ODP invited us bloggers to join Chris Redfern on a conference call this afternoon, which is awesome. I feel a detente of sorts beginning to thaw across the ODP-blogger landscape, largely because of how this primary season is shaping up. That’s great news for the fall.
I’m not sure why there isn’t more of this type of outreach, other than an old, tired, and now cliche insistence on continuing an arms length relationship between bloggers and ODP. Primaries tend to exacerbate that arms length relationship. Which brings me to my question for Chris Redfern on today’s call.
Will ODP, Redfern, or others in the leadership of the party, support an effort to eliminate from ODP’s bylaws the provision for pre-primary endorsements in non-incumbent races? This provision in ODP’s bylaws is the single most divisive force within ODP – it is the source of every major battle between ODP and a blogosphere which is now permanent in Ohio, has influence, and reflects the facts on the ground in our party’s base.
As great as pre-primary endorsement fights are for blog traffic (and boy, are they GREAT for blog traffic), these fights aren’t good for the party at all. Conversely, open primaries have been conclusively proven to be very good for the party. They energize diverse segments of the base, force them to organize at the grassroots, and strengthen our eventual nominee statewide. See Barack vs. Hillary. Getting rid of pre-primary endorsements in the bylaws seems like a no-brainer.
For example, the whole Garrison fiasco. The only reason Jennifer Garrison was able to hang on as long as she did, keeping other candidates out of the SOS primary who could have spent months organizing a rising tide of this party’s base, was due to a belief within the party (rightly or wrongly) that Garrison was an ODP choice, and would get an ODP endorsement. The opposition to Garrison thus largely became opposition to an ODP endorsement of Garrison, and in the end, Garrison had to be forced out, involuntarily, messily, with the threat of just such an endorsement going against her.
Had ODP bylaws explicitly forbidden pre-primary endorsements in non-incumbent races, Garrison would have drawn an opponent months ago. That opponent would have galvanized a motivated electorate drawn from a diverse set of constituencies to organize at the grassroots to beat Garrison at the ballot box, rather than trying to beat her in a back room. Garrison herself would have been forced to organize, rather than resting on endorsements and an assumption that she had the inside track for the ODP endorsement. The battle would have been loud and boisterous, but it would have been open and transparent, with a clear and undisputed winner identified on election day, yielding enormous benefits at the grassroots.
If ODP has learned any lessons from the last 5 years of engagement with the blogosphere, the Number One Lesson should be that pre-primary endorsements are counterproductive, stifle the grassroots, and lead to bad blood long term.
I’d like to ask Chris Redfern about this on today’s call, so I’m emailing this to ODP in case they’d like to prepare an answer. If a movement toward such a change in ODP’s bylaws does emerge from the top of the party, Ohio’s bloggers will be the first, and loudest allies.
I signed Lee Fisher’s petition today at the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Executive Committee meeting for May 5 primary endorsements, happily. I’ve always wanted to see a primary in this race, we’ve got one, no reason not to sign. But it does strike me as odd that the so-called “inevitable” candidate is still collecting petitions, with paid staff, at his own home county’s primary endorsement meeting, where the party refuses to endorse him. Fun.
The meeting was fairly drama free, except for two races. In the Ohio State Senate district 23 primary, the county party had to go to a separate vote of the district’s members to decide not to endorse, a victory for State Rep. Mike Skindell, who is facing a Bill Mason backed dude named Celebrezze – classic, bullshit, name-based politics trying to kneecap a very good legislator in Mike Skindell, and it failed. Plus, there’s some dude named Mottl from Parma in the primary, which splits the Parma name-voters, so I like Skindell’s chances. Go Mike!
In the Ohio House district 10 primary, apparently Roosevelt Coats is on some weird kamikaze mission to challenge incumbent Robin Belcher, no idea why. Coats had someone try to move from the floor on HD-10 to do something (not endorse? couldn’t tell), but the lack of a quorum from the district scuppered that. Coats was in the lobby trying to gather signatures for god knows what, I half expect him to end up in my race for county council!
