Get ready for the invasion of Republican circuit riders

A million years ago, maybe a little longer, Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett (then in his earlier  term) and Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff  insisted to me that their party would expand its base to include you-know-whos. It would be a magisterial commitment by two GOP draft horses to make the party whole for generations to come.

Didn't happen quite that way.  Not even close.  So after its  Comeback Team Romney/Ryan debacle in November -  a presidential election that even Karl Rove and Peggy Noonan decided was in their party's victory column for the asking -  the Republican brass are at it again.  They will spend $10 million, it says here, to send an army of circuit riders into the boonies to preach  the party's brand.  Suddenly minorities have become the party's search for the Holy Grail.

If there is a true opposite to Knute Rockne's famous half-time dressing room oration to his wilting team before sending it back onto the field, Reince Priebus,  the less-than-inspiring  national Republican Party chairman will have to do. He says the voter roundup  will  include "hundreds of people - paid - across the country, from coast to coast, in Hispanic, African-American, Asian communities, talking about our party, talking about our brand,  talking about what we believe in---"

Hold it right there, fella!  Ohioans already know what the party believes in. Let me remind you:

Begin with the belabored effort to limit the voter turnout last November. None other than John Boehner, the funereal Speaker,  told a luncheon group  hosted by the Christian Science Monitor last August: "This election is about economics...These groups [minority and poor voters] have been hit the hardest.  They may not show up and vote for our candidate but I'd suggest to  you they won't show up and vote for the president either."

Oh?
Now the Ohio Republican pols want to cut back the time to gather signatures  for  referendums, a bill that Kasich signed a few days ago. It impedes any effort to challenge a law.

From Planned Parenthood, to abortion, to same-sex marriage (Sen. Portman gets an ad hoc  pass on this one), to gun control,  the governor and the Republican controlled legislature keep doing awful things that are running in the opposite direction of the public mood.

And I haven't even mentioned Republicans' failed attack on unions in SB5, which was mauled at the polls.

Come to think of it, when Priebus talks of a $10 million outlay to  woo new voters with the Republican brand, he does sound like  a cheapskate. It won't be that easy. Tea Partyers are talking about starting their own party in Ohio.  Nobody except the governor and his A-Team seems happy about his proposed tax plan.

 Politically, the Buckeye State for national Republicans has become Brand X. The only question now:  What has taken them so long to figure that out - if indeed they have?  

GOP's Bob Bennett may be back in town

ALL OF THE talk that former Ohio Republican chairman Bob Bennett will return to that high office as the new Ohio Republican chairman can only bring remorse to Summit County GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff. Over the years, Arshinkoff, having once aspired to the state job himself, never had anything good to say about Bennett. And now that Gov. Kasich, who rules the GOP plantation these days, has succeeded in brutally dispatching the party's current chairman Kevin DeWine, Alex can expect no favors from the party's downstate headquarters. Or maybe at 73, Bennett will generously disregard past insults.

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The headline in today's Columbus Dispatch has this to say about the Republican whiz kid who is running for the U.S. senate against Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown:

Mandel campaign endures 'rocky start'

And then some! So far, all we've learned about Josh Mandel, the 34-year-old Ohio treasurer, is that he's challenging Romney for empty talking points but an avalanche of campaign cash. Avalanche may be too cautious. Two major conservative Sugar Daddies, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are among the majors who have plowed more than $5 million into TV ads bashing Brown . And there is doubtless a lot more on the way.

Among Mandel's weirdest charges against Brown is that the senator, a longtime friend of labor, has been in the forefront of sending American jobs to China. When challenged on that easily refuted form of political idiocy, Mandel blithely says he has no reason to stop saying it and plans to utter it "again and again''. He also boasts that he is an ex-Marine with two terms in Iraq. Thank you. We can honor that. But I can also add that as an ex-Air Force officer myself, I would have made an awful senator. Frankly, the young man gives me a headache.

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Well, here come the birthers again. Two Republican congressmen are now expressing grave doubts that President Obama's birth certificate is authentic. So naming names, they are Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida, and Rep. Vicky Hartzler of Missouri. Says Hartzler, one of the people minding the Tea Party store: "I have doubts that it is really his birth certificate." Can you imagine how much more of this nonsense we'll be hearing into November by Republicans who want to lead this country into ...um...greatness?

Democrats, Republicans finally agree on something

WELL, WHAT HAPPENED on November 2 when the inmates took over the asylum?

