Evan McMorris-Santoro June 23, 2010, 12:34 PM

Let this be a lesson to you: Hometowns are off-limits. Democrats in Ohio are having a field day today over comments made by a staffer on former Rep. John Kasich’s (R) gubernatorial campaign suggesting incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland (D) doesn’t know how to manage Ohio’s urban communities because he’s not from ‘round those parts.

Here’s the quote from Kasich spokesperson Rob Nichols, as reported in the Dayton Daily News:

“Not until Ted Strickland feared needing their votes did he give urban Ohioans a second thought. Having grown up in a chicken shack on Duck Run, he has all but ignored our cities’ economies and their workers. It’s a disgraceful record.”

You can imagine what Strickland — a former Representative from Appalachia — did with that one.

“Only the congressman from Wall Street would be so out of touch as to insult Ted’s humble upbringing,” Strickland spokesperson Lis Smith told the paper, taking the opportunity to restate the Strickland line of attack on Kasich’s past work on the staff of Lehman Brothers.

That was just the beginning, however. Today, DNC chair Tim Kaine — a former governor from a state with plenty of its own proud rural residents — is expected smack Kasich hard over the comments in a speech he’s scheduled to deliver to the City Club of Cleveland.

The Strickland campaign has its own plan to keep the story going. This afternoon, the campaign will host a conference call with rural Ohio politicians including Rep. Charlie Wilson (D) (the man who took over Strickland’s seat in Congress) who are expected to rake Kaisch over the coals for allowing his campaign to suggest that country people aren’t people, too.

The Strickland campaign is raising money off the remark already, too.

“Congressman Kasich’s disdain for those of modest means is sickening,” Strickland campaign manager Aaron Pickrell wrote in an email send to supporters today.

As we reported recently, the Strickland campaign says one of its keys to victory in November is the governor’s ability to play to rural voters. The Kasich campaign remark plays right into the Democrats’ hands on that score. At the very least, every little bit helps in a race remains that remains tight. The TPM Poll Average for the contest shows Strickland ahead by a margin of 45.6-42.7.

For his part, Nichols says he wasn’t trying to offend anyone. The comment “was not intended as an insult, but rather an attempt to ‘explain why Strickland has ignored our cities until he got nervous about his own political survival,’” Nichols told Politico this morning.

Late Update: Here’s video of Kaine trying to make a national mountain out of the chicken shack molehill in Cleveland (clipped by the Strickland camp):

OH-Gov