And then there’s Bill Mason, who in a ghostly fashion, wandered up to the stage toward the end of the meeting to ask why the county party wouldn’t endorse in the auditor’s race for David Pepper. The parliamentarian said the county party had received “guidance” from ODP not to endorse in this race. Mason, leaning on the top of a chair in the front row of the auditorium, dressed in what looked like his pajamas and blue jeans, wondered, “why?” Pepper is unopposed in this primary, but he isn’t an incumbent, like the other statewides the county party endorsed. The parliamentarian repeated they’d received guidance from ODP on the race, and said the county party could call a meeting at another time if things changed. Then Mason wandered back to his seat.
I’m betting this was Lee Fisher inspired. My guess is that Mason wanted to force a Pepper endorsement to then piggy back from that to move from the floor that if the party was going to endorse non-incumbents in statewide primaries, they should hold a vote for the endorsement in the US Senate primary.
Whether or not that’s the case, it is telling that Mason failed in both the battles he chose to fight today, in a room he should have been able to control, given how dead and dying the county party seems to be right now. Rather pathetically, too.
OhioDaily has confirmed that the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party will not be taking up the issue of Fisher v. Brunner when they meet this Saturday morning to endorse candidates for state and countywide office for the May primary. According to a spokesperson for the county party, there will not be action taken on an endorsement unless the Ohio Democratic Party chooses to endorse on their own.
ODP ain’t moving on this before Saturday if Lee’s home county ain’t pushing it. So this means Lee will not get the endorsement of his home county party for this US Senate seat.
Stunning.
This may be the first fallout from Issue 6 for Lee. Lee endorsed Bill Mason’s Issue 6, over the vast majority of elected Cuyahoga County Democrats, without question thinking this would help him get the county party endorsement via Mason’s well documented choke hold on huge chunks of whatever machine remains in the county. Unfortunately, Bill Mason is otherwise occupado.
That Lee felt he needed to endorse Issue 6 to curry favor with Bill Mason, and Lee STILL can’t get endorsed by Cuyahoga Dems, shows he never had the votes to get this endorsement. Lee Fisher has been running for office from Cuyahoga County for 30 years, and he can’t even get a majority of his own home party’s executive committee to endorse him over Jennifer Brunner.
And Cuyahoga County is where this primary will be won or lost.
Take one day to spend on planes crossing the country away from internet, and look what happens! Well, here’s the deal on yesterday’s ODP non-endorsement news. Some blog history for you.
By this time in January 2006, the last time ODP faced statewide primaries, an endorsement process was well under way, set in stone, and its eventual endorsements were well known. Recall that Chris Redfern had just been elected chairman in December, 2005. Within days, a screening committee was being put in place to solidify the ticket for Ted Strickland, Sherrod Brown, and most specifically, Marc Dann over Subodh Chandra. In fact, by mid-January, 2006, an ODP screening committee had already been named internally.
None of that is going on now, nor has been. ODP says so, both in Modern’s original reporting, which he revised, and their separate statement issued later in the day, and let me quote.
As of right now, there has been no movement in that endorsement process, but that should in no way imply that there will be no movement in the future.”
Yes, it should in EVERY WAY imply there will be no movement to endorse, based on ODP’s own past endorsement processes. If there is “no movement in that endorsement process”, one month before the filing deadline, there is no stitch up for any one candidate, which is the only reason for there to be an endorsement. No stitch up means the endorsement ain’t happening. Maybe this whole thing could be thrown together tomorrow, sure. Try to get odds on that. Be my guest.
Lost in all the spin, though, this may be the very first time ODP has ever issued a statement in response to a blog story, ever. And all because Lee Fisher’s head exploded when he learned he won’t get an endorsement from ODP. That’s what’s going on here – soon as Lee saw this news, Lee turned red with rage, and started working the phones, just as he’s been doing for the entirety of 2009. ODP had to issue this statement just to keep Lee from spontaneously combusting. I hearby apologize to Chris Redfern for any role Plunderbund may have played in the rotten day he got yesterday thanks to Lee Fisher’s head exploding!
