Author: Tim Tagaris

(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)

A star is born in OH! IO!

Canton, Ohio Mayoral Race
Challenger Jamey Healy (D): 53.4%
Incumbent Janet Creighton (R): 46.6%

Canton is the largest city in the 16th Congressional District — a place I called home during my first campaign and returned when given the opportunity by Senator Sherrod Brown a year later. 

It’s an inexpensive cocktail made from 2 parts economic depression and job loss, 1 part quaint strip-mall suburbia, and 1 part big city…ish.

And last night, it was home to a proxy war that will hopefully foretell the outcome of OH-16 and the Presidential election in 2008.

Canton is the largest city in what is widely considered THE swing district in Ohio: Stark County. Stark County, of course, is the largest county in what is considered the pivotal race in Ohio’s Congressional landscape this year: OH-16.

You hear a lot of “firewall” states for Presidential campaigns.  Ie. if candidate “x” loses such and such states, their “firewall” is Florida (for example) where he/she can regain lost momentum and come back to carry the day.  In this instance, Canton was the firewall city for the Ohio GOP.  Until last night, it was the largest city under Republican control.

And this morning, there isn’t a single Republican elected official in the entire city.

For the final days and weeks, Republicans re-allocated their resources away from races like the longshot attempt to unseat Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman and started sending troops Northeast torwards Canton.

Emails went out, troops came in, money flew in all directions in what was the most expensive Mayoral race in the city’s history.  Ted Strickland, Chris Redfern and the resurgent Ohio Democratic Party responded in-kind with dollars, bodies and political heft.  And with a week to go, it was clear: Canton was the place to be.

At the end of the day, the Ohio Democratic Party train rolled on — decisively beating the Republicans and forcing them back to a fall-back position they only envisioned in their worst nightmares.

The Stark County Democratic party *was* an ossified pseudo-machine under the leadership of Johnnie Maier.  Maier is an opportunist, pure and simple.  The kind of man who would quickly place his own political ambitions directly ahead of any perceived threat to his own power or future ladders he might contemplate climbing.

And that includes Democratic candidates running for office in his own backyard.

Johnnie Maier is a checkers master trying to compete on a three dimensional chess board.  His inability to completely grasp his surroundings is rivaled only by the lead character in the movie Momento.

He alienates activists like it were his job.  He chased away Kerry coordinators, pissed off ACT, and actively worked against Reform Ohio Now. Quite the trifecta.

Johnnie Maier is no longer the leader of the Ohio Democratic Party in Stark County.  There is a new sheriff in town. It’s a new breed of Democrat that will deliver votes to John Boccieri and the Democratic nominee in OH-16.  People like Jamey and Deametrious St. John flexed their muscles and led the ticket to a clean sweep.

Finally, a star is born. I had long considered Jamey a top prospect to run either against Ralph Regula, or in the open seat in a post-Regula world.  He went another route, and that opened the door for someone like John Boccieri to walk through it. 

A victory here signals strength in OH-16 that hasn’t been seen for quite some time.  It signals a Democratic Party on the move and a Republican Party retreating to the reddest of red portions of the state.  And it was a test of wills in a battle that most viewed as a precursor of things to come statewide in 2008.

There is a lot to be encouraged about in this race.  We won the battle, and it was a nice little leap in the right direction towards winning the war.

( – promoted by DavidNYC)

Despite handing back to the keys to Swing State Project a year ago, I felt it appropriate to defend myself against Danny Glover’s NYT hitpiece on the only blog I’ve ever called home.  I can’t speak for all the bloggers on his “list,” but I can correct MANY of the innacuracies about me personally and the Lamont campaign in the piece.

For starters, here is Glover’s admitted thesis:

I do think it’s interesting that some bloggers made a name for themselves by fighting the establishment and billing themselves as revolutionaries but at the same time are willing to work for campaigns. That, to me, is part of the establishment — at least in a broad sense. And that is the point of my article.

I’m curious as to what part of Ned Lamont’s campaign was “establishment” when he was down 60 points in the polls to a former VP nominee; when every single organ of party infrastructure was fighting tooth and nail against us; when I decided to leave the DNC (now that’s establishment!) to join Ned and people literally said it would be “difficult to hire” me in the future if I made that move. Yet three of the thirteen candidates on his chart were hired “bloggers” by the Lamont campaign — that’s of “four bloggers on his campaign team.”  Of that group, one was paid to actually blog … me.  The other three were a tech guy, research staff, and graphic designer who wrote favorably about Ned before ever joining the team.

