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0000017a-3b40-d913-abfe-bf44a4f90000Howard Wilkinson joined the WVXU news team as the politics reporter and columnist in April 2012 , after 30 years of covering local, state and national politics for The Cincinnati Enquirer. On this page, you will find his weekly column, Politically Speaking; the Monday morning political chats with News Director Maryanne Zeleznik and other news coverage by Wilkinson. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Wilkinson has covered every Ohio gubernatorial race since 1974, as well as 16 presidential nominating conventions. Along with politics, Wilkinson also covered the 2001 Cincinnati race riots, the Lucasville prison riot in 1993, the Air Canada plane crash at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in 1983, and the 1997 Ohio River flooding. And, given his passion for baseball, you might even find some stories about the Cincinnati Reds here from time to time.

Will Rosenberger Investigation Rebound In Ohio Democrats' Favor This Fall?

Here's a truism in politics:

More often than not, one politician's ugly mess is another politician's dream come true.

Same goes for political parties. One political party spirals down the drain in scandal and another political party rises to the top. (See: "Watergate;" "Resignation;" "Richard Nixon.")

This business of Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger of Clinton County, a Republican, who originally announced he would resign May 1 and then Thursday saying he would resign immediately came after saying there is an FBI investigation into his activities and proclaiming that he is innocent of any wrong-doing.

Nobody is quite certain of the specifics of the FBI investigation; and the FBI, of course, never speaks publicly about on-going investigation.

Credit Andy Chow/Ohio Public Radio
House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger

But the Dayton Daily News, the Cincinnati Enquirer and some other Ohio newspapers have done some good reporting on this. Much of it had to do with trips overseas and around the U.S. that Rosenberg often didn't pay for, according to news reports.

Rosenberger, who is 36-years-old and can't run for re-election this year under Ohio's term limits law, told the Dayton Daily News he had hired a criminal defense lawyer as a precaution. The FBI, Rosenberger says, has been asking questions but hasn’t told him he is under investigation.

Nonetheless, last Tuesday, the same day the Enquirer published its account of the accusations against the speaker, he called a late night meeting of the GOP caucus and announced his resignation.

David Pepper, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party, said it was amazing how quickly Rosenberger quit once word got out that he was under investigation by the FBI.

"This guy stepped aside three days after it became public that he was being investigated,'' Pepper said. "In the meantime, you have this Missouri governor with the sex charges hanging on in office after all this time."

In Columbus, where the legislature and the administration are totally dominated by Republicans, "there has been a culture of pay to play for a long time; one party dominating government for far too long."

But even Pepper doesn't pretend to know what the political implications of the Rosenberger investigation will be.

"Before we start talking about the politics of this, let's get to the bottom of it,'' Pepper said. "What exactly happened? Who was involved?"

Could it be an investigation that peters out without expanding beyond Rosenberger and spreading through the GOP legislature?

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

And if it does spread and became a massive scandal that dominates the conversation throughout the rest of this election year, when Ohioans are electing a new governor and constitutional officers? Then what?

Do the Democrats rack up big wins in the statewide offices?

Is has happened before.

"We'll have to wait to see if this scandal has legs like the Crofters scandal in 1970 and Coingate in 2006,'' said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics and a native Ohioan. "It has potential." 

Crofters was the short-hand term for a scandal where the Republican state treasurer, John Herbert, had invested state money in improper investments with a big GOP campaign contributor.

Democrat John Gilligan of Cincinnati ended up beating Republican Roger Cloud for governor that year; and the Democrats also won the attorney general, auditor and treasurer races in 1970. 

Coingate was an investment scandal where the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation invested hundreds of millions of dollars in high-risk investments run by people who were close to the Ohio Republican Party.

Tom Noe, a GOP fundraiser and coin dealer, was one of them. He ended up with a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for engaging in a pattern of corruption in his management of Ohio's $50 million rare coin investment with the bureau.

After Coingate, the Democrats did very well indeed – Ted Strickland won the governor's office; Richard Cordray was elected state treasurer; Marc Dann was elected attorney general (and ended up resigning in a scandal of his own), and Jennifer Brunner was elected secretary of state.

Will "Cliffgate" -- or whatever this may end up being called r-- ebound in the Democrats' favor?

It bears watching very closely.

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.