Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Filing deadline: The anti-Alex prelude

I'VE PAINFULLY learned over the years that any attempt to ferret out information within the Summit County Republican wars usually ends up with a he-said, she said, kind of debate between the two or more sides with very little definitive info. So it is as the deadline for filing candidates for central committeemen approaches tomorrow. Both sides are sounding terribly cautious in predicting the final numbers of their efforts to fill all of the county's 475 (or so) precincts with their loyalists. County GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, who is thought to be a member of the Taliban or a Demsymp, will only say that he is hoping to fill all of them but is running scared. At the same time, his opponents are reticent about boasting of any success in their second effort to throw out the chairman.

All of this political stalking is merely the prelude to electing enough of their own loyalists to serve their cause when the county GOP Central Committee meets later to vote on the chairmanship.

I must say, however, that I was put off by the announcement by the New Summit County Republicans - the anti-Arshinkoff group -that it had solicited the support of the National Precinct Alliance as its "partner" to help out in filling Corinne Hoover Six, who has mentioned that Tea Partyers would be sought for the cause. I left phone and email messages for her a week ago to fill in some blanks but she has yet to respond.

But Atty. Don Varian, one of the leaders of the anti-Arshinkoff movement, did return a phone call to say that the dissenters have been around long before the Tea Parties and are not physically attached to the current national phenomenon. "We expect to have more precinct committeemen on our side this time because we learned more from our first effort," Varian said. . (The New Summit County Republicans failed by a 2-1 margin a couple of years ago to remove Arshinkoff from the party throne occupied by Arshinkoff for more than three decades.)

There are some Republicans who think it will be a closer contest this time, if not decisive. "One vote at a time," one of the chairman's Republican opponents told me. "One vote at a time."


2 comments:

The Truth said...

Arshinkoff could be removed from power. The problem is that the opposition is not any better (and may actually be worse) than he is. If the opposition were to push an inspiring leader or message they would win. People don't want retreads like the Coughlin, Klinger and the Hoover family running the party. The fact that they were only able to recruit 129 candidates should be proof enough the Republicans don't want their kind of change.

Anonymous said...

I doubt that.