Memories of Santorum - the local video

The Summit County Republican Party  may have discredited itself as a proud corridor of political power (i.e., money and influence)  for the  home stretch to the November election. You only need to review the video of the party's Lincoln Day dinner in February that's been posted on the locals' home page.  In it, falsely absorbed by their  own worth in national politics, the  brass  revealed  a fawning embrace of its marquee speaker, then- GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Chairman Alex Arshinkoff allowed that Rick could be the "next Ronald Reagan" after applauding the candidate's "great speech".

 A meaningless straw vote of the dinner guests (the biggest in Ohio, the hometowners boasted)  gave the former Pennsylvania senator 74 pct. of votes.  In return, Santorum, who told his audience that he had been an underdog in an earlier political life,  praised the Summiteers as his kind of "grassroots party". Everybody apparently went home happy that they had a winner.

Oh?

Now what?  Will Mitt Romney finally show up in downtown Akron?  Or at least in Cuyahoga Falls, where Mayor Don Robert, a Tea Party welcomer, sat on the dais that night?   Will Mitt remember that Santorum has shrieked  that Mitt would be the "worst candidate" that the Republicans could nominate?   Will the Akron Zips win more than one football game this year?

Summit GOP: It takes one to know three

The Summit County Republican Party website has a curious  item from the Beacon Journal about a relative of a Democrat who was hired by the county.

The Republicans' spin on it was...well, let me quote the local GOP's hallowed chronicle: :

"Just the latest example of Summit County's elected Democrats handing high-paying government jobs to their relatives and political cronies, regardless of qualifications or anti-nepotism laws.  Even the local newspaper can't cover up that stink bomb.  Outrageous.! "(Bold face and italics as appearing in the original.)

One problem with that.  Actually, three.

Party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's brother Chris happens to be the bailiff in the Republican-held Summit County Probate Court.  Chris' wife Joan is the bailiff for Republican Common Pleas Judge Alison McCarty. Alex's niece,  Susan Sweeney, is chief deputy of the Barberton
Clerk of Courts.  Only a coincidence?


By the way the website just added a video  of the party's Lincoln Day Dinner in February in which the principal speaker, then- GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum. claimed the Summit County Party as his own.  He mentioned that his strength in his earlier political days was that people didn't take him seriously.

 Sorry, Rick, they still don't.  Still at the conclusion of his address in which he gave a light-hearted account of a dog that peed in his lap during a campaign stop, Santorum  inspired  Arshinkoff to shout, "What a great speech! What a great speech!  We may have a new Ronald Reagan!"

Not yet, Alex.  Not yet.