Tuesday, March 13, 2012

As one Ohio battle went down to the wire, Mr. Kasich appears to have won the Ohio Civil war by a landslide

On Tuesday, while my own precinct voted 77% to 5% for Mr. Santorum over Mr. Romney, after midnight it was announced that Mr. Romney won the state 37.9% to 37.1%. At best, I may have been responsible for one other Santorum vote in my own precinct besides my vote. I was more concerned about elected Pro-Kasich committee people to our party’s Central Committee, while my own precinct (the only precinct in my county to vote GOP in 2006) was one of the few precincts to vote for both Pro-Kasich Committee people, unfortunately, my State Senatorial District (like about 10 others) split down the middle and vote for one Pro-Kasich Committee person and one anti-Kasich Committee person. Well one is better than nothing.

While the dust still has not technically settled yet as there will be at least one recount, it appears that the Pro-Kasich forces have won 47 of the 66 Ohio GOP committee seats. I went to bed Tuesday night not knowing who won between Mr. Santorum and Mr. Romney. When I woke up Wednesday morning while I found out who won the Presidential race, I only found out how a few committee races turned out as it was difficult to find out results. By the end of that day I was able to figure out the results of 47 of the 66 positions (or 65, since one is vacant.) I did not find information about the other 25 positions or they were still too close to call in some cases. It looked at the time that of those 47 seats, Pro-Kasich forces won or would win 34 seats so already he was up to a simple majority and thus the first goal had been met.

Mr. Kasich himself said:
“We did extremely well and we will have a transition to new leadership," Kasich said, referencing the 66 ORP central committee seats up for grabs last night. "You know the results. We will transition to a new chairman at some point. We don’t know exactly what all the numbers are, but we are very pleased we’re in a position where there will be some changes.”

Of course the Chairman was also claiming victory at first, but as we now have results for all 65 elected positions, it looks to me that we can count on about 47 votes for the Kasich camp, more than the two third majority needed to really clean the place up. Both sides are now a little quiet as to how exactly who will support who as both sides fight to pick off a few, but most neutral observers as well as those close to the ground say that the worst case scenario for Mr. Kasich is that he’ll end up with about 42 seats. Note quite a two thirds majority, but enough to effectively control the party. I received a list of people from the Kasich camp just before the election color coded as to which candidates they think will support them and which won’t, but I will not release that list publically in case the Chairman’s forces know who to strong arm. Not too long before the election, the ORP passed a bye-law by only a few votes to make it difficult for certain people to takes seats on the Committee. Legally, this needs a two thirds majority, but the Chairman claimed victory anyway. Supposedly a few Pro-Chairman people did not support this bye-law, but since it was a secret vote, there is no proof for sure as to who voted for it. Nevertheless, that vote suggested that prior to the election 30 to 32 Committee people were Pro-Kasich. With the apparent defeat of at least 15 anti-Kasich people (some of them prominent,) again by this measure, Mr. Kasich should be able to count on 45 to 47 votes.

Just prior to Tuesday’s election, the civil war became official if it already was not. The Party chairman did not allow any Congressman to have office space in the ORP party building, thus kicking them out of the building to turn the place into an anti-Kasich war-room. Supposedly, the Governor also made plans to set up a shadow party organization as a back up plan in the event he had lost Tuesday’s election. With a majority of the Committee people finally on his side, that plan is no longer necessary. I have been waiting for this moment for the past few years or so. The only time I ever spoke to the Chairman was at a dinner just prior to the NY-23 election. I am glad I have never spoken to the son of a gun and ever since then, I have waited for this result since that dinner. So far, he is kicking and screaming, but in about a month, we will finally get rid of our corrupt Chairman and our Great state will no longer be run like a banana republic by hacks full of shenanigan. A coalition of Tea Partiers, Conservatives, Kasichites and perhaps even a few Moderates will finally defeat Our State Chairman and his merry band of corrupt liberal cronies.

