Since Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine took the podium Feb. 27 at Cleveland’s Metro Health facility and stressed urgency in outlining the state’s plan to fight the spread of the coronavirus, he says he has approached this crisis with a balanced responsibility. His goals are to protect and secure Ohioans, along with providing them as much detailed information as possible.
DeWine says he has struggled with some of the choices he has made along the way. Many observers may assume his biggest internal struggle involved the question of whether to postpone the state’s primary elections, which were originally scheduled for March 17. Instead, he says the biggest struggle was really the first major event closure he called before anyone in the state had officially tested positive for the virus.
“I think the first big decision that we struggled with was to close the Arnold Classic in Columbus,” he said of the wildly popular bodybuilding expo. “And I think it was particularly difficult because no one else was closing anything.”
The organizers agreed to cancel the typically well-attended expo if the sporting event was allowed to go on without spectators. Only the Saturday night main event was allowed to be held.
“Now I look back at that decision and think: That was a no brainer,” he said. “I don’t know why we were struggling with that.”
From his home in Cedarville, Ohio, the 70th governor of Ohio, a Republican who has served in government for more than 40 years as a county prosecutor, state senator, state attorney general, lieutenant governor, and member of both the U.S. House and Senate, spoke to the Washington Examiner of the challenges all state executives face in this crisis.
DeWine: People look to the governor to lead when you have a crisis like this. This is something that, in particular, is the responsibility of the governor. I always said that the period following my election, and selecting officers, was probably the most important of my whole time because I would be picking my Cabinet.
I had a belief that the public health across the board, in Ohio as well as across the country, was very important. So I wanted to make sure I had a director of health who, preferably, was a medical doctor: someone who had significant health experience, who had a passion for the job — but also someone who was a good communicator because I felt that their using the bully pulpit of the office to talk to the public about health issues was very, very important, almost like a surgeon general.
I picked Dr. Amy Acton, who really fits all that criteria. Of course, I had no idea that we were facing the crisis that we are facing. So having her there has made a huge, huge difference. She’s someone I can rely on, someone I trust. We also put together a group of 14 doctors around the state. We talked to on phone calls. We’ve also reached out to other experts who Dr. Acton knows around the country.
Washington Examiner: Because you have the Cleveland Clinic located in your state, is that a health organization that you have utilized for their expertise?
DeWine: We’re very deep in Ohio with talent in our hospitals. We have the Cleveland Clinic, which is world-renowned. You also have the U.H. — University Hospitals — phenomenal children’s hospitals, the University of Cincinnati Hospital, and we have relied on all of them.
Washington Examiner: What has your approach been on how you manage something no one has managed before?
DeWine: As I look back on my career, the mistakes I’ve made, where I didn’t have enough facts, I didn’t drill down deep enough. I didn’t ask enough questions. I didn’t ask the right questions. I didn’t ask the right people. So our approach is to make sure we do all of those things because I have to get all the facts for every decision that we’re going to make.
It’s also been my experience that when I didn’t trust my instinct, my gut, I might’ve been in the minority — but I didn’t trust that and looked the other way? That was a mistake. So getting the facts and kind of trusting my instincts.
Washington Examiner: So what have your instincts been on this?
DeWine: My instinct has been, throughout this, that we just need to keep moving fast, and that’s certainly been formed by what the experts have told us. So that kind of process. I’m also surrounded by some other key people who have been with me for years.
So having a core group of people that I trust has been very important. Also, I’m very fortunate to have a great lieutenant governor [Jon Husted], who plays a major role in decision-making but also is taking on certain projects in areas where I just simply don’t have the time to do it. So having good people around me is obviously very, very, very important.
Washington Examiner: Does having good people around you include people that say, “Hey, we better not do this,” or, “Hey, that’s not a great idea?” And maybe either push you forward or hold you back based on their expertise?
DeWine: Absolutely. You’ve got to have people who are willing to tell you they think it’s a bad idea. You have to have those “no” people in the room at all times. I’ve always encouraged that. I also have my wife, who I have been married to for 52 years. She’s been through every campaign and through every major decision. I came home the other night, and she said, “Okay, you’re recommending that companies take temperatures of every employee. The only problem is you can’t find these thermometers anymore. You know? You can’t buy them.”
So it’s that kind of grounding me into the real world, so I can always count on Fran to push back when she thinks I’m going off the wrong way. So that’s very, very important — having those kind of people who are willing to say, “Hey, you know, you’re wrong about this.” And that’s helpful. It’s very, very important.
Washington Examiner: What about the decision to postpone the primary? First, you recommended, then a judge rules you cannot do that, and then you make the decision that it needs to be done anyway?
DeWine: That was not an easy decision. That’s a huge thing to do. And yeah, we had a couple of things coming together — 35,000 poll workers, many of them older people who would have been exposed to voters coming through the lines for 13 hours. Conversely, you have all the CDC — right before I made the decision — say, “Hey, we’re going to reduce this number of people you can have in a group.”
We certainly couldn’t run an election and guarantee you have less than 50 people in a room. The other thing that I found is that we were really sending different signals. We were telling people to stay home, and we were telling them to go vote, which made no sense at all. So it was a public health issue.
We thought we had a good solution to go to the court. We had a judge that did not agree with us, and I then did what I had to do with our director’s help, Dr. Acton, and that was to close the polls for health reasons. So the way we look at this election, it’s just been extended. People have already voted, and those votes count. They’re going to have more opportunities through absentee ballots as we move forward.
Washington Examiner: What do you think about the criticisms you’ve faced over that?
DeWine: Well, I think, look: Anytime you take action, you risk criticism, but this is a crisis of monumental proportions. We’ve not seen a crisis like this in 110 years. So you just cannot worry about the criticism. I mean, I got a lot of criticism, particularly criticism from candidates who were running — and I’ve run for office for 40 years, so I understand how they feel. We’re asking a lot of people to make sacrifices, and it just made no sense to conduct these elections. And when we had a viable alternative that would allow people an even better opportunity to vote. So it’s not like we’re shutting people off. It’s not about the right to vote. They certainly have the right to vote, and we’re going to give them an even better opportunity.
If we would’ve gone through with this election, it was too late for them to get an absentee ballot. They were beyond that time. So they either had to go to the polls and vote and risk their health or not vote.
Washington Examiner: Let’s talk a little bit about your mayors. I’ve been out there interviewing a lot of them. I was in East Liverpool and Youngstown and Warren, and these men and women are on the front lines of this trying to protect their communities.
DeWine: They truly have been a partner. They are on the front line along with their health departments. We have 113 health departments, with 88 counties with health departments — we have cities that have their own health departments. So they all are on the front line. I’ve consulted a lot with the mayors. They give me some really great feedback.
Some of them indicated to me, for example, that people were still congregating in bars, and that’s why we shut the bars down once we got that information. Almost every day, I get something from a mayor who tells me, “Hey, we got this problem.” For me to close up statewide, it makes a lot of sense, as opposed to having the mayors having to do it city by city by city.
It has been a great, great partnership, and they have been very, very helpful — and that communication is going to continue.
Washington Examiner: Are you going to continue to give daily press conferences from your home?
DeWine: Yes. This has worked out very well. We do it at 2:00. It’s now carried live by public TV, over the radio.
It’s an opportunity to communicate directly with people. Fran was on there the other day, and the one thing she’s been promoting long before this is the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. Free books to kids from 0 to 5 in the mail.
She was talking about some of the things you could do with kids when everybody is home together, and she encouraged people to sign up for it. During the time of our press conference, there was about 1,000 additional families that signed up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library.
Every day is a different day. We’ve got to stay on top of it.
