Monday, December 19, 2011

Ohio GOP: Elephants in the china shop

'TIS NOT THE season of good cheer for the Ohio Republican Party. Hostilities continue to erupt in the internecine battle of GOP Titans. In one corner is Gov. Kasich; in the other, state party chief Kevin DeWine. When it comes to clashing egos, this could go all 15 rounds.

The latest word reported by the Columbus Dispatch is that DeWine has accused Kasich's staff of recruiting candidates for the 66-member Republican Central Committee to set the stage for ousting him. According to the Dispatch, Kasich's forces started to plan DeWine's removal the same moment that he and Kasich moved into their respective new offices in January. Folks, such an artful move by the governor recalls his promise on entering office that people who stood in his way would be run over by a bus, train or, for that matter, locusts. Whatever worked. .

DeWine insists this is the ugly way that Kasich is treating central committeemen who "have just simply poured their blood, sweat and tears into helping get this guy elected. And the thanks they get is his staff working to gin up a contest in the re-election to the committee."

You get the feeling that there will be no holiday party in GOP quarters this year, don't you? I mean, "blood, sweat and tears"? Churchill couldn't have said it better. But an historical truth is that you simply can't have two elephants in the china shop at the same time.


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TODD MCKENNEY, the newly apointed Summit County Probate judge, isn't expanding his earlier comments to the Beacon Journal about his decision not to seek election to the office next year. He told me on the phone today that he has nothing more to say about his odd decision to remove himself from contention a few weeks after the governor appointed him. .

When he spoke to the Beacon Journal upon his appointment, McKenney, a former state representative and ordained pastor, said his work as a probate judge would be distracted by a political campaign.

However, as I reported earlier, there has been a lot of back-channel talk among lawyers that he had offended Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff by making two appointments to county boards that were not on the chairman's A-list. In turn, Arshinkoff reportedly sent harsh word to McKenney that the county GOP would not support him with any money to run a decent race. McKenney declined to talk about it. But Arshinkoff is well-known for hardball tactics, which are in play again in this instance.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If that rumor is true, McKenney would have been stupid to believe it. Alex needs to hold the probate court like a man needs water. It's his last office of political patronage.