While, Mr. Romney may not have chosen good friends in Ohio, to be fair, the Ohio civil war was certainly not entirely fought along camp lines. While, I got into a few minor friendly pissing contests with the County Organizer for the Romney camp, my friend supported both Kasich candidates in our Senatorial District. And while many Santorumites and Paulites worked to promote the Governor’s cause, a number of Santorum voters were too freaking stupid to support the Governor’s candidates. Perhaps ironically, a number of Ohio Republicans have either spilt personalities or are a light bulb short of a package. About a third of our Senatorial districts voted for one Pro-Kasich committee person and one anti-Kasich person. Sure, one can argue that there will always be a small portion of mushy swing voters who split the difference, but after analyzing the results of my own county, easily a quarter of those who voted for committee people voted for one Pro-Kasich and one anti-Kasich person. It is a little disheartening on one hand, but I am glad that our Governor won the war in the end. The majority of us on the county committee voted for both Pro-Kasich committee people, but the few Romneyites tended to vote for one Pro-Kasich person and one anti-Kasich person. While I knew that this was what was, I was almost ready to blow my cork at one such person and encage in a pissing contest, but a Santorumite on the board who is just as Right-Wing as I, but calmer and level headed, calmed me down before I had a chance to get into such a contest. She said that although she supports the Pro-Kasich candidates, she said that he himself is not perfect and we need to be happy that people are at least supporting one of the two Pro-Kasich candidates especially when they are under pressure to support neither. I guess all is well that ends well. For about a month prior to the vote, I (like others) have promoted Pro-Kasich candidates wherever I went and statewide, our hard work paid off against the party machine as the Chairman’s days are numbered. Mr. Kasich will soon be able to lower taxes, fight unions and promote Right Wing policies without the chairman and a few hacks standing in his way.


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8 comments:

Machtyn said...

Thank you for your insights OJ.

As a Romney supporter, I couldn't be more pleased that he was able to fend off the Democratic Operation Hilarity and Santorum's calls for Democrat cross-over (as he is doing again in AL and MS).

Now, OJ, I'm not accusing you of either being a Democrat nor of encouraging this behavior. I know if Romney had tried to pull a stunt like this in 2008, I would not be supporting him in 2011-2012.

Graham said...

Glad to see Kasich getting stronger there. Thanks for these details, OJ.

Anonymous said...

OJ...good to see you again...would have loved your insights in the leadup to Super Tuesday though...don't stay away, it's not the same here without you.

Gordon

Anonymous said...

Oj, I hope you realize that Santorum would lose to Obama in one of the widest margins in history.

Ohio JOE said...

Well Machtyn, rightly or wrongly, people swich parties every election. Yes, this time, many people became Republicans this time, but many were Republicans before they went Democrat in 2008. I know that you are trying to claim that they are Democrats for Santorum and that they will vote Democrat in the fall. However, the fact remains, that while some Conservatives held their nose and voted for Mr. Romney, most Conservatives did not vote for Mr. Romney. Mr. Romney won by getting the liberal and moderate GOP vote. The type of people we cannot necessarily count on in the Fall.

Anonymous said...

I went to bed early also, knowing that Romney was going to win, even though Santorum was leading most of the night. That is faith my brother.

Machtyn said...

OJ: You are correct, that is what I was saying. Santorum is calling on Obama supporters to spoil the day for Romney, not necessarily win the day for Santorum.

You are correct, there are a lot of Independents that switch parties. Who knows if these same Independents will vote R in the fall. I am not so delusional as to say ALL Dems that voted for Santorum were spoilers. Truly, some of them preferred to vote FOR Santorum, not against another candidate.

Although, stating Romney is winning by getting the liberal and moderate vote is simply not entirely true. Romney is doing very well at winning the Conservative vote. Exit polling is showing this. Is he getting the TEA Party and Far Right Conservative votes? Nope, but he is getting the Conservative vote over the other candidates - both as a whole and in most states.

Ohio JOE said...

"Although, stating Romney is winning by getting the liberal and moderate vote is simply not entirely true." Well, no doubt, for one reason or another, many Conservatives did vote for Mr. Romney and thus one could argue that these Conservatives put mr. Romney over the top. At the same time, Mr. Romney would not have been put over the top had it not been for the support of many Modereates.