Ohio Megathread

[LeBron]

New fundraising reports were released for the month of September. All Republicans outraised the Democrats which will be good for them going into the ad blitz of October. Kasich ended up outraising FitzGerald 28 to 1 with an embarrassing cash showing by Fitzy, raising less than all down-ballot Democrats.

At the top of the ticket, Kasich raised $1.5M while FitzGerald only raised $55K. Kasich has a $14M war chest on hand and FitzGerald has $2.6M on hand. Down-ballot Democrats all did better in fundraising in FitzGerald, to be expected, though the state party unwisely shifted a lot of their resources to David Pepper, who will lose by a similar margin to FitzGerald. Ever since Kasich screwed Ed over, FitzGerald is staying off the air while Kasich's been up with 4 ads since August: RGA's "Shady" which attacks Ed over the license non-issue, "He Listened" which was Kasich's attempt to get people to forgive him for his "idiot" comment, "Ohio is Coming Back" which directly lies about our state's unemployment rate and makes the false claim that Kasich didn't raise taxes, and "Johnny's Story" which notably features a black Republican supporting Kasich. Kasich will end up winning by a Portman-like margin at this point, as much as it pains me to say that.

DeWine and Pepper both raised a little over $300K with DeWine's cash balance at $3.9M to Pepper's $2.4M. A lot of Pepper's help is for whatever reason coming from the state Democratic Party, even though Pepper stands zero chance of defeating DeWine. Pepper's a good candidate, don't get me wrong, but DeWine's too strong to defeat. In the ad war, Pepper and DeWine are each up with one ad a piece. Pepper's "Sidestep" which hits DeWine effectively on his pay-to-play politics and DeWine's ad, "Daughters" which like Mandel's ad, includes his family praising him, and mentions nothing in defense of his 4 years as Attorney General.

In the winnable Treasurer race, Mandel outraised Pillich by a quarter of a million, 545K to 290K. Mandel has $4M in cash on hand to Pillich's $2.3M. Like DeWine, Mandel also received a $100K donation from the Ohio GOP, but the ODP gave only $45K to Pillich, which is less than what they gave to Pepper. The logic there is horrifying. Pillich is airing an ad stressing her military career and bipartisan accomplishments, "Our Mom" while Mandel is trying to save his "Bright Future" by telling everyone he has a daughter. Pillich obviously needs to go on the offensive in her next ad, because I mean come on, it's Josh Mandel. He should be easy scrappings.

Secretary of State numbers had Husted outraising Turner by $100,000; raising $300K to her $200K. Husted still has a sizable cash advantage, leading Turner $3.5M to her $1M cash total. The FOP, who endorsed only Husted among all statewide exec. incumbents running this year, gave a 4K contribution to his campaign, while Turner got $12K from iVote PAC and a pathetic $10K from the state party. It's a shame the state party doesn't want to spend here when Turner's been running a strong campaign and is neck and neck with him in the polls. Plus winning back the Secretary of State office would mean a lot for 2016 and keep someone at the center of protecting voting rights. For the ads, Husted's out with an ad, "Vote While Serving" and states how he made it easier for military voters to cast their ballots. What the ad left out was back in 2012, Husted attempted to restrict weekend voting for everyone but military personnel, so yeah, no wonder he's relying on the military for this ad. Turner's not out with any ads yet (a lot of that is contributed to her low funds), but she's stated she does plan to go on the air and in the meantime, will continue her GOTV rallies in the big cities.

Yost raised about 80K more than Carney; raising 220K to his 140K. Overall cash balances remains competitive; Yost holds $1.6M to Carney's $1.2M. Carney got 15K from the state party and quite a bit of help from the unions. If you ask me though, Carney is starting to blow this race; he wasted TV time on an ad attacking Yost over a false claim regarding the purchase of coffee, and he's starting to come off as this partisan hero in his weak attacks against Yost. Carney's first ad was "Umpire", a great ad imo, but Carney's "Coffee" ad was a flop; some stations are voluntarily dropping the ad for being completely misleading in regards to who paid for the coffee. Yost has also been airing 2 ads, one in the Columbus media market, "Yo Yost!" which is the better of his two ads imo and establishes the fact that he fought Kasich on JobsOhio without actually stating that directly. "Music to my Ears" is airing around Cleveland, and the ad basically states everything his other ad did, but this ad is more annoying to listen to.

[LeBron]

At the top of the ticket, Kasich raised $1.5M while FitzGerald only raised $55K.

#FitzMentum

But seriously, why is the RGA spending money here? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy they're blowing it, but it seems rather incompetent.

Well Christie campaigned with Kasich and Portman last week (at the onset of the Supreme Court screwing us over and siding with the Ohio GOP on cutting a week of early voting), and he pretty much stated why he's spending $ here. Kasich has always been very great friends with Christie which he publicly acknowledged and Christie wants Kasich to win by as large of a margin as possible; aware that he'll win re-election for sure.

A better margin of victory for Kasich in a politically divided state like Ohio could set Kasich up to be a strong pick for VP (and let's face it, both of them are interested in the Presidency/Vice Presidency). Then there's also the fact that Christie helping out popular Governors like Walker and Kasich satisfies national, wealthy donors like Sheldon Adelson who Christie (or Kasich or Walker) would need if they run for President.

Though it is worth mentioning, although Christie did help campaign for Kasich, the RGA hasn't aired any ads in Ohio since very shortly after FitzGerald's campaign implosion in early August. They realize Kasich's safe and are focusing on saving the likes of Brownback and LePage for the most part.

