted our barn into a permanent home.

But through all the hardship we faced growing up, my mother never showed a hint of bitterness, never once felt sorry for herself, and never gave up on us. What she did was accept the struggle and faced each day with kindness, warmth, and love.

That moral grounding has charted the course of my life. From my early years in the ministry, to caring for neglected and abused children, to treating the mentally ill as a psychologist, to serving in the United States Congress, the thread that connects my life is a desire to lift up, to support, and, in some way, to share the burden of others. I don’t think that makes me noble. I’m just doing what I was taught.

And my past experiences give me faith in the power of the human spirit and the conviction that things can be better for all people. (And believe me; if you learn anything from living in a chicken shack, it’s that things can get better.)

Now I understand that faith is an easy word to misunderstand. Faith doesn’t simply mean to factually believe in a particular occurrence. It means to live and breathe the reality of one’s personal and/or religious convictions. According to my personal understanding of the Christian faith, it means to follow the example of Jesus into a life of service to others. It is a moral necessity for me to make this teaching the central organizing principle of what I do.

For me, the goal is not to be a liberal Democrat or a conservative Democrat. For me, the goal is to be a Golden Rule Democrat.

Being a Golden Rule Democrat means you do your best to treat other people the way you yourself would want to be treated. In a political context, it means working for a government rooted in sound judgment, having a thirst for justice and committed to serving its people.

During my early years as a Congressman, I placed a plaque in my office with the following quote from the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s from Micah 6:8: “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Throughout my public service I’ve tried to live by those simple, powerful words.

Doing Justice

When I was becoming politically aware, we had leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy who challenged us not just to get the job done, not just to volunteer our time, but to actively and permanently commit ourselves to the creation of a just society.

In more recent years, we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the word “justice” has more than a limited legal meaning. To me, it means working to make the world the way it ought to be, knowing full well that we may never get there.

Loving Kindness

The first thing we learn as small children is to “be nice to each other.” In other words, care about other people. What a different world it would be if all of us could learn that lesson.

As a public leader, perhaps the best contribution I can make is to let that ethic guide my decisions. In plain terms, this means to pursue policies that promote the common good.

To Walk Humbly

The last part of this admonition has to do with something politicians find very difficult – putting aside our egos.

I know you might be skeptical: “A politician not thinking about themselves? Sure.”

But, the truth is, we desperately need that kind of attitude back in Columbus, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. What we have now is clearly the opposite. The Republicans have commanded unchecked power for so long that many of them seem to think they can get away with anything.

When you look at the sweep of Ohio’s history, you don’t see an uncertain people in a directionless land – you see determination marked by vivid geography, dreams made into something you can touch. That’s who Ohioans are. We’re practical people, rooted in the most incredible dreams. We ask ourselves impossible questions and then we dare to answer them with the extraordinary made real.

This is why I’m running to be governor of Ohio. Because, despite the grim picture many see here, I have nothing but hope for Ohio because I have nothing but faith in the people of Ohio.

There’s nothing that’s wrong with Ohio that can’t be fixed by our hard work, our passion, our love and our ingenuity. I really believe that all that is standing between Ohio and a return to greatness is leadership that will step forward and give voice to the common dreams of Ohio families.

What are those common dreams? An economy that thrives on individual creativity and the hard work in our character, schools that don’t just compete but set the pace for the rest of the nation, and a state government free of corruption and hard at work meeting the needs of its people.

Why do I have such hope and faith? You can thank my mother for that.

The above piece was excerpted from Strickland’s speech on faith and values  to the Columbus Metropolitan Club.  You can find the full speech here.

Click the following links for a Columbus Dispatch article on the Strickland race, an Associated Press article on Christian radio ads, and a New Yorker piece on Ted’s opponent Ken Blackwell.

The faith section of Strickland’s website can be found here.  A completely revamped and enlarged version of this section of the site will available for viewing on Wednesday, September 13.