Ohio Lieutenant Governor and GOP gubernatorial candidate Mary Taylor meets in Cleveland with Black activists, community members in the historic Glenville neighborhood, an event sponsored by the Inner City Republican Movement and led by community activist Donna Walker Brown, who said that the three male Republican candidates for governor, namely Attorney General Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Jon Husted and Congressman Jim Renacci, did not respond to her invitation to meet in the inner city of Cleveland with Black people....Taylor said that, if elected governor, she will bring more jobs to Ohio and will work to 'break the cycle of muti-generational poverty"....While few in attendance at the event, including Walker Brown, back President Trump and his policies, as Taylor does, they said they appreciate that the lieutenant governor took the time to meet with them in the Black community when her male Republican gubernatorial hopefuls would not.... By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million readers on Google Plus alone. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
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| Ohio Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor ( second from left) poses with Inner City Republican Movement president and community activist Donna Walker Brown (far left), Cleveland Ward 11 City Council candidate Gilda Malone (third from left) and Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Michael Sliwinski. A GOP candidate for governor, Taylor visited Cleveland on Oct. 14 and spoke at the Glenville Public Library on the city's largely Black east side. Photo by Kathy Wray Coleman of ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com , Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and Black blog |
Walker Brown said that the three other Republican candidates for Ohio governor, Attorney General Mike DeWine, who is a former US senator, Secretary of State John Husted and Congressman Jim Renacci, did not respond to the invitation to meet with Black people in the heart of the Black community of Cleveland, a largely Black major American city.
Walker Brown introduced Taylor as the "second most powerful person in Ohio who would lead the state if, God forbids, something happens to Governor Kasich."
Taylor, who lags behind her three male Republican opponents in raising campaign monies as the 2018 election year for governor nears, told audience members that she is the best candidate and that she will advocate for a better Ohio for all people, including poor people.
"People deserve hope and opportunity for the future," said Taylor, a married mother of grown children, and the daughter of a bricklayer. "And we must break the cycle of multi-generational poverty."
Born and raised in Akron, Ohio and a graduate of the University of Akron, Taylor said that more jobs and economic expansion are crucial, among other platform initiatives she sited.
All of the candidates for Ohio governor, both Republicans and Democrats alike, are White.
Aside form Walker Brown and Taylor, speakers at the gathering included RNC Minority Outreach Coordinator Camilla Prince, Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, who was gracious but reminded the audience that he is a Democrat, Democrat Mattie Porter, and Porter's son, Alfred Porter Jr, a Republican who leads the Cleveland-based grassroots activist group Black on Black Crime Inc.
Candidates for other offices who were in attendance were Cleveland City Council candidates Gilda Malone and Eugene Miller, also a former councilman, and Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Michael Sliwinski, Malone and Sliwinski Republicans, and Miller, who is also a former state representative, a Democrat.
And though several there were in opposition to her proposed policies and her support of President Donald Trump many, including Walker Brown, they said they appreciate that Taylor took time out of her busy schedule to meet with inner city Black people in Cleveland, the second largest city in Ohio behind the capital city of Columbus.
Fifthy-one years old with perrenial youth, and a former state auditor, Taylor is endorsed by the term-limited Gov John Kasich but has strayed from him in the dispute with President Trump over heathcare.
Unlike Kasich, she backs Trump's tax proposal, and both the GOP healthcare bill in congress that has yet to pass and the president's recent executive order to stop federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that help poor people and others who qualify for the subsidies meet insurance premium deductibles.
A 2016 unsuccessful candidate for president, Kasich says the GOP healthcare plan hurts Black people, and poor people, among others, and phases out medicaid, which he wants expanded for seniors, whom he says need it most.
Asked by activist Mattie Hayes why she supports President Trump's stances on the tax budget and heathcare and to explain what she would do at the state level to compensate for the federal healthcare subsidies that have been stripped from the Affordable Care Act by Trump, Taylor said she supports Trump on those issues, and that she will continue to fight for alternative quality heath care for Ohians.
The president's tax plan, she says, is worth supporting.
"I am excited about what President Trump has prepared from a tax perspective," said Taylor.
In response to a question from ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com on whether she would help the Black community lobby the Ohio State Legislature to comply with the Ohio Supreme Court 1992 DeRolph decision that ordered it to revise its unconstitutional public school funding formula that awards money to rich affluent White children, Taylor said money is not the issue and that quality teachers would suffice for the money deficit, one audience member asking if quality teachers could eradicate the fact that Black school children are sometimes poor and need quality educational resources beyond efficient teachers like their well-to-do White counterparts.
Taylor talked about the heroin and opiate epidemic that plagues Ohio, saying her two sons have struggled with drug addiction and she is thankful they are now sober.
The lieutenant governor also voiced her support for school vouchers and school choice, a Republican initiative sometimes embraced by Blacks who believe America's public schools have failed Black children, though data are explicit in showing that typically charter and choice schools do not fare any better than public schools, and sometimes they actually perform worse academically.
Cleveland has the only public school voucher program sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court which, in 2002, upheld them as constitutionally sound and not violating the separation of church and state clause of the 1st amendment because the monies go to the parents of the students and not the students themselves, a ruling that former president Barack Obama, a Democrat and a former constitutional lawyer, told journalist Kathy Wray Coleman in a one-on-one- interview in 2008 for the Call and Post Newspaper that he does nor agree with.
Donna Walker Brown said that while she is a Republican she does not support all of the Republican initiatives and that she is against school vouchers and school choice, and any of the policies pushed or initiated by President Donald Trump that "offend the Black community."
ClevelandUrbanNews.Com and the KathyWrayColemanOnlineNewsBlog.Com , Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million readers on Google Plus alone. And the ClevelandUrbanNews.Com website stats reveal some 26 million hits since 2012. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