Here’s something else Glover apparently doesn’t get.  Blogging was probably one of the smallest pieces of my employment.  It’s a conversation I’ve tried to have with others at the National Journal, but no one quite seems to get.  When you take on the role of an “Internet Director” on a campaign, it’s more than just blogging and talking to bloggers.  Scott Shields of the Menendez campaign has more on this.

Further, I personally am not blogger turned campaign staff.  I worked on a campaign long before ever consistently blogging on any independent site.  Glover’s chart cites me blogging for the “now defunct” Grow Ohio.  But Grow Ohio was the site I was paid to write for by Congressman Sherrod Brown. It had his picture all over the site and a nice disclaimer at the bottom that said “Paid for by Friends of Sherrod Brown.”  The only independent blog I have ever been a regular front page poster to is Swing State Project, and he doesn’t even list that on my line … he also conveniently omitted the fact I was the DNC blogger for some time as well.

And finally, his chart implies that a paycheck is driving bloggers to write nice things about our employeers.  Maybe that’s not the intent, but it’s the implication.  But the quotes he pulls from Sirota and I (Lamont staffers) were both written AFTER the campaign was over.  Could it be that some of us he noted in the piece have the ability to work for candidates we believe in before receiving a paycheck and continue to believe in long after our final one was cashed?

Tim

P.S. They even got the amount of $$$ I made with Ned wrong.  Go figure.  I even let Glover know that via email after his first piece showed up on MSNBC’s website.

(Tim is already thinking ahead. Just like all of us ought to be. – promoted by DavidNYC)

Why not start looking ahead to 2008?

Most observers had long assumed the 2006-2008 Congress would be the end of thirty-four year incumbent Ralph Regula’s (OH-16) career in office.  After getting passed over in his bid for Appropriations Chair, rumors swirled the aging (soon to be ex) Cardinal’s final goal was to bequeath his seat to his son, Richard Regula.

Richard, however, was up for re-election as Stark County Commissioner and if the congressman retired and Richard lost … well, Richard would be out of a job.

So the template was supposedly set:

Ralph would get re-elected
Richard would get re-elected
Richard would run for his father’s office and if he lost, would continue serving as County Commissioner.

The first piece of the puzzle happened.  For the third time out of four cycles, Ralph’s opponent failed to raise the $5,000 minimum to disclose financially with the FEC and he was unsurprisingly re-elected by a comfortable margin (59-41).

Richard, however, was not so lucky.  He was dealt an upset defeat by Todd Bosley (of Bosley Bobblehead fame) in an extremely competitive election that, despite hope, shocked many right up until the final, unofficial, margin was announced (50.5% to 49.5%).

If the script played out, many a Democrat and Republican were lining up behind the scenes hoping to take a stab at the open seat in a district that went for President Bush with 54.1% of the vote.

Republican State Senator Kirk Schuring survived his re-election bid by a 56-44 margin.  Moderate Republican Scott Oelslager proved his popularity with another drubbing of a Democratic sacrificial lamb 64% to 36%.  These were the two competitiors Richard Regula was likely to square off against in a primary.

On the Democratic side, Stark County Democratic Chair and Dem. County Chair of the Year, Johnnie Maier has waited patiently for the seat to open up.  Extremely popular State Representative Jamey Healy laid waste to his Republican challenger with 75 percent of the vote. 

Before the first ballot was cast on November 7, potential candidates jockeyed for position. There was some speculation that Ralph would retire mid-term, hoping a shortened campaign would give his son an added boost based on name recognition and his unique ability among the field to raise tons of cash on short notice. 

But now Richard lost, and it’s a whole new ball game. 

So what happens next?

It’s unclear how things will shake out.  The conventional wisdom is that Ralph might just hold onto his seat until re-districting comes along and then hang it up.  One thing is clear, however: This is one district Democrats need to field a strong candidate in for presidential purposes.  Stark County, the 16th’s largest, has long been considered a bellwether for the state’s electoral college votes.  In 2004, Jeff Seemann had a bit of money, but little ground game to help push John Kerry along in ignored parts of the district like Ashland and Wayne Counties.

With Democrats making tremendous progress in the state, others think the aging Regula doesn’t have a tough campaign in him and will fold if pushed  In fact, back in the middle of 2005 the DCCC was running polls in the district and talking with candidates about potentially taking on Ralph himself.  Finally, if the fifty-state strategy has taught us anything, we need to run candidate everywhere.

I love this district, it’s so compelling to me and will one day be a legitimate pick-up opportunity for Democrats.  One way or another, it also might be one of our best shots to increase the majority in the next cycle when most pundits will place a premium on defense of the seats we gained on Tuesday.