Redfern Re-Elected as ODP Chair

By On April 12, 2012 · 3 Comments

ODP Chair, Chris Redfern, speaking with press after re-election

I’m happy to report the Ohio Democratic Party is as strong as ever and fully prepared to win essential races in 2012. I wrote about the competition for ODP Party Chair in a post titled, The Secret To Our Success, on April 1st.  In that post I listed most of the reasons that Chairman Redfern is the right person for the job. I also listed reasons why I thought the challengers criticisms were invalid.

One criticism I didn’t know enough to respond to was the criticism about the public voting process. The challengers wanted a secret ballot. The reality is that our committee members are elected to vote on our behalf, so we need to have a public record on how they vote. It’s the same process by which we keep other elected officials accountable to the voters.

What I felt in the room last night was overwhelming love and solidarity. The people who work for us at the Ohio Democratic Party are truly passionate about getting our chosen candidates elected. I’m personally grateful to them for the stress they endure along the way as they face the challenges that are a natural part of the political process. I’m confident in our ability to overcome the flood of dark money that will be spent in Ohio to elect Republicans due to the Citizen’s United ruling. We represent the values and vision of Ohio voters and they know it. The Republicans keep showing their ugly true colors, like with SB5, and the voters can see it. With Chris Redfern as our party chair we stand the best chance possible of making sure Ohio voters aren’t confused by slick and repetitive misleading political advertising. Senate Bill Five painted a picture about who is on the side of the middle class in Ohio. Mitt Romney proclaiming that the auto industry should be left to die made it clear whose side he’s on. With Chis Redfern and the amazing team he has working with him, we will make sure the voters remember in November.

Here’s my video with highlights from the evening…

I just have to add this tweet in…

 

Story by, Lauren Michelle Kinsey
Follow me @OHLMK
Communicate with me lauren@plunderbund.com

Evangelize!
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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=50607926 Ryan Fissel

    He did a great job with holding onto our Democratic congressional delegation…oh wait.

    I was really impressed that he held onto at least one statewide seat so that the Democrats would have a say during the redistricting fight…oh darn.  He didn’t.

    Holding the Ohio House after a Democratic takeover in 2008 was impressive…aw shucks.  He didn’t do that, either.

    I’m very happy that we were able to capture a couple of seats on the Ohio Supreme Court so that a right-wing agenda wasn’t forced down the throats of all Ohioans…oops.  That didn’t happen.

    If you want to know who did the work on SB 5 – talk to the labor unions.  Chris Redfern is a feckless idiot who will now be double dipping his salary (yet again) when he runs for and wins election to the Ohio House.   We need a real leader in the state of Ohio.  Chris Redfern has proven that he isn’t that leader. 

  • Haywood

     I hardly think you are someone who has room to talk about losing races. Hoping you share your thoughts with Cousin Bobby, who did vote for Chairman Redfern.

  • Modern Esquire

    Ryan-

    Because we all know that 2010 would have been a great election year for Democrats, if only Chris Redfern wasn’t chair, right?  Of course, it makes sense that with Chris Redfern to be blamed for losing the Ohio House (a feat that occured under his chairmanship that NOBODY thought was possible), he had the support for former Speaker/current House Minority Leader Armond Budish.

    Look, it’s lazy intelluctualism comments like yours that really ticked me off with this nonsense.  You can’t just look at one election result–particularly one that nationally was as big, if not bigger, for the GOP than 1994–and say Redfern’s failure as Chair (which you can’t even bother articulating what he failed to do) were responsible.  The “change the leadership because we lost” is the failed philosophy that is like how the Cleveland Browns believe that next year they’ll be Super Bowl champions… if ONLY they got a new head coach.

    Yes, ODP and OFA spent considerable material support to the Issue 2 effort but there was a strategic decision to keep it on the down low because there was a strategic decision to try to avoid making Issue 2 into merely a partisan issue.

    John Kasich and Mike DeWine barely won and with less than 50% of the vote.  We were close in the Auditor’s race, too.  Most of the Congressionals we lost were districts we won in 2006-2008 that were drawn by the GOP legislature to be Republican districts.  We simply won them because of a high Democratic tide election.  We were bound to lose some of them.  And many of those races turned out to be far more competitive than people believed they were before the election.

    I’ve seen ineffective Democratic party chairs come and go in Ohio, but to say Chris Redfern hasn’t been a leader is just more foolish rantings.

    On a side note, Ryan, it takes some nerve for you to attack Chris Redfern when his support (and his financial support) was instrumental in getting Marian Harris elected in 2008, a feat you still tout today for your political consultancy business.  At the time Redfern was both ODP Chair and House Minority Leader, so he was instrumental in staging the takeover in 2008 and recruiting candidates like Harris.

    So I’m pretty disgusted by someone who has so clearly milked off of Redfern’s success only to turn against him.  Pretty disloyal.

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