Gov-elect John Kasich’s post-election rhetoric captures everything about Barack Obama that congressional Republicans complain about.

Talk to John Boehner about Obama and you get primarily the complaint that he never talked to congressional Republicans in his first two years, that he ran right over them. Boehner says that was Obama’s big mistake, resulting in massive rejection in the 2010 election.

Listen to Kasich now:

“We need you on the bus, and if you’re not on the bus, we will run you over with the bus. And I’m not kidding.” He continued this particular performance with a riff about all the obstacles he had to overcome to win election. Then he said: “And if you think you’re going to stop us, you’re crazy. You will not stop us. We will beat you. And that’s not arrogance.”

Now, to be sure, he wasn’t talking to Democrats. He was talking to a group of lobbyists from various parts of the political spectrum, but mostly supporters.

Still, the pronouns “us” and “we” certainly don’t refer to Democrats and Republicans, just Republicans.

So when Boehner says you always pay a price for proceeding that partisan way, he has a point. So does state Rep. Peggy Lehner, R-Kettering. She has publicly advised Kasich to at least listen to Democrats, whether he needs their votes or not.

Here we have a Republican being elected by 2 percent, failing to get a majority, in a year when for a Republican to lose required being a professional wrestling executive, or a woman who toyed with witchcraft or one who thinks some cities in the United States are operating under Muslim religious law — or a Californian.

And yet Kasich somehow manages to see himself as a triumphant underdog. And he wants to make sure everybody knows it. He didn’t even wait to be asked.

Kasich’s course seems rigid to the point of weird. What’s the explanation?

Ted Strickland tried to paint Kasich as the prospective governor from — and for — Wall Street. A more realistic concern is about him being the governor from Fox.

He was granting that television outlet — his former employer — an interview on Election Night when his local supporters were waiting for his victory speech.

Fox plays to the Republican base, to the Tea Party. The network would surely love to have a former employee as president. But Kasich will be competing with other ambitious Republican governors for attention, some of whom have a head start on him in going after state spending.

The governors will be struggling to outdo each other for national attention from Fox’s people. Legislators who have other concerns will have problem.

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Gov. Ted Strickland spent most of the weekend reminding the voters who know him best that he's one of them.

Strickland traipsed around his sprawling home turf in a camouflage-colored motor home that no one could miss, imprinted with a massive picture of the governor and his outdoorsy brother, Roger, and the scrawled testimonial, "Endorsed by the NRA."

Before heading this week to the voter-rich urban centers for the campaign's stretch run, culminating in Cleveland on Sunday with a rally featuring President Barack Obama, Strickland on Friday and Saturday made one last swing through the autumn-gloried Ohio River-hugging congressional district he used to represent and won with 70 percent of the vote in 2006. He won't, Strickland conceded, win the district that big on Nov. 2 against Republican John Kasich.

"We've been living through very significant economic disruption and upheaval and so, no, I don't expect to win this area with 70 percent, but I expect to win it."

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In every one of the nine hill-laden hamlets he visited, Strickland claimed momentum on his side following summer polls that gave Kasich hefty leads: "Two or three months ago my political obituary had already been written, so you can just call me Ted 'Lazarus' Strickland," he told supporters in Marietta.

"John Kasich may have won this election in August, but I'm going to win it in November."

With so many voters to touch in so short of time, Strickland's decision to spend two days in his old district might seem strategically questionable. Sentimentality, in part, motivated him.

"I would not think of going through a campaign without returning to my roots and to my home territory."

But the governor also said he won in 2006 by outperforming a typical Democrat in Ohio's mostly Republican rural counties. and he must blunt Kasich's advantage in them. Thus, he said, he will make one more foray this week through economically depressed northwestern Ohio, brandishing his A-plus rating by the National Rifle Association like a shotgun against Kasich, who while in Congress once received an F from the NRA.

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To a boisterous crowd at Carroll County Democratic headquarters, Strickland said, "Let me tell you what did cause this recession, this terrible job loss across Ohio."