Lee’s campaign for an ODP endorsement is a failure. He couldn’t get it done quietly over a period of one solid year, and now he can’t get it done loudly, with ODP telling Lee in this public statement that he’s failed. Reading “there has been no movement”, when Lee has been pushing for that movement with everything he’s got for a year, must really be a bitter pill.
Modern and I talked on the phone about this last night for almost an hour, and we agree. The notion that the Kasich campaign is floating a John Kasich/Mary Taylor ticket for Ohio governor must be making Chris Redfern apoplectic with glee. Fernsy, here’s one where you and I can kick back, raise a glass, and enjoy a moment of wondrous joy together. Miracles never cease.
This bizarre episode proves one thing, spectacularly – John Kasich is at least as weak a candidate as Ken Blackwell, probably weaker. Kasich is getting teabagged from the right, for a host of reasons, and his response is to publicly beg a teabagger-approved Sarah Palin incumbent running for re-election to an apportionment board seat to be his lieutenant governor.
Laughably pathetic. Not one voter will give two shits who is John Kasich’s running mate, except the Republican base. The LG spot’s only use is internal to the party – just ask Ted Strickland, who filled his LG spot with Northeast Ohio Jewish dude Lee Fisher to get Northeast Ohio Jewish dude Eric Fingerhut out of Ted’s own primary.
Rather than rehash Modern’s excellent analysis, if Modern’s scenario does play out, here’s how ODP would respond to such a ticket if I were chair. When Northeast Ohio Jewish dude Josh Mandel does move to Taylor’s auditor seat, I’d have Ted Strickland move David Pepper from Auditor to LG. Then I’d ask Lee to perform precisely the same service he did in 2006 again – Lee Fisher should get out of the US Senate primary and run for Auditor. Apportionment board, CHECK – good bye, Josh Mandel.
Secretary of State? Jen Garrison, nice to know ya, you’re irrelevant. Husted can have the seat – no Democrat with a single iota of self-respect is going to vote for Jen Garrison anyway, so Husted, take the SOS spot, it’s all yours, we don’t need it, we’ll have two already. Jennifer Brunner, say hello to Rob Portman. You will kick his ass. You know why you’ll kick his ass?
Because John Kasich is a ticking time bomb about to implode, evidenced by his desperation in this LG tomfoolery, and that means Ted Strickland is going to win going away, the GOP ticket will melt, top to bottom. That puts another Democrat in the US Senate for Barack Obama, one the White House can rely on, making Joe Lieberman irrelevant.
Nothing since JUNE? Did the official Ohio GOP blogger get fired? There’s a 3 month blogging rule. If you are dormant for 3 months you have to quit. Of course, they weren’t very relevant even when they were blogging. Anonymously I might add. Just shut it down guys. It was once a month or so anyway even when you did have something to say. It’s clear they don’t care much about it. They don’t even link it from their main site. Makes this page look silly too.
ODP is a bit livelier, but going on a month with nothing new. At least they are not nameless and faceless. Seth and Sarah (and sometimes Todd) at least own their posts.
Maybe they should outsource to one of many sycophants out there who would be more than willing to ghost write. Or are they already at their own blogs? Heh.
Second, Marilyn Brown may have cured every Franklin resident of cancer for all I care, but the way she caved and cleared the field for Garrison (when Garrison had not exactly showed the monolithic support you claimed) was crappy, especially after she’d gotten a large number of state legislators to endorse her over their own House Majority Floor Leader.
Seems Marilyn Brown’s endorsers showed more courage than Marilyn Brown. Shocking! I’d like to know what Marilyn Brown is doing with the money she raised to run for SOS. Is she giving it back? Or is she going to use it to feather her own nest for some other future run? Because the people who gave Marilyn Brown money did not give it to Marilyn Brown for Marilyn Brown. They gave Marilyn Brown money because she was going to stop a gay baiting, anti-choice, anti-labor Sarah Palin from poisoning our entire statewide ticket.
