A Web-Savvy Campaigner, Ohio Gov.-Elect John Kasich Is Not Too Keen on Transparency

In Ohio, Gov.-Elect John Kasich — a very web-savvy campaigner who used the Internet to communicate regularly with constituents while he was chasing a seat in the governor's mansion — has been embroiled in a fight over open government and transparency that may have consequences for other incoming governors around the country.

In late November, Cleveland.com observed that Kasich had repurposed a campaign website, FixOhioNow.com, to accept resumes from people seeking jobs in government — but, unlike former Gov. Ted Strickland, Kasich promised to keep confidential the information of job seekers who submitted their resumes. (Strickland released information on job applicants in full.) After open government advocates and a slew of media organizations fought Kasich on the move, he reversed course, promising to release the names and information of job seekers who applied for work in his administration over the Internet.

But he said he was just trying to protect the privacy of job applicants. Cleveland.com reported:

"Why have I felt strongly about this?" Kasich asked reporters. "Well, let me tell you why. When a person applies for another job, it doesn't make their current employer happy."

This appears to be part of a larger fight Kasich is having over appointments to government positions and concerning transparency rules. Last week, Kasich delivered a tirade against open-government laws and regulations that, he said, prevented him from hiring the best people for his administration.

Here's the Toledo Blade's retelling:

"I find myself tripping over the anthills on the way to the pyramids," a clearly agitated Mr. Kasich said. "We have so many stupid rules and regulations that prevent us from getting the best people to come in here. You just can't believe it.

"Now I blame it on all of you, all this transparency and conflicts and all this other stuff," he told reporters. "I just want to tell you, it is a problem to get quality people to come to work in the government. Our problems in government are bigger and the quality of people who want to come in is less."

"He made his comments," the Blade's Jim Provance observed, "after a reporter asked incoming Department of Public Safety Director Tom Charles whether he may have a conflict of interest because his wife and son are employed with the highway patrol."

A YouTube video of the event shows Charles standing in the background as Kasich delivers his remarks, then withdraws, Charles coming with him.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Kasich's staff ran a very tech-savvy campaign that delivered access and open conversation with his supporters, using UStream to live-stream events, regularly launching YouTube videos, and using two Twitter accounts — one for John Kasich's personal voice and another for the campaign's voice.

But tech-savvy campaign mode and tech-savvy government mode are understood to be two different things. Talk to campaigners and they'll tell you that technological savvy means using SMS, Twitter and YouTube for rapid response, making clever use of an email list to raise money and mobile to encourage people to take action wherever they are, whether that's making a donation or calling in to a radio show.

Experts in technology for governance are in a different mode entirely. Part of their world is managing openness and transparency, where government agencies and administrations regularly release machine-readable data on everything from state spending to nursing home inspections. That forms a framework for collaboration between developers and governments to build tools for citizens to stay informed and make better decisions — about who to elect, how to vote, and what stance to take on issues, but also about what train to take to work and where to eat. It also includes some careful management of expectations about data that developers — or newspapers — want but government is not willing to give.

Tech-savvy campaigning is about management of messaging and organizing. Tech-savvy government is about management of collaboration and openness. As incoming governors around the country switch modes, the growing friction between Kasich and transparency advocates could be an example of that dichotomy.

Maybe it's unsurprising that Kasich's campaign expertise is apparently not informing his approach to governance. While Think Progress and Daily Kos went after Kasich last month when this kerfuffle first began, Kasich's campaign itself republished an excerpt from the Cincinnati Enquirer's endorsement of him in which the Enquirer's editorial board noted that Kasich "can be thin on specifics and vague on issues such as government transparency."

So: Caveat emptor.

But Kasich isn't alone in an apparently decreasing interest in using technology as the campaigns become a distant memory. From a sampling of 23 governors who were just elected to office in November, for example, only 11 do their constituents the favor of asking them for ideas online (including Kasich), and only one — Rhode Island Gov.-Elect Lincoln Chafee, whose transition website only recently launched — uses a platform that allows people to see and rank other ideas as well as offering their own.

And some very slick online campaigners, like incoming Georgia governor Nathan Deal, have yet to launch their transition website. Visitors to Deal's campaign website see a splash page that includes the option to sign up for transition email updates and to apply for jobs in his incoming administration.

Like Deal and Kasich, many other governors — from Rick Scott, incoming Republican governor in Florida, to Mark Dayton, incoming Democratic governor of Minnesota — solicit job applications online. Scott says up-front that applications coming in online will become public information.

How this class of campaigners transforms into state executives will be a unique opportunity to watch 21st-century governance evolve around the country. Tips about these stories are always welcome.