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"The Point" Disclaimer

To Some, One Race Seems Oddly Important

Driving around Summit County the last few days, I have been left to wonder if any Republican is running county wide besides Bill Spicer. The signs that say "Re-elect Judge Spicer" are everywhere. Signs for others are non-existent. Why?

Are a great number of Summit County residents really that fired up about the race for probate court? Or is this the race the Summit County GOP has decided to focus on almost exclusively?

The race for probate court judge is a big one for both parties. It carries with it 50+ patronage positions. I would even say that this race is probably more important to Alex Arshinkoff than John McCain winning the White House. The current crew at probate are his core group of supporters. He needs them to keep their jobs.

I think I just answered my own question. I wonder how many local people got phone calls that probably went like this:

Caller: "Hi, this is so and so from the Summit County Republican Party! We would like to place signs of local candidates in your yard to help us to victory this November! If you'll let us, we will stop by and put up the signs for you."

Person at home: "Uhhh, sure I guess."

Then a couple of days later the signs are there, only the signs are just one sign for Bill Spicer, and the people look out in their yard and wonder who is this Judge Spicer. After the certain local bloodbath for Republicans this fall, all will be well at GOP HQ if the probate court remains in Republican hands I suppose. I wonder if other local Republicans will get money promised to them by Arshinkoff?

NSR has an update on some of the latest party news.

Note: I have never met Bill Spicer and wouldn't know him if he knocked on my door. He could be the world's greatest judge and/or one of the best guys around. I have no idea. This post is a comment on why his race is getting so much attention from the party while other candidates are being hung out to dry.


Weekend Daily Part VI

The comments from the previous post illustrate the dislike between the Romney and Huckabee camps. It is all about the potential 2012 GOP (sorry, the "white party") nomination fight. Off to an early start, considering we are about 80 days away from this year's vote. To me at least, Romney seems focused on helping the party this year. Huckabee seems focused on helping himself. Anyhow…..

John Kerry for VP? I don't think it is that unrealistic. Kerry would love - love - to be out there and go on the attack. I am sure he would relish going after McCain after he rejected his overtures in 2004 to be his VP. He is obviously still bitter he lost last time around and would do it in a heartbeat.

This was a good week for McCain in the polls. State wise we had him +1 in CO, closed to within 4 in MN, +1 and even in VA, +3 in NV. Talked to a candidate running for local office this week who told me that while he has been going door to door he has noticed a real upswing in Republican enthusiasm for McCain in the last couple of weeks. In April he told me there was none.

Who is the biggest jackass in Greater Cleveland politics? Political Science 216 kicks off a contest to find out. From the post: To be eligible, the political jackass must live in Greater Cleveland, which is defined as Cuyahoga County and every county that touches it (Lorain, Medina, Summit, Portage, Geauga and Lake). A politician must be an elected official, a party chair (the Alex Arshinkoff rule), a recent elected official or a current candidate. My vote is pretty clear.

PD: Ohio's ad warning of flu pandemic overdone? Yes. They have run about 9,081 commercials about it during the Olympics, at least the parts I have been able to see. Michael Phelps last night - amazing. How did he win that race?

McCain has his best fund raising month yet, though of course he was out raised by Obama. Too much being made of how he will have "only $84 million" for public financing when it kicks in after his convention. He will have what he needs with that money coupled with RNC help, which will be sizable. Contributions will just go straight to party headquarters and they can then put up ads that don't have to be approved by McCain at the end of the spot. It might end up being a blessing.

Ohio, continuing to TurnAround: 7.2% unemployment. Highest in 16 years. That mandatory sick leave law that is being tossed around will only make things worse. That is worthy of it's own post next week.

Wonder if anything will come out of that church forum tonight in California.


(banging my head against my desk)

Ohio.com has the story:

Summit County Republicans unanimously picked Gloria Rodgers — a nurse and party stalwart who lives in Stow — to run for County Council this November.

Rodgers replaces John Widowfield, who dropped out of the District 3 race in May after resigning from the state legislature amid allegations that he used campaign money to buy OSU football tickets and resold the tickets for a profit on eBay.

The two other applicants were Louise Heydorn, who holds the council seat, and Gene Haas, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and Akron schoolteacher and administrator.

Rodgers will be a "top-flight candidate," he (Arshinkoff) said.

That last line is a kiss of death.

Louise Heydorn is the incumbent - the only Republican on Summit County Council. She was defeated by John Widowfield in the March primary. Widowfield ran against Heydorn per the wishes of Party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff. The grand plan kind of hit a snag when Widowfield resigned from his Ohio House seat in May due to an Ohio State ticket problem and subsequently withdrew from the race for council.

