Ohio Megathread

[Maxwell]

With Fitzgerald's name recognition low at the moment, the key is for Kasich to define Fitzgerald, and define him quick. Kasich I think is favored thus far, but if he fails in that department, Fitzgerald could very well beat him.

Saying obvious things.

[Maxwell]

Changing the title of the thread to reflect new realities

[Maxwell]

I think Adam actually is Ed Fitzgerald.

[Maxwell]

Thanks for the update, Ed.

[Maxwell]

Has anyone made a "he really is in" joke or anything like that yet?

I tried to change the title to do something like that

[Maxwell]

That's hilarious. Congrats Two-Term Governor Kasich.

[Maxwell]

Ed Fitzgerald makes Todd Akin look like Jack Reed

[Maxwell]

Going into the next legislative session, Ohio Republicans will have the largest majority in the history of the 99-member Ohio House of Representatives. As it stands, the Ohio GOP will have 65 seats, and Ohio Democrats 34 seats; one seat short of a 2/3rd's majority. But considering Bill Patmon and John Barnes are 2 of the 34 in this small House Dem Caucus, Republicans pretty much have 67 votes. Patmon votes with Kasich 77% of the time while Barnes votes with Kasich 79% of the time btw, so there's no denying that they are in fact Republicans. This means even with a Kasich veto, the Ohio GOP Legislature could actually override a veto if they got the 20 needed votes in the Senate (Senate control is staying the same - 23 GOP, 10 Dem), and the 60 votes needed in the House meaning if they wanted to, they could theoretically pass a bill preventing Kasich from using the Controlling Board to expand Medicaid, and then override Kasich's veto.

Even after the elections ended, we're still facing huge trouble as a party. One of the Democratic State Representative's is suing the Ohio Democratic Party, we lost Chris Redfern as our mastermind ODP Chairman and in the House, and Ohio House Dems elected a perennial loser in Fred Strahorn as the Ohio Minority Leader over a well-respected, phenomenal fundraising champion in David Leland.

Which means at this point, our party is pretty much powerless. We only hold two statewide offices; one of which is in the minority on the Ohio Supreme Court (Bill O'Neill) and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.....and we've seen better days.

This party's best hope in these next two years while they're recuperating is hoping for an intra-party battle with the Ohio Republicans. As we know, Kasich originally took control of the Ohio Republican Party after he used intimidation and bribes to convince enough central committee members of the ORP to turn against-then Chairman Kevin DeWine, and now Kasich has the unwieldy power of a dictator. And it turns out, Kasich did the same thing a few weeks ago. Outgoing House Speaker Bill Batchelder, an ally of Kasich, made a deal with State Rep. Ron Amstutz (R) to clear the field for Ohio GOP establishment pick, State Rep. Cliff Rosenberger. Rosenberger notably has a Kasich 100% voting record, and he sits on the House Finance and Appropriations Committee where he's helped in passing several of Kasich's budgets, so it's clear why he would want Rosenberger leading the House. Kasich is cool with Amstutz to, but he's term-limited in 2016 so Rosenberger the Ohio GOP felt was the next best option.

The Ohio Tea Party, rightfully so, got pissed when they saw Batchelder and Kasich were picking sides in who would replace Batchelder as Speaker come 2015, as voting for party leaders, including Speaker are supposed to be confidential. All 65 incoming House Republicans voted via secret ballots only a week after the general election meaning this was the Ohio GOP's attempt to have as little media coverage/controversy on this as possible. There was backroom dealing to from what I heard, with Rosenberger, Amstutz, Sears, Dovilla and others in the upcoming leadership promising their House GOP colleagues committee seats if they vote for Rosenberger. Despite being an unofficial election for Speaker (the official election takes place in January when the whole House votes on the next Speaker), Rosenberger declared victory anyways and Kasich congratulated him. It would make sense Kasich would want Rosenberger as Speaker in his best interests to, considering Kasich can't afford a Tea Party Speaker at the helm of the Ohio House. Kasich's setting up for 2016 as a Huntsman-like "compassionate conservative" and seemingly wants to run to the left of everyone, but if the Tea Party got their way in Ohio, they would have voter ID planned, stopping federal Common Core standards, enacting the fetal heartbeat bill, blocking Medicaid expansion, among many other very controversial things. Rep. Jim Butler is the challenger to Cliff Rosenberger for Speaker. Butler is Tea Party-backed simply because he's a hardcore conservative. He votes with Kasich less than Rosenberger does, but that's because he's voting to the right of Kasich.

As it stands, there's roughly about 16 Ohio Citizen PAC (Tea Party)-backed State Representatives in the House. 

1) Tom Brinkman - HD-27
2) Jonathan Dever - HD-28
3) Kristina Roegner - HD-37
4) Jim Butler - HD-41
5) Christina Hagan - HD-50
6) Wes Retherford - HD-51
7) Paul Zeltwanger - HD-54
8 ) Ron Young - HD-61
9) Ron Maag - HD-62
10) John Becker - HD-65
11) Tim Schaffer - HD-77
12) Ron Hood - HD-78
13) Kyle Koehler - HD-79
14) Nino Vitale - HD-85
15) Steve Kraus - HD-89
16) Andy Thompson - HD-95

And there you go. There might be a few more that have Tom Zawistowski's unconditional support, but these are the main ones. The point of me posting these was with the 32 Democrats, and Zawistowski's 15-20 member Tea Party Caucus in the House, that's enough votes to block the GOP establishment.

As far as I'm concerned, we as a party need to do whatever it takes to convince the Ohio Tea Party that we have a huge common enemy in John Kasich and his right-hand man Cliff Rosenberger. We don't agree on hardly anything, but the ODP and Tom Zawistowski can agree that whatever Kasich wants, Kasich shouldn't get. It is worth stating though that Ohio Democrats aren't going to accomplish anything in these next two years with a Republican Governor and a blood red legislature, and we still have another month before we find out who our next Chair of the Ohio Democratic Party will be.

So I'm basically saying that this scenario is unlikely, but it would be one of the only ways for the ODP to successfully maneuver around Kasich. Unfortunately Ohio Dems won't have another shot at winning the legislature until the next census, but man, it would really be awesome if we could stop Kasich dead in his tracks these next 4 years.

The way things just went, I'm not too sure Mr. Redfern can be defined as a "mastermind".