OH Sen-22: Interview with Mike Todd (D)

A few weeks ago I spoke with Michael Todd (D-Medina Township) about his campaign for the 22nd Ohio Senate seat of term-limited Ron Amstutz (R-Wooster). Todd is an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for Summit County and a Township Trustee for Medina Township. He is also a member of the Ohio Democratic Party State Central Committee. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He will face the winner of the GOP primary, for which State Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Lakeville) and State Rep. Jim Carmichael (R-Wooster) are declared candidates.

Michael Todd, Part One (7 min. 54 sec.)

In this first part of the interview, Todd explains how he became interested in politics and what motivated him to seek elective office. As a child he lived with his grandparents for eight years and recalls working on the 1984 presidential campaign of Walter Mondale. They were a working class family (his grandfather has a fifth-grade education and was a retired IBEW member). He traces his desire to serve the public to his military career, and especially his appointment to West Point on the strength of awards earned for military service. After his medical discharge in 2001 and his graduation from law school, he decided that political office was where he could use his leadership skills and lessons learned in life for the betterment of his community and Ohio.

Todd then details his military career, from being an intelligence analyst in Korea to transportation officer in Honduras working on drug interdiction, to executive officer of a company with responsibility for a $4 million budget, to transportation officer for a battalion overseeing troop deployment to Afghanistan.

This part concludes with Todd describing his position as township trustee, chairman of the board of trustees, and police commissioner of the largest township in Medina County, with an annual budget of about $2.2 million. He is the only Democratic chair of a board of township trustees in the county. Voter registration in Medina Township runs about 3 to 1 in favor of Republicans. Nevertheless, he won his election as trustee handily, doubling the vote totals of the other candidates (four candidates competed for three seats). He attributes his success to hard work on the campaign trail and his reputation as a problem solver and a coalition builder.

Michael Todd, Part Two (6 min. 38 sec.)

In the second part Todd describes what motivated him to run for the Ohio Senate and describes the 22nd Ohio Senate District. He says that he considered running for office ranging from county treasurer to Congress, but decide that the Ohio Senate was the place he could best put his skill set and coalition-building ability to good use. The 22nd District is relatively conservative and rural. Todd is suited to the district because of his military background and the fact that he and his wife are devout and practicing Catholics. Also, the social issues that the Republicans have used as a wedge against Democrats "are a non-issue" with Todd, allowing him to focus on things that really matter to Ohioans like jobs, health care, and the economy. (Todd is pro-gun and has views consistent with the Democrats for Life, who are more concerned with reducing the number of abortions than trying to change the law to ban them.) He has the ability to raise campaign money from his network of military contacts and from friends and associates he has built up in Medina County. In addition, Medina County accounts for about half of the votes in the Ohio Senate District, and Todd is a county resident while Gibbs and Carmichael are not. In some parts of the district there are rural voters who are more open to Democratic candidates than they used to be, and there are a lot more independents in the district than people think. However, there are many voters who belong to fundamentalist groups and there are strong Amish and Mennonite communities as well.

Michael Todd, Part Three (4 min. 40 sec.)

In the last part of the interview, Todd identifies the themes of his campaign as education (an issue that has been dodged for too long), employment, economic development, making sure that workers are taken care of in their retirement, and health care for middle and lower income Ohioans. He also mentioned the "brain drain" and said that here needs to be an "incentive package" to keep young college graduates from leaving the state. Todd said he did not grow up with a role model as a legislator/politician, but that he shares similer views, message, and core beliefs with State Sen. John Boccieri (D-New Middletown), also a military man, who is running for Congress in the area.