He barely finished the sentence before a man shouted, "Boosh."

"You got it, my friend," Strickland said.

Kasich, former Lehman Brothers managing director, will return to the policies of President George W. Bush and "the shenanigans on Wall Street" that precipitated the recession, Strickland said.

At every stop, Strickland told audiences that in Congress Kasich tried to kill the Appalachian Regional Commission, a 45-year-old federal agency that targets aid to the largely-impoverished region.

"I'm running against a guy who simply doesn't understand or sympathize with what people in Appalachia deal with," Strickland told a crowd at the Daily Grind coffee shop in New Philadelphia.

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This morning The Enquirer endorsed Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper for state auditor, saying about the Democratic candidate: “We trust that Pepper has the straightforward aim to be an honest whistle blower on waste, fraud and inefficiency, wherever it occurs.”

Well, the Enquirer isn’t alone.

In a year when Republicans are racking up newspaper endorsements, so far Pepper has been endorsed by 11 of the 12 newspapers who have so far endorsed in the race.

Even the conservative Warren Tribune in Northeast Ohio cast their vote his way this week.Here’s what some of the said:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer: “”Pepper’s promise to be transparent and to focus on creating more competitive districts is exactly the perspective needed on the Reapportionment Board.”

The Akron Beacon Journal: He is “willing to confront difficult tasks and make tough choices,” and has “stepped up to make the necessary cuts while seeking to protect key priorities.”

The Dayton Daily News – Pepper “has a grander vision, better ideas, and is more driven.”

So who didn’t endorse Pepper? The Columbus Dispatch.

Joined by a handful of female small-business owners, Democrat Maryellen O'Shaughnessy said yesterday that, if elected, she will designate a person in the secretary of state's office to help new and existing small businesses.

The secretary of state's prime function is to oversee Ohio's election system. But the office also contains a business services division that processes new-business filings, protects trademarks and certifies records.

O'Shaughnessy said the new liaison would help business owners answer questions about starting up a company and work through potential issues. She said she will work with the state Department of Development to ensure no duplication of efforts.

"The idea is, to know you've got a resource there," she said.

"This liaison will be a repository of particularly small-business information."

The women who met O'Shaughnessy at the Tip Top restaurant Downtown agreed that the additional help is necessary.

"To the outsider, state government can be intimidating, overwhelming and complex," said Liz Lessner, president of Betty's Family of Restaurants, which includes the Tip Top. "A point person that cuts through the red tape is a great idea."

The women said something as simple as a list of frequently asked questions or a checklist would help.

"Aside from starting an LLC (limited liability company), where do you go from there?" said Mary Relotto, founder of Columbus-based Dames Bond, a networking group. "We need easier access to resources to make it easier for us to do well in business. Sharing the knowledge is like sharing the wealth."

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Gov. Ted Strickland said Monday he would fear for the future of Ohio if his Republican challenger, John Kasich, is elected Nov. 2.

Fresh from a rally the night before with President Obama that drew 35,000 people to the Ohio State University campus, the Democratic governor used words like "reckless," "radical," and "extreme" to describe Mr. Kasich's policies.

"To suggest that we could eliminate our state's income tax while at the same time signing a pledge that he would never, under any circumstances as far as I can tell … support increased revenue from other sources is as irresponsible as anything I've ever known a political candidate to do," he said.

"He's much more extreme than Ken Blackwell ever was," Mr. Strickland said, referring to his conservative Republican opponent of 2006.

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Mr. Strickland visited a pair of small businesses in Columbus and suburban Dayton Monday to make the case that his "business-friendly" policies, including his championing of business tax reform started by Republicans, have helped position the state for an economic comeback.

He visited Marcy Adhesives, a Columbus maker of adhesive that can be removed without residue for windshields, solar panels, and other glass products, and later Webcore Technologies in Miamisburg, which makes lightweight, high- strength, fiber-reinforced material for use in manufacturing of wind turbines, bridge decks, and other products.

