MANSFIELD – Democratic candidate for Ohio governor Richard Cordray talked small business and big problems during a visit to Idea Works on Friday in downtown Mansfield.
Cordray stopped in the Richland Source offices for a brief visit during a trip across northern Ohio, visiting both Idea Works and Main Street Books in downtown Mansfield.
“The ability to reinvent a community more intentionally and more consciously is very hard,” Cordray said of Idea Works. “Bringing people together to do that gives you a better chance than a whole bunch of people in isolation trying to do it on their own.”
Cordray officially announced his candidacy for governor at a news conference in his hometown of Grove City on Dec. 5. He faces five other Democratic candidates for governor in the May 8, 2018 primary election, including Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bill O’Neill, former State Rep. Connie Pillich, State Sen. Joseph Schiavoni, former U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton, and Dayton mayor Nan Whaley.
The Democrat elected on May 8 will face off against one of three Republican candidates currently in the race, including Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, Attorney General Mike DeWine, and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci. The general election to choose Ohio’s next governor is Nov. 6, 2018.
Cordray has spent the last five years working at the national level; in 2012, he was appointed to the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices. He stepped down as the head of the Bureau in mid-November, but draws from that experience to relate to small businesses.
“When we were putting together the Consumer Bureau from scratch, we had 50 employees,” Cordray said. “My experience was not recruiting and hiring people, my experience was pursing the big banks to get money back for people, but that’s what we had to do for six months.
“You have to get through the nuts and bolts before you can actually operate a business effectively.”
It is these challenges that Cordray says co-working spaces like Idea Works can hep alleviate, through networking and collaboration in the same workspace.
“This is a very helpful thing for so many businesses that start out in isolation, and many of them sink because they’re not getting the energy, support and even the morale-boost of being around other businesses and seeing people make progress,” he said.
This is not Cordray’s first foray into statewide elections in Ohio. In 2006 he was elected state treasurer, and in 2008 won a special election for attorney general after the resignation of Marc Dann, who was involved in a sex scandal. Cordray lost his second bid for attorney general in 2010 to DeWine.
These experiences, Cordray said, make him finely tuned to the problems facing the state of Ohio, including revitalizing the economy and facing the growing opioid crisis. As Ohio’s attorney general, he brought together a task force spanning state officials to private sector individuals to fight the foreclosure crisis that cost thousands of Ohioans their homes.
“I think we could bring the same approach to the opioid crisis,” Cordray said. “It’s a very significant issue affecting the state economically, and obviously it’s killing people as well and tearing up families. It may take time, and it’s going to take a joint and inclusive approach.”
Cordray noted the opioid crisis extends into Ohio’s economic problems, stating that drug testing causes many people not to be eligible for employment. Bridging the skills gap, he said, is another factor in revitalizing the economy in the Rust Belt region.
“There are a lot of people who would like to work and a lot of jobs that are unfilled, and the match-up of skills is not there,” Cordray said. “I think that is all of our faults, and it’s going to require state government working with school districts, vocational schools, community colleges and all the places that make training available.
“I think looking at our educational system, how can we match that up so people come out of school job-ready.”