Fourteen members of Arshinkoff's Executive Committee managed to show up for the meeting last night and they proceeded to elect Gloria Rogers on the recommendation of Arshinkoff. Big shock. Heydorn had a majority of the Summit County Republican Central Committee members that reside within her district sign a petition supporting her. Didn't matter. Towards the end of Monday's meeting, Heydorn tried to address the Executive Committee. Arshinkoff refused to allow her to speak and immediately adjourned the meeting. Leadership on display.

Actually the best part of the story might be this: Summit County GOP central and executive committee officers met Saturday to review applicants. Monday night, they recommended Rodgers to a committee made up of executive committee members who live in District 3.

Yeah, I am sure there was a lot of "reviewing" of the applicants.

I just want to reiterate one thing: LOUISE HEYDORN IS THE INCUMBENT!!!!!!!!! I almost never use caps lock - I hate when people do it - but this warranted usage. Seriously. They passed on the only elected Republican on Council (11 members). Common sense you tells you Heydorn would have the best chance of keeping the seat, but that isn't how decisions are made . Heydorn didn't back Arshinkoff that fateful night at Tangier (and really why would she have) so she had no chance Monday evening. Arshinkoff and team picked someone loyal to him rather than the best candidate. Standard procedure.

Let me be clear - I wouldn't know Gloria Rodgers if she walked up to me tomorrow and slapped me. So this is nothing against her. The article said she is a nurse, so Gloria, if I am ever in an accident and you are attending to me, this is not personal against you. Louise Heydorn is just the better candidate.

There you go. The Summit County Republican Party. Hey, at least we are running someone, right? But I do want to genuinely thank Mr. Arshinkoff - all day I have been working on an Electoral College update and just can't get the wording right. One of those "writer's block" things. Then this story came along and you solved my problem at least for one night. Thanks Chairman.

To be fair, I reported in June that the pick was likely to be Den Robart. That was the name being tossed around, confirmed by a few people, and it turned out not to be correct. I apologize. Though I did know it there was no chance in hell it would be Heydorn. That was the easy one to get right, however.


Never Ending Circus Continues

From Ohio.com and Stephanie Warsmith, yesterday:

The Ohio Ethics Commission and the Summit County prosecutor will decide if the chairman of the Summit County Board of Elections had a conflict of interest when he voted on issues involving his party's finances.

Brian Juliao, a Republican board employee, filed the complaint against Morrison with the board. He said Morrison's law firm, Amer Cunningham Co., has done work for the Summit County Republican Party and Morrison is a party officer. He said Morrison twice voted on issues involving the party's finances, rather than recusing himself.

Juliao claims this violated Ohio's ethics policy, which forbids board members from voting on issues involving family members, business colleagues or other close associates.

Both the Summit County Prosecutors office and the Ohio Ethics Commission will now determine if Morrison had a conflict of interest. The two Democratic board members, Wayne Jones and Tim Gorbach voted to refer the case. Morrison and Daley abstained. My favorite part of the write up: Morrison remained silent during this exchange and the subsequent vote, even temporarily relinquishing his position as chairman to Daley. I just think that is funny. Of course he did, the complaint was about him.

Juliao told the board members that Morrison "has a history of not recusing himself.'" Daley did however take full advantages of his temporary chairmanship to take the time to ask Juliao pointless questions about his employment that he could have just looked up in a file. At one point Juliao reminded Daley that he was part of a lawsuit to have him removed from his job (as a Varian appointee, background on that story here) and Daley said "uh, I didn't know I was part of a lawsuit." Ha, I didn't know I was part of a lawsuit!! Who wouldn't know that? Well, I guess a Republican board member of the Summit County Board of Elections. It is almost like Daley didn't know about the whole situation and didn't even care and just wanted to put on some show trial. For his part, Morrison declined comment for the original Ohio.com article.

On a side note, in the past Daley has gotten a check ($2500) from the GOP Central Committee. The difference is that he abstained from voting on that financial matter. Morrison does not. He voted on checks that were made out to Amer Cunningham. This is all stuff anyone off the street can look up; it is public record, you just need to know where to look. It doesn't strike me as smart (to say the least) by Morrison as this happened when the party finances were being watched, already under suspicion by some.

I am going to be honest. I saw this headline yesterday on Ohio.com and kind of rolled my eyes and clicked on it, read it, shook my head, and went back to whatever I was doing, which I think was racing my Facebook car. Not because I didn't think it was important, but because these stories just seem to run together anymore. My surprise level was at a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being totally shocked, like if I found that the Browns traded for Brett Favre or if I came to a revelation that I liked the Mets better than the Phillies. This is indicative of how Alex Arshinkoff and his associates have been doing business for 30 some years. However, after thinking about it some more, here we are.

