ABSTRACT
As a lifelong Republican with many years in elected public office, I like to think that I can give a decent speech and that I am a skilled political strategist, but my political reputation was built on attributes often viewed as less exciting: good judgment, honesty (sometimes to a fault), and capable public management. As a lawyer, I cared most about fair resolution and justice. As an elected public official, my goal was to be innovative, to increase productivity while cutting costs, and, in targeted objectives, to bring transformational improvement. While these things rarely, if ever, get media attention, I received fair treatment by Ohio’s press most of the time and won nearly all newspaper endorsements in my fifteen elections-although the word “wonkish” occasionally reared its ugly head.