"I think Ohio has great strengths," Mr. Strickland said.

"I think our tax climate is, in fact, very competitive, perhaps the very best in the Midwest. I embraced a tax reform that was passed by a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, and my opponent likes to trash it.

"He tells tall tales about Ohio being noncompetitive and a very high-tax state."

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As a teenager in a rough Columbus neighborhood years ago, Kevin Boyce found himself in a fight-or-flight situation.

He had just stood up to a gang member who was picking on his friend after school. The gang member backed down at first, running away after he and Boyce exchanged words.

But the bully came back with some friends of his own, carrying baseball bats and knives. Boyce held his ground, and a big fight broke out.

"To be honest with you, that was such a common environment in the neighborhood I grew up in that you get sort of immune" to things like weapons and threats, Boyce, now state treasurer, said in a recent interview. "Either you're going in a different direction because you don't want to be around it, or you go right at it. In this case, I knew I didn't have a choice but to go right at it."

The police soon arrived and most of the kids scattered. Boyce, who was known to be studious and involved in athletics, stayed behind to explain his side to police. His reputation and honesty paid off, as a judge eventually dropped any charges for his involvement in the melee, Boyce said.

From this difficult environment, Boyce emerged a college graduate who became a Columbus city councilman at 28.

After eight years on the council, Boyce was appointed by Gov. Ted Strickland, a fellow Democrat, to be Ohio treasurer when Richard Cordray left the office to become attorney general. Boyce took office in January 2009.

The appointment made him the first black Democrat to hold a statewide executive office in Ohio. Two black Republicans have held such office.

Now Boyce, 39, is running statewide for the first time. He's counting on the work ethic, focus and resiliency he developed growing up to help him prevail over another young, up-and-coming Ohio politician: Republican Josh Mandel, a 33-year-old state representative from Lyndhurst…

The office is charged with protecting and investing Ohioans' tax dollars. In the 2009 fiscal year, the Treasury managed a combined investment portfolio of $15.5 billion.

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Boyce moved around a lot as a kid while his mother struggled to cope with the loss of his father. When Boyce was 7, his father, Henry, was murdered while visiting family in Atlanta. Boyce said that in an instant, he joined many kids in his neighborhood who grew up without fathers.

His father's death instilled in him the importance of having a stable family — Boyce is married with two sons — a value that motivated Boyce to earn good grades and to work hard in the sports he played, notably football and track.

"He had a maturity about him, a focus about him," said Atiba Jones, a friend of Boyce's who attended high school in Columbus with him. "That was a rare quality."

Jones recalled Boyce's uncanny preparation, whether before a sporting event or before a City Council meeting. "If you think you're going to beat him at something, you better be prepared," Jones said. "A lot of it had to do with how we grew up."

Boyce graduated in 1995 from the University of Toledo, where he met his mentor, former Toledo mayor and state representative Jack Ford. Boyce was a legislative aide to Ford after college and became executive director of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus in 1997. Two years later, he was chief of staff for the House of Representatives' Democratic Caucus when Ford served as minority leader.

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, a former state representative and state senator, met Boyce in the mid-1990s when he was an aide to Ford and worked with him at the Black Caucus. He praised Boyce's preparation, hard work and inquisitive nature.

Boyce was appointed to the Columbus City Council in late 2000 and was elected to full terms in 2001 and 2005. He chaired the finance committee for three years before Strickland tapped him to be treasurer. Boyce said his experience on the finance committee and with the state budget process helped equip him for the treasurer's job.

But Boyce said that before he accepted the offer, he considered to what degree, as treasurer, he could act as a public servant. He discovered he could stay in touch with everyday people through community-based Treasury programs that help small businesses grow and educate people about financial literacy.

Boyce said that, if elected, he hopes to maintain those ties to the community while keeping the state's investments sound — a feat he touts from his first two years in office, despite arriving at the Treasury during the country's financial meltdown.

"At the end of the day, people just need public servants to do things to make their life a little better," Boyce said.