[LeBron]

We have a few sore losers in the general election race for Cuyahoga County Executive to replace Ed FitzGerald. Cuyahoga County Councilman Jack Schron won the GOP Primary unopposed on May 6th, but the Democratic primary was packed. State Sen. Shirley Smith, former North Olmsted Mayor Tom O'Grady, and former County Sheriff Bob Reid, all Democrats who lost to Budish in the primary, have endorsed Budish's Republican challenger, Schron. Our former Lakewood Mayor, Tom George who was primaried by FitzGerald in 2006 also betrayed our party and endorsed Schron.

Smith, who lost to Budish in the primary in a 56-20 landslide, is upset that the ODP establishment didn't back her and is helping campaign for Schron, the same guy who backed Senate Bill 5 and voted against a council measure to extend county benefits to partners of SSM couples.

And the odd thing is, while Budish has been running very positive ads about growing up in Cleveland and his new great plans he has for our county, Schron is busy fundraising with partisan statewide figures like Kasich and Voinovich and airing ads which attack Budish on some of the lowest levels including an ad that calls Budish a "partisan politician" while showing a cameo of Budish shaking hands with FitzGerald. Schron's ad is called "Jack Means Jobs" where he gets Voinovich to state that he's a "proven job creator" even though the Cuyahoga County Executive position isn't prioritized around creating jobs and even if it was, campaigning with John Kasich of all people is not reassuring if Schron's going to cite that talking point. Ohio under Kasich lost more jobs than any other state this past July with people leaving the labor force in bigger numbers than usual, so I would love it if Schron could explain this one to our counties voters. The CC Exec's main job is to work with the Council to sign off/line-item veto legislation that establish county budgets, establish bonds for plans like demolishing abandoned homes in the county, extending our various types of taxes (sin tax, bed tax, hotel tax etc.), and helping pass through legislation that for example establishes and funds the college savings program, the prescription drug drop-box program or the Public Policy Fellowship program. He also has appointment power of prosecutor, treasurer, commissions and other county personnel, coordinates with local governments on improving social services for our parks, libraries, schools, prisons, roads etc, and is a public authority figure especially now with the Ebola crisis that came to the county. So maybe Schron should educate himself on what the position actually does before running for it.

It's worth noting to that Budish has pledged to serve out a full term as CC Exec. if elected which means primarily he's just vowed not to run for Senate in 2016. On the other hand, we have Jack Schron who's in the middle of his elected term on Council, and is running for another office in the middle of it. Remind you of anyone, like say, Josh Mandel? Schron and Budish would both use the office as a stepping stone, no doubt but if Schron runs for a higher office in the middle of his council term, then you can't really trust him that he'll stay a full term as CC Exec. without running for something else midway.

And most of all, we need a leader as CC Executive. Sure, Schron's touting his experience as a company executive and his successful manufacturing plant business, but Budish also has as much, if not more experience then him. He's a former Ohio House Speaker, leading 98 other colleagues and he was responsible for making a lot of very tough decisions in those 2 years. We need a leader willing to stand up to our politically-opposed state government when necessary, to. In Kasich's budgets, he's cut local government funding and just recently, Exec. FitzGerald and the County Council took decisive action to defy the state government and protect our voting rights and after the state legislature attempted to cut state funding to Cuyahoga County as a result, FitzGerald again took action and called on the federal government to address the issue. Budish would have done the same thing if he was in FitzGerald's position, while Schron has previously stated and voted for sitting back and letting Kasich disfranchise the voters of Cuyahoga County. That's not a leader.

It would obviously take a miracle for Schron to pull this off since Democrats have a 3 to 1 registration advantage here, but just in case, I'm more focused on holding onto control of our county government than I am about Treasurer or Secretary of State anymore which are becoming more and more of a lost cause. A Schron win would be horrifying. He's by no means a moderate; he's proven to be a partisan, conservative warrior for the GOP, and he would try and bypass our Democratic-controlled County Council at any given moment through appointments and be the ceremonial veto king.

These last 2 weeks I'm devoting mainly to Budish. I won't donate anything because luckily Budish has the money to keep airing ads in these final few weeks while Schron's very low on cash, but Budish still needs all the GOTV he can get.

[LeBron]

TL;DR version of that: democrats may now lose the Cuyahoga County Executive race.

LoL.

No we won't, Adam's more or less right about the big picture with the Cuyahoga County Executive race; these are just sore losers and Smith was never held in particularly high regard despite being a State Senator.  Even FitzGerald will win Cuyahoga and Armond Budish (our nominee) is a strong candidate (he's got statewide potential, although I think he'd do much better running for state-level office than for Senate; he's not the right type to run against Portman).  

@ Adam: Told you not to back Smith in primary (although in fairness, I believe you later came around and switched to Budish, IIRC).

Sore losers now and sore losers back then. Smith and Reid just embarrassed themselves in that primary. They chose to cry wolf pre-primary and accused party leaders of secretly favoring Budish the whole time, even before the endorsement.

As for my primary vote for Cuyahoga County Executive, I thankfully did vote for Budish and boy am I glad I did that. I voted in-person at my local polling place on May 6th, and just a week after that, Smith voted with Kasich to freeze the required renewable energy standards. She's so desperate for a job after her Senate term ends that there's big rumors she's trying to get a job working for Kasich's administration. I don't regret my vote for Budish one bit.

Adam Fitzgerald, how do you feel about the fact that nearly every state has a competitive governor's race this year except for Ohio? How strange is that?

It's really sad. The race to defeat Kasich should have been on the same level as Wisconsin, not freaking Wyoming.

[LeBron]

FitzGerald is out with some new campaign banners for the election which focus on something called issues that Ohioans care most about. Kasich should maybe read up on that, because speaking as an Ohio voter myself, I don't care about a fake affair or a driver's license. Those aren't issues, and it doesn't change my view on Ed one bit that he's much more qualified than Kasich to be running the Governor's office. Ohio voters didn't get a fair opportunity this year to vote over the issues because he decided to play political games with a man's personal life.

