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Crack down on Ohio Mafia – Re. The Jordon Hit

By: jerry39 (Diary)  |  July 30th, 2011 at 03:30 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Oddly enough, two days ago, I made the following comment in response to a question about how Sherrod Brown ended up an Ohio Senator –

As the story goes, Sherrod Brown was the beneficiary of rino tomfoolery. In 1992 the R establishment in Ohio wanted Mike Dewine to run for retiring Howard Metzenbaums senate seat in 1994, but staunchly conservative 6 term congressman, Bob McEwen was expected to run and had a leg up in that prospective race. So the establishment used the 1992 redistricting to make McEwen’s safe seat unsafe – and pitted McEwen against another R incumbent  Ted Miller, in the primary in a newly drawn district. McEwen beat Miller in a brutal primary, then lost in the general to Ted Strickland by a small margin. Thus getting McEwen out of the way for Mike Dewine in the 1994 Senate race. Dewine ended up being very squishy on several issues, and lost in 06 to Sherrod Brown. It was Dewine’s squishyness as well as the whole Ohio Republican party leadership’s that led to Brown’s victory as much as much as any national sentiment. So we gave away two safe house seats to a dem who rode it to the governors mansion so we could avoid a conservative senator who would have likely defeated Sherrod Brown. The story was told to me by somebody very close to Bob McEwen.

McEwen then tried in the second district but was defeated by Rob Portman. When Portman joined the Bush team in 05, McEwen tried again. In  that primary race, Pat Dewine (son of Mike) spent a million bucks (spent the most in the race) mostly sliming McEwen as the top candidate in the special election.  Jean Schmidt nosed McEwen thanks to Dewines million bucks. Dewine came in 4th.
—

Now, that comment (cleaned up a bit above) was written before the threats against Jordon. As an interesting aside, John Boehner endorsed McEwen, against Portman.  Flash forward to this diary wondering who is responsible for the Jordan threats.

http://www.redstate.com/paulkib/2011/07/29/oh-gops-threats-to-rep-jim-jordan-is-swamp-draining-in-order/

Which gets me thinking about Ohio party chairman Kevin Dewine, and his cronies who are nicknamed the “Dayton Mafia.”  Yes, Kevin is the second cousin of Mike Dewine, our former Senator and current Attorney General.

Some examples of how this nickname was earned.  The state Central commitee is in the habit of endorsing its members in Central Commitee races with no actual votes to endorse. OK, they say they encumbants are automatically endorsed. But in 2010, the Tea Party was making serious Central Commitee inroads, and Dewine risked losing the chair. Suddenly Central Commitee is endorsing non-encumbants who happen to be Dewine friendly against conservative encumbants -  without an actual vote to endorse. Not only that, they spent a ton of money that could have been used in the general to promote their cronie non-incumbants that they didnt actually vote to endorse. What hppened tp encumbants being automatically endorsed? When the got caught they said it was a mistake – but still never clarified who they endorsed. 

Example number 2 is that the Ohio Tea Party is convinced that these guys put the full Court press / threat to David Yost to take the auditor’s job so that Mike Dewine could run for attorney General.

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/02/02/copy/auditor_fight.ART_ART_02-02-10_B3_JGGFNUA.html?sid=101

The same Mike Dewine who got trounced in 06 by Sherrod Brown.

Third example is a tea party meeting where a buddy of mine attended and they were trying  to get to the bottom of a slush fund in Clermont County with millions  of dollars  sitting in it while  schools in the County were discontinuing bus service. Basically a couple of burly men showed up at the meeting and started shouting down the tea partiers who were asking all the right questions. Bottom line  is these guys demand you fall in  line or else. Its the way they operate.

Now they are on the outs with Governor Kasich for not falling in line -

http://beta.wosu.org/columbusontherecord/monday-round-up-new-job-for-mr-cordray-kasich-v-ohio-gop

My take is that these guys arent dumb enough to make those statments thinking the general public will know where they came from, but they dont have any love loss for Kasich, and probably not Boehner either. If they can be anonymous but still get people attributing this stuff to  either of them, its a small victory  whether they can oust Jordon or not. They also arent going to be fans of Josh Mandel – who is a huge rising star in the ohio conservative movement – so the Ken Blackwell (not blaming Blackwell for this) threat to pit Jordan against Mandel would be no problem for them – either way one  strong conservative gets the axe.

Bottom line is that Kevin Dewine is a super-squish whose goals are often to oust conservatives and whose methods destroy the integrity of Ohio’s Republican party. Jon Husted and Mike Dewine are also old establishment Republicans that got us roundly rejected in 06.

Everyone is afraid to take Kevin Dewine on or thwarted when they try, but this dirty laundry on the national stage – if it was him, might just be enough to finnaly crack down and eliminate the  Dayton mafia.

COMMENTS

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  • http://whattoreadtoday.blogspot.com/ Paula

    is their practice of interfering in the primaries. They not only endorse their anointed candidates before the primaries, they put their money and advertising behind them, making their chosen candidates almost impossible to beat. When they send out a “sample ballot” (paid for by the ORP) with their endorsed candidates the week before the primary, it’s pretty much a done deal.

    Perhaps saddest of all is that Ohio Right to Life has also jumped on this bandwagon, endorsing “the most pro-life candidate we think can win” before the primary. This leaves the (false) impression that other candidates are not actually pro-life when in reality, the decision is based on little more than the candidate’s fundraising levels and a general agreement with the group’s pro-life statement.

  • runner12

    NT

  • jerry39

    Family First PAC out of Lebanon run by Lori Viars is the best source for legit conservative endorsements in statewide races and local races in the southern part of the state. They put their guys through the ringer before endorsement, and have an excellent ground operation.

  • phlogiston

    …endorse a republican primary candidate that had been on one of Jeanette Bradley’s campaign committees? (Having a brain freeze on the name.) That was unforgivable in my mind, especially since there was a clear, unambiguously pro-life alternative available. At worst, they could have endorsed either both or neither.

    So what’s Ohio RTL’s excuse for this? There has to be some connection between OH RTL and OH GOP on this. I just don’t believe in the tooth fairy, the easter bunny or coincidence.

  • mikeymike143

    and actually seems to be quite a slease ball.

  • jerry39

    But I think they are like national RTL. Squishes convince them that if they push to hard, they will offend moderates and dems will take over. ORTL actually opposed the heartbeat bill – don’t know if they have since changed their mind, but about 5 most ago tha.t was their position.

  • jerry39

    Would go along way toward making Ohio a solid red state versus swing.