And therein lies the solution to Jennifer Brunner’s fundraising. Donors are not going to burn themselves on a pyre of some candidate’s cowardly vacillating, especially not after watching a bunch of legislators sitting in the majority get burned by endorsing against their own majority floor leader, only to see their endorsed candidate drop out, thus putting their heads on a guillotine for Jennifer Garrison to chop off.
When Jennifer Brunner files, this dynamic will disappear.
A lot of people ask me why I support Jennifer Brunner for US Senate, the answer is simple. Courage. Brunner says what she’s going to do, then does it. She ran for Secretary of State saying she’d clean up our sad electoral processes, she did it. Brunner saw an opening for the US Senate, she’s going for it.
Unfortunately, it’s increasingly likely that when Brunner is our nominee, she will be the victim of a statewide Democratic ticket filled with a bunch of opportunistic cowards, backed by a bunch of opportunistic cowards, thus pathetic in the extreme because this state’s Ohio Democratic Party is filled with nothing but opportunistic cowards. Exhibit A is Jennifer Garrison.
Garrison is a shameless gay-baiter, neanderthal rabid pro-lifer, to the point of Sarah Palin repulsiveness, and there isn’t a single person within ODP willing to step up and keep her off the statewide ballot. Not one. Marilyn Brown played us all for a bunch of fools until her cowardice got the better of her. Progress Ohio knee capped me WAHMBULANCE! May we never hear from her again, which is precisely what Marilyn wants, I’m sure. Just keep the paycheck coming in, right Marilyn?
The rest of ODP stands by and lets this cancer of a candidate get on our statewide ballot, assuring the TOTAL CERTAINTY that not a single gay person or pro-choice woman will lift a finger for the ticket, and may even vote for John Husted. I’ll never vote for a Republican for as long as I live, but I am certainly not going to be handing out literature with Jennifer Garrison’s face, name, likeness, penumbra or emanation surrounding it, either explicit or implied. Never. I’m a Democrat. Garrison isn’t.
Who could keep Garrison from the ticket? Gee, I don’t know, name another random state rep or state senator who could just as easily throw a hat into the ring as Garrison opportunistically did. Armond Budish? Jay Goyal? Chris Redfern? Maybe Eric Fingerhut? How’s Secretary of State sound, Eric? Oh wait….too risky, forgot about that. Where’s our congressional delegation? Collecting paychecks or sitting on fiefdoms in safe seats, that’s where.
Then there’s Kevin Boyce, who no one has ever heard of, running against the most cynical, game playing little puke in Ohio politics, Josh Mandel and his millions in Republican money. Forget that one! David Pepper? Who? Rich Cordray should this minute be sending out resumes to law firms, because Ted Strickland’s jobs record is about to get plastered all over the US Senate primary via Lee Fisher’s opportunism standing in the way of a candidate who can actually win the seat.
The 2010 Ohio Democratic Party ticket is rapidly shaping up to be the biggest, fastest fall from power in my lifetime. Chris Redfern could be the only major state party chairman in Ohio history to win for his party the apportionment board, then lose it in a single cycle, before the apportionment board even meets to apportion. By this time next year, even Harry Meshel will seem like an upgrade.
My only consolation is that Ohioans are ticket splitters, and will recognize the ODP ticket for what it plainly is, a sorry list of posing preening cowards, while recognizing that one person on it, Jennifer Brunner, will take her courage to the US Senate, make Joe Lieberman irrelevant, and help Barack Obama govern this country. It’s a slim hope, I admit. But that’s just the optimist in me.
Anastasia catches Jennifer Garrison doing more image rehab by hopping on the bandwagon of an elections process bill. She also wonders out loud whether Jen will try to co-opt a bill intended to prevent unwanted pregnancies through improved access to birth control and comprehensive sex education.