I care about having the same equal rights that other Ohioans have, making a living wage in Ohio, and having a leader who's actually willing to give a damn about our education system and funding schools that can be successful; not ones that can't make it on their own. We need a leader who supports progressive, not regressive tax rates and not a leader who gives us higher sales taxes than lies to everybody that he didn't raise our taxes at all, and oh yeah, having a leader who's not trying to disenfranchise me and other minorities would be nice.

[LeBron]

Turnout will be depressing, is my main prediction.

You've changed your initial stance I take it?

No? Ed's changed his view on it, but I haven't. Those banners I posted were all created by Ed's campaign.

Yep you're right CrabCake, turnout will be pathetic. Like Ed told us last night though, as canvassers, it's our responsibility to GOTV and remind locals where Ed stands and where the Ohio Republican Party stands on our rights: (properly funding public education, expanding worker's/union rights, protecting civil rights).

Democrats planning to vote for Kasich need to know just how extreme he is. Contradictory to his campaign slogan, he doesn't work for Ohio. If we had 2 million votes and a completely unified base, then Ed could help move Ohio forward for 4-8 years, but that's where we fall short. For these next 4 days though, the best we can do is remind people to send in their filled out absentee ballots and getting as many voters as possible out of the precincts in Democratic stronghold Lakewood. The better we do that, the stronger the message Cuyahoga County sends Kasich, Schron and the others that we don't approve of them and their policies, and that Ohio definitely deserves better.

The other problem we have is down-ballot drop-off; which is hurting OSC candidate John O'Donnell and Common Pleas candidate Shannon Gallagher in their competitive races. We're not given the right to know the party ID of our judicial candidates on the ballot, and that ultimately helps Kasich's Republican judges.

[LeBron]

I see there's a lot asking how the heck Fitzy won two counties in Southeast Ohio; one of which is R-favored. Well, Athens County is usually reliably Democratic and last night that was the case. It's home to Ohio University and there's plenty of young and Democratic voters there. As for Monroe County, it was Obama '08, Romney '12, but let me tell you, Monroe can't stand Kasich especially along the eastern banks by the Ohio River. It's home to the city of Hannibal which was the site of the shutdown of the Ormet aluminum manufacturing plant that lost over 1,000 jobs. They filed for bankruptcy protection and tried to make a deal to cut electricity expenditures, but Kasich's buddies over at the AEP said no. Kasich refused to intervene on behalf of the union workers and refused to even visit Hannibal.

Fitzy unfortunately collapsed in a massive landslide, losing 64-33 but some of that can be contributed to the very unexpected GOP wave we witnessed. Most of it though is attributed to Fitzy's campaign implosion courtesy of John Kasich, Kasich's war chest he spent on ads all throughout the year, and all those crossover votes he got and managing to somehow stay away from the media during this controversial campaign.

I'm kind of shocked as much as the next person that Kasich won Ed's home territory of Cuyahoga, as well as Lucas, Summit and a few others. But what can I say? Kasich knowing since August he would be re-elected, unleashed a strong GOTV among R's, I's and D's up here in the North. Ed's also pretty hated up here for penalizing his employees for not having a license when Ed himself didn't have one. You hear that a lot from angry voters. There's also the fact to that Fitzy had trouble garnering black support, and the historical black newspaper, Cleveland's Call & Post, endorsed Kasich last month. I'm still just really shocked Kasich pulled it out up here. He launched a few ads in the final few months that targeted his recruit of women, African American and other minority voters. Our county has saw a decline of Democratic voters, but we still have a 3 to 1 registration advantage. He lost Summit (Akron), Mahoning (Youngstown), Lorain (Elyria), and even Neuhardt's turf of Montgomery County (Dayton) by huge margins as well. We lost a weak of early voting so that hurt minority turnout, but it was also a dull election, no turnout, and plenty of defectors to Kasich.

As for the other statewide races, the Ohio GOP won big. DeWine (R) 62% - Pepper (D) 38% in the Attorney General race, Yost (R) 57% - Carney (D) 38% in the Auditor race, Husted (R) 60% - Turner (D) 35%, and Mandel (R) 57% - Pillich (D) 43%. On the OSC, Kennedy obviously won in a landslide, but Justice French (R) managed to pull out a 56-44 victory over O'Donnell (D), which leaves the OSC at 6-1 Republican.

What this means for 2018 though may not be good for the Ohio GOP. With their hold on power and increase of power in the legislature, they don't even need Kasich now to pass their right-to-work, voter ID etc. radical agenda. Heck, with Kasich not having to worry about re-election anymore and his 2016 dreams falling away with the re-election of Scott Walker, Kasich can do whatever he wants with Ohio and his conservative agenda and not get penalized for it by the voters. This also means there will likely be a competitive GOP primary for Governor between frontrunner Secy. of State Jon Husted and possibly Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor come 2018 with a lot at stake that year on who controls the next redistricting process.

Meanwhile, for our state Dem Party, this will allow us to at least reorganize our party from what went wrong this year, and build-up and recruit big rising stars like Nan Whaley and Armond Budish. Unlike the FL Democratic Party, I still have faith our state party can recuperate but it will take a lot of time and effort to do it. I'm all for Sherrod Brown leading us on the right path these next few years.

[LeBron]

There's several frontrunners to replace Redfern as ODP Chair a month from now. Dennis Wojtanowski was originally supposed to be set in stone as the Sherrod Brown-endorsed candidate, but Wojtanowski dropped out of the running after it was revealed he's donated money to Republicans in the past.

So as it stands, here's the top frontrunners and other "potential" replacements for Redfern:

David Pepper - Former Hamilton County Commissioner, 2014 Democratic nominee for Attorney General. He's expressed interest and he's popular intra-party. I really wouldn't mind him being the chair. He's a great fundraiser, even outraising DeWine a number of times, and he ran a vigorous and aggressive campaign against him. The main issue with him though is his controversial association with Todd Portune, but otherwise besides that, he's got a great shot.