Brian Juliao showed a lot of courage to file this complaint against his supervisors. Probably not an easy thing to do, but I am guessing he felt it was the right thing to do. I don't know how this will be decided, but it seems clear to me voting on party money going to your employer might be a conflict. I've never met Jack Morrison. He might be the nicest guy in the entire world. But he shouldn't be voting on financial matters like the ones raised in the complaint.

Someone should write a book about the Summit County Board of Elections.


Bill Sloat over at The Daily Bellwether makes a great catch: The Ohio Education Association endorses Richard Cordray for AG before the Republicans even have a candidate. I'll be the first to admit that the Republicans aren't exactly hitting it out of the park in finding a candidate, but wouldn't the OEA at least wait to make it appear they were actually going to judge the candidates and then choose? Guess not.

By now I am sure you heard about the San Francisco ballot issue this fall to name a sewage plant after George Bush. Mark Krikorian at NRO raises a good point: If the Bush administration were smart, they'd have leapt at this opportunity, saying that while the president deplored the disdain for working people inherent in such an effort, he would be proud to have his name associated with such a vital service and stood in solidarity with the engineers and chemists and electricians and others that help make modern life possible against the scorn of the lunatic left. Tom Daschle thinks it is funny at least.

This story makes me sick. Self-defense, huh? No printable words for someone who shoots a policeman in the head. King's Right Site links to two very different PD columns about a separate police shooting in Cleveland. A sensible one from Phillip Morris and one that makes you upset to read from Regina Brett. Brett then defends her original column. No surprise on the latter.

I got my McCain bumper stickers in the mail today. I'll save you the trouble of looking through website archives - I did say on my site last year that I would never put a bumper sticker on my car. Things change immensely when your choices are John McCain or Barack Obama. Possible tears when I take the Romney sticker that currently resides on my back windshield off tomorrow afternoon. Speaking of Lord Obama, I don't understand Obama's overseas pre-victory tour. It has major potential to backfire. It might appeal to some nice citizens of Germany and France, but their preference isn't going to play a role in November.

Remember the "rats ad" in 2000? Well now ABC says McCain is running subliminal messages against Obama. They aren't, but who cares if they are. This is a presidential campaign.

Boring Made Dull weighs in on the never ending saga that is the Summit County Republican Party. What I wouldn't give to just work one day there to see things first hand.

Discussed in an earlier post: Jesse "The Mind" Ventura will not run for MN Senate. Two polls this week show different results in that race without Ventura: Rasmussen Franken +2; Survey USA Coleman +13. Nothing like July polling. Absurd.

Finally, thank you for all of the feedback on the Ted Strickland interview. We have some more sit-downs with some of the politicians listed in the newest poll question in the right sidebar in the pipeline.


Summit County Update - BOE and County Council

(post bumped to the top)
UPDATE, AGAIN (8:45 Saturday PM): Angela McMillan, Executive Director of the Summit County Republican Party, has resigned to take a job in Washington DC with the American Association of Political Consultants. McMillan was basically Alex Arshinkoff's assistant. Out under pressure or her own will? Developing, obviously……(end update)

According to sources, Brian Daley will be sworn in tomorrow as one of the two Republican members of the Summit County Board of Elections. He will be sworn in by Judge John Holcomb. On Daley's front lawn. Ok…….that sounds about right. As noted, due to the recent Ohio Supreme Court ruling, Daley will replace current member Don Varian as one of two Republicans on the board. Daley was the original choice of Alex Arshinkoff to replace him when he was tossed off.

Varian is the current chair (rotates between Republican and Democrats) and my guess is that Jack Morrison Jr. (the other Republican) will become the new chairman. There has been some uncertainty post OSC ruling as to whether Varian was still on the board until Daley was actually sworn in, but those questions will be put to rest tomorrow.

Look for a lot more 2-2 votes at Summit County BOE with the whole process being slowed back down. Again.

UPDATE: In other Summit County news, which never stops, a not so shocking report. Arshinkoff has decided to put Dennis "Den" Robart on the ballot for the Summit County Council race, District 3. This, you may recall, was the primary where John Widowfield ran against the only incumbent Republican on the board, Louise Heydorn. Heydorn should have gotten the call if Arshinkoff was really wanting to bring all sides together. Oh, and because she is a proven winner. Instead he has decided to put up an inferior candidate because Heydorn is not a Arshinkoff ally. Despite party backing, Den Robart lost to Rich Nero in March for the party nod for the 42nd House seat. This is our Republican Party.

The reason I always write Dennis "Den" Robart is because the higher ups tried to get it written Den on the ballot to try and confuse people into thinking it was actually Don Robart, the mayor of Cuyahoga Falls. Den Robart is the nephew of Don. No word on whether they will try that again. Den will face off against Paul Colavecchio, who lost the race to Widowfield for his job in 2006.


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