Governor John Kasich called for Ohio Republican Party chair Kevin DeWine to resign after the 2010 elections that put him and many Republicans into office. In the year since, Kasich’s desire to have DeWine replaced has apparently not waned – and the Ohio House Speaker may have picked up the fight. Bill Batchelder praised the Governor and all but demanded DeWine step down in a letter he wrote to the GOP caucus that went public. For his part, Governor Kasich isn’t talking about it.
“I just felt it’s time for a change and that’s about my only feeling about it. I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about that stuff because the economic situation is really important.”
Dewine wrote back a blistering defense to the Speaker. Neither Batchelder nor Dewine are talking about the skirmish. Thomas Suddes is a professor of journalism at Ohio University in Athens and a member of the editorial board of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and a former Statehouse reporter. He says he was shocked the feud was playing out so publicly.
“Usually the Republicans are the party of ‘let’s keep the family secrets inside the family. I was surprised myself when this became public, especially now in the wake of what one could definitely portray as a serious defeat for the governor on Senate Bill 5 and amid unresolved discussions about congressional districting and all manner of other things.”
Paul Beck is a political science professor at Ohio State University in Columbus and the former chair of the department. Beck says he thinks the long-standing feud between the governor and the Ohio GOP party chair is still very much alive, and it could be fueled by the party’s recent success rather than a conflict over policy.
“I think it’s more the clash of ambitions. And when every statewide official is a Republican, there’s more ambition than there are opportunities to serve the ambition. And so this infighting becomes more extreme.”
Both Beck and Suddes agree that for most voters – even Republican voters – this is inside baseball. Suddes says he feels the feud will move into a fight for control of the local central committees who pick the party chairman, which most voters don’t pay much attention to – especially now that so much else is going on.
“We’re going to have two primaries next year at this point as far as we know, and now we’re having a central committee contest – contests – inside the Republican primary which are going to determine the direction of the party for a while going into the presidential campaign. And so it’s quite a lot for the voter, however well informed he or she is, to sort all this out.”
Beck says he can’t help but think that – for those who are paying attention – this will be a black eye for the Ohio GOP going into a critical presidential and US Senate campaign.
“One response might be, ‘there they go again – they can’t get along with each other even within the party. On the other hand, the Republican party – just as is true of the Democratic party – organizations are important. They have a lot of resources, and play a very important role in 2012 and beyond that.”
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats appear to be surging, with the defeat of Issue 2 and the push to put two more laws before voters next year. While it remains to be seen if Democrats can get both the election reform law and the congressional map onto the ballot and win. Suddes says it shows Ohio still has a robust political culture and no one should count out Democrats, especially when they can get a high turnout. Beck says while some might feel the putting of potentially three laws before voters is overkill, he suggests voters like direct democracy, because it helps them feel they have more control in the process.