Janet Carson - President of the Ohio Democratic County Chairs Association and Chairwoman of the Geauga County Democratic Party. Party leaders are trying to recruit her and she's considering it. I don't know a lot about her, but Geauga County is a blood red county for the GOP, so her as chair could really help us continue Chris Redfern's tradition of expanding the map for Democratic pickups all around the state.

John Haseley - Strickland's former chief of staff. He also worked on Strickland's 2010 re-election campaign as his senior adviser and in 2006 as campaign director. Overall, pretty bland as you could guess and very little name ID. The one benefit of him though if he does become chair is he could possibly influence a Strickland Senate 2016 run. He could also carry over any past experience he has with the Strickland Administration into his role as ODP Chair in an era of Ohio politics where we're desperate for a Democratic Governor again.

Sharen Neuhardt - Believe it or not, her name has been thrown around. She was the running mate of Ed FitzGerald, yes, but Neuhardt was not the reason for Fitzy's implosion or his loss. Neuhardt does have great fundraising skills, but her negative falls under being a lackluster speaker imo. There's also the downside of having a radical feminist and perennial loser as our ODP Chair, which would be kind of embarrassing.

Nina Turner - Outgoing State Senator from right here in Cleve, and 2014 Secretary of State Democratic nominee. tbh, it's unlikely she goes for the chairmanship. She was a good friend of Pepper during the election as the "election protection team", and she'll presumably just support him for chair. Mayor Frank Jackson is likely going to retire in 2017, and Turner has her eyes set on replacing him as Cleveland Mayor anyways, and for right now, Turner plans to go back to her teaching career for awhile. If she does run, then she's the exact opposite of Neuhardt, actually. Turner is a poor fundraiser, but man can she motivate voters and fire up a crowd. Plus if this year is any indication, the ODP needs to get a better outreach with African Americans, but again, she probably won't run for the chairmanship.

Melissa Klide Hedden - She's most known for joining FitzGerald's fundraising team as the finance chair earlier this year. Aside from that, she's also fundraised before for Sen. Sherrod Brown and State Rep. Ted Celeste and is a former aide for Sen. John Glenn. She likely won't get it, but it should be interesting to see if Brown will endorse her or not.

Sarah Benzing - She's a national Democratic prospect that worked to get Gillibrand elected to the Senate in 2010, Brown re-elected in 2012, and Markey elected in 2013. The problem is, she isn't even a native of Ohio and she was the campaign manager for the flopped Braley campaign this year. She could set Ohio up big in the national spotlight for 2016, but she's also the "bailout" option.

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The next Chair of the Ohio Democratic Party ultimately gets chosen by the executive committee so we have no idea how this will end up, though many high up in the state party, including Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill and the 4 U.S. Democratic Reps from Ohio, have been asking for more involvement and discussion over this. And there should be.

I personally would prefer Turner the most, but Pepper and Carson I would be perfectly fine with to. Our problem's just don't stop at a lack of quality candidates and being bombarded in fundraising by the ORP. It goes one step further with the lack of young enthusiasm in Ohio, and Pepper can change that.

Redfern meanwhile is aiming and has been approached by some to be a co-chair for Hillary's campaign in Ohio in 2016. Redfern's early tenure as state party chair was very, very successful and he could be a good recruit, but I'd much rather see him have a rematch in 2016 for HD-89. Obama carried the district with 53% of the vote in 2012, and Redfern could easily win the seat against a corrupt Republican incumbent (Kraus) or in an open seat.

[LeBron]

Going into the next legislative session, Ohio Republicans will have the largest majority in the history of the 99-member Ohio House of Representatives. As it stands, the Ohio GOP will have 65 seats, and Ohio Democrats 34 seats; one seat short of a 2/3rd's majority. But considering Bill Patmon and John Barnes are 2 of the 34 in this small House Dem Caucus, Republicans pretty much have 67 votes. Patmon votes with Kasich 77% of the time while Barnes votes with Kasich 79% of the time btw, so there's no denying that they are in fact Republicans. This means even with a Kasich veto, the Ohio GOP Legislature could actually override a veto if they got the 20 needed votes in the Senate (Senate control is staying the same - 23 GOP, 10 Dem), and the 60 votes needed in the House meaning if they wanted to, they could theoretically pass a bill preventing Kasich from using the Controlling Board to expand Medicaid, and then override Kasich's veto.

Even after the elections ended, we're still facing huge trouble as a party. One of the Democratic State Representative's is suing the Ohio Democratic Party, we lost Chris Redfern as our mastermind ODP Chairman and in the House, and Ohio House Dems elected a perennial loser in Fred Strahorn as the Ohio Minority Leader over a well-respected, phenomenal fundraising champion in David Leland.

Which means at this point, our party is pretty much powerless. We only hold two statewide offices; one of which is in the minority on the Ohio Supreme Court (Bill O'Neill) and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.....and we've seen better days.

This party's best hope in these next two years while they're recuperating is hoping for an intra-party battle with the Ohio Republicans. As we know, Kasich originally took control of the Ohio Republican Party after he used intimidation and bribes to convince enough central committee members of the ORP to turn against-then Chairman Kevin DeWine, and now Kasich has the unwieldy power of a dictator. And it turns out, Kasich did the same thing a few weeks ago. Outgoing House Speaker Bill Batchelder, an ally of Kasich, made a deal with State Rep. Ron Amstutz (R) to clear the field for Ohio GOP establishment pick, State Rep. Cliff Rosenberger. Rosenberger notably has a Kasich 100% voting record, and he sits on the House Finance and Appropriations Committee where he's helped in passing several of Kasich's budgets, so it's clear why he would want Rosenberger leading the House. Kasich is cool with Amstutz to, but he's term-limited in 2016 so Rosenberger the Ohio GOP felt was the next best option.

