Taylor ‘phony conservative,’ DeWine ad says

The campaign of Mike DeWine calls out Mary Taylor as a “phony conservative” in a new TV commercial underlining a $1 million media buy ahead of the Republican gubernatorial primary May 8.

The 30-second DeWine spot, which will air statewide on broadcast TV, cable TV and radio, paints the lieutenant governor as a “career politician” who refused to endorse President Donald Trump and supported Medicaid expansion as part of Obamacare — “then lied about it” — and claims “she used used your tax dollars to benefit her family business.”

The commercial concludes: “Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor — a phony conservative you just can’t trust.” The spot continues a nasty on-air feud between Ohio’s attorney general and his opponent.

Taylor supported Gov. John Kasich’s bid for the presidency through the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016, at which Trump accepted the presidential nomination.

She was a consistent critic of Obamacare but seemingly supported Kasich’s expansion of Medicaid coverage, largely to the working poor, until she began her run for governor and said she would end the expansion. Taylor said she privately expressed concerns about the financial viability of the expansion all along and was supportive of Kasich and his right to make the call rather than the expansion itself.

The commercial’s reference to her family-owned business stems from a 2015 investigation by The Dispatch that revealed that her former chief of staff, with help from the governor’s office, worked on a “public relations issue” involving the construction company owned by her husband, Donzell Taylor.

Taylor campaign spokesman Michael Duchesne said: “Imagine my shock this morning when I saw that Mike DeWine’s latest attack ad led off with more name-calling. The oldest trick in the establishment playbook is lying about your opponent to cover up your own liberal record.

“Mike DeWine is the only candidate in this race who supports Obama’s Medicaid expansion. Mike DeWine is the only candidate in this race who refuses to be seen in the same room as President Trump. And Mike DeWine is the undisputed king of pay-to-play, funneling state work to his attorney buddies. This is another pathetic attempt to slander Lt. Gov. Taylor by a campaign whose best days are behind them — like their candidate,” he said.

DeWine also believes the Medicaid expansion is financially unsustainable, but has said he would preserve benefits for those receiving addiction treatment and seek greater state flexibility to run the program. The attorney general, and his predecessors, long have attracted pay-toplay charges by accepting campaign donations from lawyers who receive tax dollars to perform legal work on behalf of the state.