DeWine is ‘fired up, ready to go on day one’

Mike DeWine finally got home to Cedarville on Wednesday night to find a trooper in a State Highway Patrol cruiser parked outside.

It was still there Thursday morning when he and wife Fran awoke.

Life suddenly is different for the Republican, who first aspired to be governor amid a short-lived campaign in 1989 while a congressman.

On Jan. 14, the twoterm attorney general — and former U.S. senator and lieutenant governor — will be sworn in as Ohio’s 70th governor.

“I believe I’ve prepared my whole life for this job, but it won’t mean I won’t make mistakes,” DeWine told hundreds attending the Impact Ohio post-election conference Thursday.

DeWine promised his administration will be open to ideas and suggestions from all — not that he doesn’t know Mike DeWine will become the 70th governor of Ohio when he is sworn in on Jan. 14.

where he will lead Ohio.

“Our administration is fired up, ready to go on day one,” DeWine said at the Greater Columbus Convention Center following his Tuesday election victory over Democrat Richard Cordray.

DeWine said his focus will not surprise those who followed his campaign and the promises made.

He said there will be a “sense of urgency” to begin tackling the state’s devastating opioid addiction crisis, particularly fentanyl, which fueled a 20

percent increase in Ohio’s drug overdose deaths last year.

Improvements to, and expansion of, early childhood education also is high on DeWine’s priority list to help avoid “kids who just don’t make it” later in school — or in life.

DeWine also stressed he will work closely with local government officials, who are clamoring for increased state aid after years of cuts, to help improve their ability to serve their residents.

He also ticked off promised efforts to improve K-12 education, job training and the pursuit of jobs. DeWine’s agenda will surface in his first executive budget recommendations to be submitted to the GOP-controlled General Assembly in early March.

DeWine, who praised the resounding defeat of the Issue 1 ballot initiative to reduce criminal penalties for low-level drug use and possession offenders, also promised to deal with criminal-justice reform. He offered no details.

“It is on our agenda,” he said.

Having lost a pair of races for U.S. Senate, including when he was defeated as an incumbent by Democrat Sherrod Brown in 2006, DeWine showed some empathy for Cordray, saying he knows how he feels.

“He gave us all we wanted,” DeWine said. “I salute him ... we also left it all on the field.”