The Ohio Tea Party, rightfully so, got pissed when they saw Batchelder and Kasich were picking sides in who would replace Batchelder as Speaker come 2015, as voting for party leaders, including Speaker are supposed to be confidential. All 65 incoming House Republicans voted via secret ballots only a week after the general election meaning this was the Ohio GOP's attempt to have as little media coverage/controversy on this as possible. There was backroom dealing to from what I heard, with Rosenberger, Amstutz, Sears, Dovilla and others in the upcoming leadership promising their House GOP colleagues committee seats if they vote for Rosenberger. Despite being an unofficial election for Speaker (the official election takes place in January when the whole House votes on the next Speaker), Rosenberger declared victory anyways and Kasich congratulated him. It would make sense Kasich would want Rosenberger as Speaker in his best interests to, considering Kasich can't afford a Tea Party Speaker at the helm of the Ohio House. Kasich's setting up for 2016 as a Huntsman-like "compassionate conservative" and seemingly wants to run to the left of everyone, but if the Tea Party got their way in Ohio, they would have voter ID planned, stopping federal Common Core standards, enacting the fetal heartbeat bill, blocking Medicaid expansion, among many other very controversial things. Rep. Jim Butler is the challenger to Cliff Rosenberger for Speaker. Butler is Tea Party-backed simply because he's a hardcore conservative. He votes with Kasich less than Rosenberger does, but that's because he's voting to the right of Kasich.

As it stands, there's roughly about 16 Ohio Citizen PAC (Tea Party)-backed State Representatives in the House. 

1) Tom Brinkman - HD-27
2) Jonathan Dever - HD-28
3) Kristina Roegner - HD-37
4) Jim Butler - HD-41
5) Christina Hagan - HD-50
6) Wes Retherford - HD-51
7) Paul Zeltwanger - HD-54
8 ) Ron Young - HD-61
9) Ron Maag - HD-62
10) John Becker - HD-65
11) Tim Schaffer - HD-77
12) Ron Hood - HD-78
13) Kyle Koehler - HD-79
14) Nino Vitale - HD-85
15) Steve Kraus - HD-89
16) Andy Thompson - HD-95

And there you go. There might be a few more that have Tom Zawistowski's unconditional support, but these are the main ones. The point of me posting these was with the 32 Democrats, and Zawistowski's 15-20 member Tea Party Caucus in the House, that's enough votes to block the GOP establishment.

As far as I'm concerned, we as a party need to do whatever it takes to convince the Ohio Tea Party that we have a huge common enemy in John Kasich and his right-hand man Cliff Rosenberger. We don't agree on hardly anything, but the ODP and Tom Zawistowski can agree that whatever Kasich wants, Kasich shouldn't get. It is worth stating though that Ohio Democrats aren't going to accomplish anything in these next two years with a Republican Governor and a blood red legislature, and we still have another month before we find out who our next Chair of the Ohio Democratic Party will be.

So I'm basically saying that this scenario is unlikely, but it would be one of the only ways for the ODP to successfully maneuver around Kasich. Unfortunately Ohio Dems won't have another shot at winning the legislature until the next census, but man, it would really be awesome if we could stop Kasich dead in his tracks these next 4 years.

[LeBron]

we lost Chris Redfern as our mastermind ODP Chairman

The way things just went, I'm not too sure Mr. Redfern can be defined as a "mastermind".

His first half of his tenure was really good, actually. Under him, we won back all statewide offices except Auditor in 2006, managed to win back the Ohio House in '08 despite gerrymandered lines, managed to survive an attempted coup d'état on his chairmanship and still managed to keep the party united, and he's had some good strategies and campaigning in competing where you wouldn't think the ODP could win. Lou Gentile is a good example of that, in the State Senate. Granted, after the big fails this year though, I guess we do need a new leader, but he wasn't much of a failure when you look at his full tenure.

So anyway, speaking of that, December 16th has been named the date for when ODP's state executive committee will decide the new Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party in Columbus. There are two frontrunners in this (Pepper and Neuhardt), and the other 3 candidates who have less of a shot.

Declared Candidates for Ohio Democratic Party Chair and Overview:

1) David Pepper - Endorsed by outgoing ODP Chair and State Rep. Chris Redfern as well as State Senator and 2014 Secretary of State nominee Nina Turner. He's well-known in the state party for his great campaign he ran this year against Attorney General Mike DeWine, though unsuccessful. Pepper's also a former Hamilton County Commissioner. Turner wants to focus more on her teaching career and won't run, but Pepper and Turner formed an alliance during the campaign, specifically in promotion of voting rights and Pepper has basically promised if he's elected chair he'll give Turner a spot in the new leadership as well. Pepper's already got a lot of votes secured thanks to specifically the votes of members who were appointed by Redfern and he also has huge, must needed support from Ron Malone who controls more than 20 votes on the ODP Exec. Committee and the support of Bill DeMora, a Redfern loyalist who's the chair of the state party's executive committee, but it's not 100% given yet that he'll win if the Leland-Strahorn race last month has anything to say about it. Jeff Johnson may also be a problem in this mess who's supporting Turner, not Pepper, for chair so Johnson can pursue his own ambitions in 2017 for Cleveland Mayor. I doubt that will make much of a difference though. I really hope Pepper gets picked, and it seems kind of likely at this point.

2) Sharen Neuhardt - Endorsed by U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown. Brown messed up big time by endorsing a DINO, Dennis Wajtanowski, last time around. This time, it's a radical feminist and perennial loser! Yay, just what our state party needs! The endorsement is big of course and he said he endorsed her because she stepped up at a tough time for the state party, has the resources to bring the party forward, and he simply would love seeing the first female chair ever for the ODP. Her profession is an attorney, and that matters, actually. She works at a law firm which is tied to the Greater Cleveland Partnership firm which is tied to Armond Budish, and even moreso to Bill Mason who controls quite a bit of votes on the ODP exec. commitee, so that would be her path to victory.