Garrison is to the right of most Dems on women’s reproductive issues and, as Anastasia points out, the recent furor in Dem circles over the Stupak amendment to the Health Care Reform Act makes it an inconvenient time for a Democrat running for statewide office to hold views to the right of most Democrats in the state.
I have to agree with her here:
Garrison can call press conferences and co-opt all the election bills she wants. Her position on choice is GOING to be an issue in this campaign, and the sooner she and the Ohio Democratic Party face up to it, the better.
Earlier I posted about the trouble brewing for Jennifer Garrison in her bid to be the Democratic candidate for Ohio Secretary of State. The post included information on a Facebook group opposing her (now up over 200 members). The group was started by Michael Daniels and in doing some research I found an interesting video of him talking about the race. Michael is publisher of Outlook Magazine. He is also a very well respected member of the LGBT community in Ohio.
What Michael seems to be saying here is Ted Strickland and Chris Redfern’s soft support of Jennifer Garrison could prove costly in terms of fundraising in the future. Watch:
Is TedFern ready to go to battle with the LGBT community in Ohio? Are they ready for a Progressive backlash? Daniels warning shot across their bow should send shockwaves through ODP and strengthen what have to be serious rumblings in the Progressive community in Ohio.
Not only that, but getting behind Garrison at the expense of Marilyn Brown without money from LGBT and Progressive groups could lose us a Statehouse seat:
By not seeking re-election to the House, Garrison might hand her seat to the GOP. And Brown has an edge over Garrison that also exists with either prospective Republican rival: Ohioans vote for Browns.
Doesn’t sound too strategic does it? Isn’t that what ODP and Redfern are supposed to be about? Strategic maneuvering and Statehouse control? Seems to me they might be fucking this one up. One thing is certain, and that’s that Ted and Red are in one hell of a pickle with this one.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this. If anyone hears anything or has information to pass on, you know how to reach me! Like I said earlier. It’s on.
Of course nobody reads blogs and they should just shut the hell up. On the other hand, would this news have come if blogs had not pushed the issue? Some may posit that Brunner and Celeste were never going to get the endorsement anyway so it’s easy for them not to ask for it.
…which would miss the point entirely. This is about forcing the issue to expose an undemocratic insider process that ultimately gives us poorer candidates (Sherrod Brown probably a notable exception). Now nobody but Lee asks for it and ODP will kindly then be “forced” to give him one, based on Chairman Redfern’s previous logic. It’s what kids on the Internet call “democracy FAIL”.
In case you were wondering about the silly poll to the right (where there apparently is no way to vote for anyone BUT Lee Fisher), all you need to know is here.
There is currently an effort by bloggers to get all candidates in the Senate 2010 race on the Democrat side to pledge that they will NOT seek the ODP endorsement. Read about that and sign the petition here.
ODP hops on a very important issue this election cycle. The potential disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of voters – including the now famous “Joe the Plumber”:
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern will hold a press conference this afternoon to discuss the potential impact of Republican lawsuits on voters in similar circumstances to “Joe the Plumber” whose last name – Wurzelbacher – appears with an “o” instead of a “u” on registration rolls. Since he is not a new registrant, Joe himself would probably not be among the 200,000 cases who Republicans claim are possible cases of fraud – but other Ohioans in similar situations who are newly registered could be disenfranchised.
@ohiomatt Obama speaks at tiny venue and you claim small crowd is the result of his #hrc message? Correlation not causation, Matt. 5 hours ago
Congrats on the natl attn @ohiomatt, but your 'analysis' sure seems pretty anti-Obama, pro-GOP for the president of a *nonpartisan* org. 6 hours ago
RT @TavernWench: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland @MSNBC: "Anyone who votes against this bill will regret it for the rest of their political lives." 14 hours ago
RT @delrayser: Not gonna set my clocks forward; I refuse to participate in this socialist Government TAKEOVER OF TIME. 2010/03/14
Might not make the party @joingles but will donate any new PB ad revenue for next week to the foodbank in honor of St Pat http://ow.ly/1jL5V2010/03/14
