The latest Ohio Poll, performed by the University of Cincinnati and released last week, showed Clinton's name recognition rising among Ohioans. So for Strickland, who also enjoys high job performance ratings, to have come out this early in endorsing Clinton, speculation of a potential wedding between their campaign camps was fueled even more.  

But in a subdued yet sincere manner, Strickland reiterated again what he's said in the past about his desire to run as vice president:  

"I have no interest at all in the vice presidency."

Strickland, a poor boy born and raised in Appalachia Ohio who earned a PhD in psychology and is a moderate on social issues, said he had long admired the New York senator and thought that her message would resonate well with Ohioans. Returning the compliment, Clinton, who spoke to Strickland via phone with reporters present, said she too has the highest admiration for him as a "man of incredible integrity and commitment to serving others" who she said has "restored integrity and accountability to state government."

But while flattery is the common currency of politicians' friend with each other, Clinton did not make any offer to Strickland for a seat on her train to the White House.

WILL PAYDAY REFORM WILL BE PAYDAY FOR LENDERS OR BORROWERS

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. Lord Polonius' advice to his son Laertes, Act 1, Scene 3, Shakespeare's Hamlet

Ohio payday lenders don't seem much concerned with loosing friends, just as long as they can continue to make loans to borrowers in need of a quick cash fix at the stratospheric rate of 391 percent. Borrowers who are more eager than ever to "dull the edge of their husbandry," as Lord Polonius virtuously waxed on about, by entering into a cycle of borrowing that they can't seem to get out of, may have a trap-door out of their loan-trap opened for them if rates closer to terra firma become the law of the state.

Pointing in a general direction but without specifically pinning the tail on the donkey, Strickland said he wants interest rates reduced.

"The governor is interested in reforms that will protect people, especially those who already have the odds stacked against them, from exploitation." Keith Dailey, Strickland's chief communication bodyguard, from The Columbus Dispatch (TCD)

The industry-friendly bill - HB 337 -- would allow payday lenders, whose storefronts now number about 1,600 or more than the combined total of Ohio-based outlets for McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger, would permit lenders to still impose an effective rate of 391 percent on a two-week loan, or about $15 in interest on a $100 loan. This up-capped rate feature of the bill is the primary culprit of concern for industry critics who want to drastically cap the rate much lower. But in a typical response by large businesses to any talk of regulation, payday-industry lobbyists say such a drastic reduction in lending rates would put them out of business.

Of the two competing bills, HB 333,  sponsored by Republican Bill Batchelder of Medina -- who some say could become House Speaker should his party retain its majority status after next year's General Election -- enjoys the most support from other House Democrats and social, economic and community advocates.

IS CLYDE CLUELESS TO WHY HIS CONSTITUENTS BORROW?

You would think that a House member whose district comprises a number of the poorest counties in the state, including Vinton and Jackson, would be a strong advocate for Batchelder's bill, but that's not the case with Rep. Clyde Evans, the vice chair of the committee hearing the bills. Evans, a seemingly well-educated man (he holds a PhD from the University of Southern Mississippi), is siding with the pablum of payday lenders that their sky will fall if they count gouge borrowers anymore over the common sense fairness his constituents deserve. His constituents are not the affluent plutocrats who roam the marbled hallways of the Ohio Statehouse, but the salt of the earth whose hardscrabble lives are made harder by a paucity of jobs, especially well-paying one, and the stratospheric rates payday predators are allowed to charge.

Evans believes that saddling payday lenders with interest-rate caps of 36 percent, which by most standards is still incredibly high, will kill it as it currently exists.

"What is your alternative if somebody needs a quick hundred bucks?" Evans said. "I've talked to members of various segments of the banking industry and they're not interested in getting into this business." TCD

Evans didn't seem at all concerned about putting the kibosh on an industry that could severally wound or kill it when he voted to support SB 16, whose formal name is the "Defense of Community Act" but whose popular name is the "stripper bill." Evans wasn't the least bit concerned about diminishing the incomes of adult entertainment dancers and club employees or of putting an industry that contributes about $250 million into state coffers.

But now he's only concerned about the welfare of an industry that over recent years has grown like Topsy. Evans even chided his paycheck-to-paycheck constituents for not exercising more personal responsibility.

"What is your alternative if somebody needs a quick hundred bucks?" Evans said. "I've talked to members of various segments of the banking industry and they're not interested in getting into this business.

"In many cases, they don't know how to handle a dollar and they bring it on themselves," he said. "Legislation can only solve so many problems."

If Evens can't see for himself the dour economic conditions that confront the 87th District when he returns to it, then maybe Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times will help understand that when the wolf is at the door, as it is in in most parts of southern Ohio, inviting it in for dinner is not wise.

The housing meltdown is getting the attention, but there’s so much more. Bankruptcies and homelessness are on the rise. The job market has been weak for years. The auto industry is in trouble. The cost of food, gasoline and home heating oil are soaring at a time when millions of Americans are managing to make it from one month to another solely by the grace of their credit cards.

The country has been in denial for years about the economic reality facing American families. That grim reality has been masked by the flimflammery of official statistics (job growth good, inflation low) and the muscular magic of the American way of debt: mortgages on top of mortgages, pyramiding student loans and an opiate-like addiction to credit cards at rates that used to get people locked up for loan-sharking. NYT

Built into the industry bill is the creation of a financial literacy education fund financed by the industry itself and created in the office of state treasurer that will be run by the department of commerce to support various adult financial literacy education programs of its making and disseminated at public community colleges in Ohio.

The funding for literacy education effort not unlike the call center of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, which receives its money from Ohio utility companies. But this effort seems more akin to the tried and true practice of big developers giving a handful of acres away for park space in exchange for zoning favorable to their project. The fist full of dollars this fund will cost payday lenders is a small price to pay for still being allowed to have the sky as the limit on their interest rates.

John Michael Spinelli is a former Ohio Statehouse government and political reporter and business columnist. He now serves as the OhioNews Bureau Chief for ePluribus Media Journal.

If ePluribus Media readers have a news tip or story idea about Ohio politics or government, contact the OhioNews Bureau at: ohionews@www.epluribusmedia.org