3) Janet Carson - Head of the Ohio Democratic County Chairs Association. She's been actively campaigning as well for the post and she's looking to make the selection of chair more inclusive, and to include Democratic party chairs from all counties. As it stands, she's a party chair for Geauga County, a county Romney won with 60% of the vote in 2012, and Kasich 75% this year, so it's a very red county. Their Geauga County Board of Commissioners is 3-members, all Republican, but they did nearly elect a Democrat to one of their commission seats this year despite the awful year our state party had and how Atlas blue this county is. So I have a feeling if she's chair, she could definitely continue Redfern's legacy of competing in some of these tough areas, gaining more support and picking up more seats. With attempts being made to have the first female chair in the state party, Neuhardt does outshine her and Carson's chances are pretty slim.

4) Bob Hagan - Endorsed by U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan and Mahoning County Democratic Party Chair David Betras. Hagan is an outgoing State Representative from the Youngstown area, and incoming member of the state school board, district 8. He's also filed paperwork to run against Republican Senator Rob Portman in 2016. He's a veteran in the Ohio General Assembly and going in on the school board strongly opposes charter schools and wants more accountability. He's known to be a staunch liberal and vocal opponent of Kasich. He's voted against income tax decreases, voted against SB5, voted against SB310, voted against the Jim Crow bills, voted against the rich-favoring state budgets, voted against JobsOhio, voted against abortion restrictions, supports gun control, supports gay rights, sponsored bills to legalize marijuana, sponsored a bill for Kasich's recall, has received NARAL, AFL-CIO, and Sierra Club endorsements, and a lot more. In other words, he's a really awesome guy. Him and Tim Ryan have 2 votes on the ODP exec. committee so he's guaranteed those at the very least, but it's worth mentioning that Betras endorsement is pretty big as well. Betras declined interest in running for ODP Chair, but Redfern hand-picked him as a worthy and possible successor so Hagan might get some connections and votes that way. A win from him would be unlikely though.

5) Antoinette Wilson - Former Assistant Secretary of State to the Ohio SoS and general consultant for over two decades for tens of Democratic candidates including John Kerry, Jennifer Brunner and Richard Cordray. She owns a firm that works in strategic communications and has good organizational skills. She's pretty irrelevant in this race for the most part, and doesn't stand a real chance.

[LeBron]

An update from Wednesday with 10 days until the executive committee determines our party's future.

It turns out Janet Carson, who was previously in the running for ODP Chair and definitely could have helped expand this party's limits if she did win, dropped out and endorsed Sharen Neuhardt. Neuhardt also now has union backing and was endorsed by DINO Mayor Mike Coleman, who Neuhardt said if elected chair, would reflect her governing style off of him which gave me some shutters. She's basically running this whole campaign off of endorsements = votes, and promises for more time, resources and efforts for the party.

She has Carson's, Burga's, and Whaley's votes down pat (Coleman isn't on the committee). Like Pepper said before though, one or two endorsements or votes doesn't decide this and "anoint" the new leader on their own. It's simply about who's best for the job in fundraising skills, defending our candidates and parties, and getting this party back on track at state and local levels.

That leaves Neuhardt, frontrunner David Pepper, Bob Hagan, and Antoinette Wilson. Hagan's committed to staying in and he'll at least get a couple of votes on the committee. He's the liberal, heavily anti-Kasich candidate from Northeast Ohio, but he won't win. It might be for the best that, that happens because he is a very controversial figure.

As it stands, Pepper nearly has this thing in lock. There's roughly 150 Democrats on the executive committee who will vote on this, and Pepper's camp has about exactly half of those votes locked up for himself. Even more-so, Pepper has the support of Redfern and Committee Chairman DeMora. In other words, it's basically impossible for Neuhardt to win, and she needs to come to that reality so we can unite behind one strong candidate who can take our party on the right road.

[LeBron]

Huh. Would've pegged you as a Neuhardt guy.

I've never really been a fan of Neuhardt. If you ever hear her speak, she doesn't exactly excite the Democratic base and around the media and even around voters and volunteers, to be honest she can be just...intolerable, to say the least.

Pepper sealed the deal for me when he promised to provide Cleveland representation in the new ODP leadership. Not only that, but with being ODP Chair comes the responsibility to bring success for us. Sharen as previously mentioned is a perennial loser, but Pepper has managed to get elected countywide in Hamilton County before, and his impressive record this year (outraising DeWine, running high quality ads, tons of donors and volunteering on his behalf, union endorsements, aggressive campaigning etc.) is definitely encouraging.

We need someone young and confident like Pepper to step up and say enough is enough. Restore order in the party in keeping the Redfern establishment at the head of the party and get the ball rolling again going into 2015-2016.

[LeBron]

Also, who is the "executive committee" made up of?

148 Democrats.

Here's the full list of everyone on the exec. committee who will be voting on the next chair. The committee itself ranges in huge variety from someone as low-key as a Shaker Heights City Councilman to a DNC delegate to the leader of the OH AFL-CIO to U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown himself.

As stated before, the exec. committee is pretty much controlled by Redfern. 65 of the 148 seats on the committee are at-large and were appointed by Redfern himself and they're prepared to vote for Pepper. The other seats on the committee are made up primarily by those who also sit on the state party's central committee.

There's also a lot of rising stars on the committee - Kathleen Clyde, Dan Ramos, Nan Whaley, Alicia Reece, Bill Healy, Matt Patten, P.G. Sittenfeld, Armond Budish, Jeff Johnson, Tim DeGeeter, and the list goes on and on. And it only seems fitting because they are this party's future, and their opinions are heavily valued for the party's direction.

