Taft: It’d be a ‘big challenge for someone like me to get elected’
Former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, a member of one of the great Republican political dynasties in American history, questioned whether he could even get elected in today’s hyper-partisan political climate.
In a rare interview these days, the 80-year-old Republican told The Enquirer’s “That’s So Cincinnati” podcast that he’d be known as a “RINO” – Republican in Name Only – if he were still in politics.
“I’m not sure there’s much of a center-right ... on the Republican side,” Taft said. “It could be a big challenge for someone like me to get elected as a Republican. There’s no middle lane out there.”
Addressing the partisan extremes on both sides, Taft said: “It’s like (the parties) don’t want to allow the other side to have any victories that would help the other side get reelected. It’s not healthy for democracy. It’s not good for the country.”
Taft, who grew up in Cincinnati, has kept a low profile since leaving the governor’s mansion in 2007 after serving two terms. He lives in the Dayton area and teaches political science classes at the University of Dayton.
He still travels around the state some as a member of the Ohio State Park Foundation. The foundation raises money for state parks, a passion for Taft while he was governor.
Taft is a center-right, mainstream country-club Republican. He was known as a statesman and policy wonk who came from a family of politicians and legal scholars going back to his great-grandfather William Howard Taft, the 27th president and former chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hamilton County Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou said Taft is a throwback to a different time in politics.
“His style is not the same style you’re seeing out of politicians today,” Triantafilou said, calling Taft a “steady, solid, conservative policy-oriented leader.”
“I miss that style,” Triantafilou added.
Bob Taft shared his thoughts on former president Donald Trump and the state of the Republican Party.
“I’m not a big fan,” Taft said of Trump, who will be holding a rally in Ohio on April 23. “Some policies I like. I like his appointments to the bench, but I’m personally not a big Donald Trump fan. But he’s had a huge influence on the Republican Party.”
Other highlights of Taft’s “That’s So Cincinnati” conversation:
Death penalty ‘pause for concern’
Ohio’s current death penalty law went into effect in 1981. In 1999, Taft’s first year as governor, the state executed its first inmate in 36 years. Some 24 people were executed on Taft’s watch.
He’s had a change of heart on the law , joining a number of Republicans and Democrats who are questioning whether Ohio should do away with the death penalty. Their reasons vary from the morality of capital punishment to whether it’s an effective way to deter crime to the taxpayer cost of a successful prosecution.
“When I was governor, I felt that I should follow the law and carry out the law,” Taft said. “Voters approved, through their legislators, the death penalty, and there were certain cases where juries imposed it. And so I thought I should respect that legal process unless there was a serious problem of an error in fact or error in law. I did commute one sentence from death to life in prison because new evidence arose after the trial that the jury was not able to consider.”
Taft continued: “But thinking hard about it and being in the spotlight on (the issue), it’s given me a lot of pause for concern. So I have serious reservations about the effectiveness of the death penalty. To me, it’s probably on its way to extinction right now.”
‘Makes me sick’
Taft, born 12 years after President Taft died, shared his favorite William Howard Taft quote. “Politics, when I’m in it, makes me sick,” President Taft would say.
However, Bob Taft said he enjoyed his three decades in politics. He also was state representative, Hamilton County commissioner and Ohio Secretary of State.
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