Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Arshinkoff for State GOP chairman??????

CALL IT far-fetched, but politics has always been sympathetic to far-fetched ideas. So now I'm hearing about a subplot in Gov Kasich's well-organized scheme to drive out Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine. It rests on the March 6 primary election in which the state Republican Central Committeemen will be elected. Now that it is common knowledge that the Kasich family is trying to take control of the central committee as liftoff for a vote against DeWine, it naturally leads to speculation on his replacement if the governor succeeds.

In my Northern Ohio neighborhood, there's talk that Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff would be on the A-list to succeed DeWine. In this line of speculation, it has all of the signs leading to Arshinkoff. He has sought the job for decades, only to be rebuffed by
GOP marquee stars like George Voinovich. What's more, nobody has tried harder to serve the governor than Arshinkoff, for which he has lucratively added lobbying clients, including the University of Akron. So, yes, the name comes to mind.

Still, as one state Republican activist told me, "It will never happen." So it may be time for a political writer to take his ball and bat and go home. That won't stop Arshinkoff from trying to achieve the Ohio Republican dream. As I started to say, as far-fetched as it seems, on rare occasions far-fetched happens.



2 comments:

JLM said...

Weasels of a feather....

Anonymous said...

Locally, Alex has been able to flex his muscle to keep his skeletons in the closet. Running for state chairman will see them exposed by people who are neither charmed nor impressed by Arshinkoff. While he has infiltrated the Portage and Medina County Republican Parties through surrogate groups, that's not enough. If a coup is successful, I see Franklin County GOP Chair and Arshinkoff clone, in more ways than one, Doug Priesse as the new state chair.