The very powerful Malone and Rugola families also sit on the committee. Aside from Redfern, they also control the path to becoming ODP Chair, essentially.

@X and TJ, I personally like Turner, but yeah I agree whatever it takes to make sure Neuhardt doesn't become chair. Leave Pepper to the fundraising and Turner to get out the vote operations because the two of them, respectively are very good at those two key elements to a successful ODP.

As for Neuhardt, she brings nothing to the table except breaking the gender barrier in the party chairmanship. She wasn't even the initial pick to be Ed's running mate IYRC, and she just alienates the base and lacks big time in public speaking which......you kind of need in the role of the ODP Chairman. As for Pepper, well see for yourself.

[LeBron]

Neuhardt is out of the running, and is declaring her support for Pepper. She says she realizes our party has a better future with Pepper, and that he has the votes to win this thing, but a lot of fixing and reforming needs to be done with the party now from the losses this year to the party's lack of transparency.

Veteran Dem. political consultant Antoinette Wilson also dropped out recently as well leaving David Pepper as the de facto candidate and essentially Chairman-elect of the Ohio Democratic Party. Nina Turner, however, who was aligned with Pepper in this fight won't be the next vice chair of the party. Former Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin plans to stay in power in that regard, but Pepper still plans to bring Turner into leadership somehow.

Both of them did great with fundraisers this year, can really energize the base, they have very strong work ethics and strong connections with powerful unions/activists, have a good geographical and cultural distinction between Southern and Northern Ohio, and plan to focus on issues that Ohioans actually care about like living wages and education to get voters out to the polls in 2016 and 2018 just like in 2008 and even 2011.

Had everyone who voted "no" on whether or not to keep the collective bargaining law in 2011 showed up to vote in 2014 for the pro-union candidate, we would have a Governor-elect FitzGerald. We need those voters. Those voters who the subsequent year re-elected one of the most liberal members of the Senate.

And with Hillary expected to run in 2016, Redfern working for her campaign in Ohio, and Pepper-Turner at the helm to have strong successes for 2016, this is our opportunity to really get young voters out to defeat Portman. If we can do that, build-up our rising stars in a quick, but efficient manner, and we realize what's at stake in 2018 with the redistricting process at stake, then our party should have good recruitment effort for the 2018 statewide elections. Our party is in the worst possible situation right now in terms of offices, and it can only get better from here.

Luckily, for the sake of our party, I was right that we would have a Chairman Pepper, and not a Chairwoman Neuhardt. I'm glad Neuhardt's ready to stand united with the party and give Pepper the chance to prove himself these next few years.

[LeBron]

And Pepper officially will be the next ODP Chair! He'll take the office in January. Pepper and Turner undoubtedly have great futures ahead of them, and Redfern has stated he might make a comeback in the future to politics as well. I can only hope Pepper continues on with Redfern's legacy of leading the party. He needs to travel the state and meet with young voters and candidate hopefuls. 2016 will give a lot of reason to turnout with Hillary, but we need someone at the top of the ticket with her to fight against Portman on Pepper's and Ohio's behalf. That will be a major early test. Fundraising shouldn't be much of a problem anymore because Pepper's remarkable at that, but candidate recruitment also lacks if this year was any indication. FitzGerald aside, we had no Democrat facing off against Bob Gibbs in OH-7 (who's a pretty weak incumbent), and we had no one facing off against the very vulnerable Mike Dovilla in OH HD-7 for a few examples. We need to change that. Encourage Democrats to run for these seats and throw money into some of these winnable races. It's a sure-fire path to victory.

Another problem we might have is not having enough new ideas for the party. We may have went too much on the attack this year, but we didn't bring enough positive alternatives to the table. Instead of attacking Senate Bill 5 which a lot of Ohio voters have forgotten unfortunately, work on efforts to raise the minimum wage, promise to keep tuition costs down and fight for more state funding, promise higher tax breaks for the middle class, and of course the all-important social rights. Sure the Ohio Republicans are beyond terrible, but give Ohioans the right message that Ohio Democrats have what it takes to turn Ohio around on the right path. Otherwise, I like the direction our party is continuing in, and I have a feeling Pepper won't let us down.

[LeBron]

!!!!!

I found this out on the College Dems of Ohio page. And it's about dang time! The bans should have been lifted by the Sixth Circuit Court, but unfortunately this circuit is filled with a bunch of God awful, homophobic Bush and Reagan appointees. With this headed to the Supreme Court now, one can only hope Justice Kennedy actually does side with justice.

I don't want Ohio to be the last state to legalize marriage equality .....that distinction should go to Alabama.

[LeBron]

Toledo Mayor D. Michael Collins, 70, has died following a fatal car accident. After the tragic death, City Council President Paula Hicks-Hudson is serving as the temporary acting mayor.

An Independent, he ousted union busting Mayor Michael Bell in 2013 with the help of Ohio Democratic Party and labor support and for the past year has been fighting tirelessly for cleaning of the pollution of Lake Erie.

RIP

[LeBron]

So Governor John Kasich has officially outlined his budget for the 2015-2016 fiscal year. It's below average in that he's continuing his failed tax policy of cutting progressive taxes and raising the burdensome sales tax, with a few good proposals.

This article by the ODP leadership sums it up best. The new state budget will cut state funding from about 50% of Ohio school districts, and places continued tax burdens on senior citizens and the working class. The wealthy benefit here yet again as the top income tax bracket decreases by 23% over a two year period. Businesses also luck out and many will see their income tax abolished.

On a small bright side, the budget does address the college affordability and lake issues in positive ways. There will also be a raise in the tobacco tax which will generate nearly $1 billion in revenue and it's expected to keep thousands of young adults in Ohio from smoking or to stop smoking. He also set forth a proposal that would ban smoking on college campuses, which admittedly would be awesome from my perspective as an Ohio college student.