We're in luck. There are no complicated answers!

On this point, there was sort of a political detente with sheathed swords Thursday night as a bipartsan panel of four campaign gurus agreed that the cause of the Democratic demise in Ohio (as elsewhere) was nothing more profound than an ailing economy. Beyond that, the autopsy produced the insiders' look into the cupboard of strategies that both sides employed - the theatrical props that adorn every campaign , from yard signs to polls to negative ads. Still, all of the traditional stuff appeared to be less important than the fixed perception that when a lot of folks are out of work, the only remedy is to fire the incumbents. To the winning sloganeers with their guaranteed fixes, one can only say good luck to that.

The occasion on panel night was the national conference of the American Association of Political Consultants hosted by the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron. The panelists, who would lead various discussions the next day, were Aaron Pickrell, Gov. Strickland's campaign manager; Michael Hartley, John Kasich's campaign manager; Former Ohio Republican chairman Robert Bennett and former Democratic campaign consultant, Gerald Austin. Bliss director John Green served as moderator.

Of the economic baggage lugged by Democrats in Ohio, Bennett observed that "tsunamis don't stop at the state line". That was soon obvious when the flood waters receded in Columbus. But Bennett was cautious about the long-term benefits to his party. He has witnessed too many reversals by the shifting voters over his many years in managing GOP business to be puffed up with overconfidence after this lopsided mid-term.

Meanwhile, Austin noted that all campaigns can be reduced to "good luck and bad luck." For Strickland the story was full of bad luck, some prompted by his own decisions. The governor's fate was sealed when Barack Obama was elected, Austin said, a novel idea that didn't appear in any of the other post-mortems. His reasoning: Strickland could not run against (i.e., blame) Washington because he and the president were both Democrats. With incisive satire, which has been often been associated with his long path through Ohio politics, Austin referred to Strickland's choice of head of the Ohio Department of Transportation from Brown County, a rural outpost in southwestern Ohio, quipping that the new director probably didn't even know where Cleveland was. He cited other things but you get the idea: bad luck.

On the other hand, Kasich arrived on the crest of the economic meltdown and as a friend of the newly emerging anger-philes souped up as the Tea Party. At that, he merely won a plurality in a close race although he has been sounding a lot like an Eliot Ness who ousted the bad guys by acclimation.

As for the Tea Partiers , Hartley tippy-toed lightly, describing the phenomenon as the "real deal. You can't play games with the Tea Party." That much was already confirmed by the way the TP's wiped out some Republican incumbents in the primaries. I don't think the old Republican lions know what to say or do about the new political menaces who moved into their neighborhood.

All the forthcoming internecine warfare will keep the speculators quite busy until the next election day. For now, Austin was content to compare winning politics with baseball: "See the ball. Hit the ball." That's not inside baseball either.

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Chris Redfern: It's much too early to give up

CHRIS REDFERN, the Ohio Democratic chairman, came to the Akron Press Club Thursday to push a big boulder uphill and keep it from rolling back against a troubling sense of defeatism within the party.

At this point, the polls are telling a different story than what Redfern offered in his speech, but he conceded nothing for the November election. He talked of registration that gives the D's a huge advantage over Republicans in Ohio - 2.5 million to 1.4 million -and insisted that his party's biggest task now is to use that advantage to the benefit of the Democratic ticket by getting these voters to the polls.

Democratic hopes lie in the early absentee voting that begins on Sept. 28. Redfern predicted that half of Ohio's voters will have cast their ballots before Election Day. Meantime, nothing is being left to chance. Redfern noted the party now has 27,900 volunteers and a full-time staff of 300 working on assuring a successful outcome for the Nov. 2 election. The party also has planned a statewide bus tour next week to spark voter interest.

Redfern has been credited with being a nuts-and-bolts party leader who has been concentrating on a statewide precinct- by- precinct effort since assuming the reins in 2005. Some of that work contributed to President Obama's victory in Ohio in 2008. His emphasis on the tiniest details of campaign structure has also led to solid fund-raising, the fuel that puts political engines in forward gear. The party's treasury is said to be in good condition for the final weeks of 2010 contests.

His audience in the Martin Center included former longtime GOP state chairman Robert Bennett, who was at the Bliss Institute, which co-sponsored Redfern's speech, to speak to a class. Bennett sat courteously at Redfern's table and exchanged quips with Redfern. When the Democratic chairman acknowledged him in his opening remarks, Bennett replied: "I'm here to learn."