Ed FitzGerald City Club.JPG

Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald may have a future in pizza delivery if his campaign for governor doesn't work out.

(John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Political theater has its cheesy moments.

Observe: Tuesday afternoon, as Statehouse watchers waited for Gov. John Kasich's administration to introduce a mid-budget policy agenda, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald's campaign for governor had pizzas delivered to reporters across the state.

Here's the explanatory email from FitzGerald press secretary Lauren Hitt:

Food for thought,

Kasich, a Republican, is proposing more income-tax cuts with his mid-biennium budget review, or MBR. FitzGerald, his probable Democratic challenger in the fall, has used the weeks of anticipation to argue that Kasich's policies are designed to benefit the wealthy.

Ohio GOP spokesman Chris Schrimpf responded Tuesday on Kasich's behalf.

"While Ed FitzGerald presides over the highest taxed county in the state, John Kasich has cut taxes by net of over $3 billion and it's helped to create more than 238,000 private sector jobs since he took office," Schrimpf said in an email. "With Gov. Kasich's plan enacted, a single mom making $30,000 per year would get more than $350 in tax relief every year compared to what she paid when Gov. Kasich took office.

"I don't know where Ed FitzGerald buys pizza," Schrimpf added, "but it sounds like his love of big and expensive government budgets extends to his pizza budget as well."

So is the pizza stunt designed to give the Republicans heartburn?

Donatos, indeed, delivered a medium, plain-cheese pie to the Northeast Ohio Media Group's Columbus bureau about 1 p.m. (On Twitter, a political reporter for the News-Herald in Lake County also reported receiving a pizza.)

But reporters aren't allowed to accept freebies. Ethics being ethics, there's a lot of pizza going to waste around Ohio.

Said Hitt: "Enjoy the symbolism then."

FitzGerald, by the way, released a real statement shortly after Kasich's MBR landed.

"As governor, I will focus on growing our economy from the middle out, rather than top-down," the former Lakewood mayor said. "One of my first actions will be to reinstate the Homestead Exemption. Ohio's seniors and most vulnerable should not have to pay for John Kasich's giveaways to the very well off."

You can read more NEOMG coverage of the MBR here.

Sam Howard, a fellow in Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, contributed to this post.