That $1 tax increase was blocked last time in the Assembly, though it's needed now to make up for the lost revenue. Kasich also wants a 6.5% fracking tax increase which is bound to face opposition from the right in the House if it's not lowered.

Luckily, this proposal discourages oil and gas drilling on land and about 20% of the revenue if this tax is passed goes to local governments.

Now as for Medicaid, Speaker Rosenberger even though he formerly opposed Medicaid expansion now is expressing his willingness to reauthorize it. Republicans are talking about cutting healthcare insurance programs for women and attempting to keep more people off Medicaid enrollment because of affordability costs, so we'll see what bull they try to pull on this front.

Kasich won't have to reach across the aisle to get this passed. In the past, he's passed his budgets with very, very few Democratic votes and now he's ready to ram this through after the arch-conservative Assembly amend this budget to their liking.

I give the proposal a D+. It needs improvement, but this is the best Ohio's going to get if not worse.

[LeBron]

Ohio Republicans are barely a month into the session already and they're about to go on their war on women again. It would ban abortion at earliest after six weeks with the only exception being life of the mother. If this did pass though (and it may be held off until the budget passes), it would either be struck down in court or if not, it would be defeated at the ballot box just as the union busting law was.

This bill already has 50 cosponsors including Speaker Rosenberger in the House. That's enough votes to pass this time after just narrowly failing last time.

As for the Senate, former State Senate President Tom Niehaus was a vocal opponent against several of these attacks on women including heartbeat, de-funding Planned Parenthood and the ultrasounds. However, he's since been term-limited and replaced by Keith Faber as President. Faber has his doubts about passing fetal heartbeat in his chamber, but he is one of the most pro-life and strongest Kasich loyalist's you will find. His chamber does have the votes to pass it, and Sen. Kris Jordan would be more than happy to sponsor it.

But it doesn't end there. You would think after closing six of the fourteen abortion clinics left in Ohio, imposing irrational gag rules, and facing possible court challenges they would stop. If they can't get their heartbeat bill, then they instead have plans to ban abortion after 20 weeks, and close down even more clinics.

There are a few Ohio Democrats actually tagging along with this to. One, Bill Patmon, who previously sponsored a license to discriminate bill signed on as a cosponsor of this and believes women's healthcare should be restricted as much as possible. Cecil Thomas will sign on as a cosponsor in the Senate if it makes it to that chamber.

So I can only hope our party recruits better candidates to run against these guys in their next primaries (Patmon's in 2016 and Thomas isn't until 2018). Sharon Cole is considering running against Patmon again and in case P.G. Sittenfeld does drop out, would be a very strong candidate to primary Thomas. Patmon and Thomas to sum them up are embarrassments who frankly make themselves look like they're to the right of the ORP with their social conservative views and constant anti-ODP establishment tyrades.

But anyways, if this does pass and that might be a big if depending on what happens in the upper chamber, it will go down one way or another. There is a point to be made though that the Ohio GOP is really that bad.

[LeBron]

The "fetal heartbeat" bill passed an Ohio House Committee today and is now set to go to the floor of the House for a full vote (and it's expected to have the 50 votes needed to pass). Worth noting there's no exception in the case of rape. So if a woman is raped, not only can she not consult with a rape counselor about what to do, but she only has less than two months to get an abortion all while the state government keeps on shutting down more abortion clinics. Our tax dollars at work.

To no surprise, Chairman Derickson who cosponsored a bill last session that would have allowed businesses to deny LGBT people entry, voted for this misogynistic piece of legislation.

So a 99.99% chance this passes the House. The chances this reaches the Senate? Slim. Kasich doesn't want this bill to reach his desk due to the dilemma that would throw him in. He notably does have a lot more leverage over the State Senate, and it's ultimately up to him, though Kasich I imagine would settle for a 20 week abortion ban instead.

Kellie Copeland is actually planning to come speak to our local Democratic club about this Thursday, and her group is prepared to fight this in court should it for whatever reason pass in the next four years.

[LeBron]

It turns out that wasn't the worst thing Ohio Republicans did yesterday. In a Senate transportation funding budget, they added an amendment supported by Senate President Faber that if passed could disenfranchise thousands of out-of-state college students from voting. Specifically, over 100,000 ranging from Ohio State to Kent State to the University of Toledo and smaller universities in the state would be negatively impacted.

It places huge burdens on out-of-state Ohio college students that could prevent them from voting at their campus addresses. Our state is already pretty hostile to Ohio college students when it comes to financial costs. Public colleges in Ohio have some of the highest tuition rates in the nation, and this would add on fees that could total over $100 for ridiculous requirements to vote. Obviously, with the additional costs and how hard Ohio Republicans have been making it for young people to register to vote, this would continue their goal of managing to get even more Millennials off the voter rolls.

I've always been an Ohioan and I luckily do have an Ohio's driver license so I won't be affected by this should it pass, but I do have a few out-of-state college friends and man, this would suck bad if this passes.

[LeBron]

Oh by the way Kasich line-item vetoed the poll tax in the transportation budget that would have suppressed over 115,000 Ohio college students. While it's nice to know he's stopped (temporarily) from restricting the vote of those who don't vote for him and his party, I hope he doesn't think this is going to make us forget all of the other voter suppression measures (cutting a weak of early voting, making it harder to vote by mail and making it easier for the SoS to purge voters from the voter rolls, etc.) he signed during his last term.

As for fetal heartbeat, it doesn't appear to be getting anywhere. The legislature will be busy through June creating their screw the poor budget, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Kasich and Faber tried to appease the far-right by adding a 20-week abortion ban to the budget.

[LeBron]

Only Adam could post about Kasich doing something he liked and still spend 85% of the post bashing him.

You know me to well.