Back in May, former Hamilton County Commissioner Phil Heimlich (yes, from that Heimlich family, hence the awful pun in the headline) said he’d run against Evel Knievel Mean Jean Schmidt in the OH-02 Republican primary.
Democrats rejoiced at the thought of a bloody internecine war – and then rejoiced again last month when yet another GOPer, state Rep. Todd Brinkman, also jumped into the fray. What better way to ensure Schmidty’s survival than a fractured, multi-way primary?
On Wednesday, though, Heimlich bitterly acknowledged this possibility and decided to bail for his own warped version of the greater good:
“Mr. Brinkman’s candidacy serves no purpose other than to assure Rep. Schmidt’s renomination,” Heimlich said in the news release. “There is no reason to put the Republican Party through a tough primary battle when victory isn’t possible.”
However, I’m not so sure this is necessarily a bad development. Heimlich had actually out-raised Schmidt and conceivably could have chalked up a narrow plurality win with a third candidate in the race, assuming the anti-Schmidt vote were big enough to drive the incumbent below, say, 40%.
But Brinkman now has to win outright, and he’s only been in the game for six weeks. What’s more, Ohio has one of the earliest primaries in the country – it’s fast approaching on March 4th. Whereas Heimlich had been campaigning for the better part of a year, Brinkman will have less than three months to attempt his coup.
Sure, it’s conceivable that the local establishment will rally behind Brinkman in the short time left, but what we’ve seen so far suggests it’s not likely. The same Enquirer article notes:
Friday night, the Hamilton County Republican Party’s executive committee passed over two Hamilton County Republicans – Heimlich and Brinkman – to endorse Schmidt, of Clermont County. Schmidt was the favorite of 69 members, while Heimlich had 33 votes and Brinkman, five.
If the GOP powers-that-be (at least in Hamilton County, one of seven that make up the district) were going to pick an anti-Schmidt, they’d probably already have done so.
Given that Schmidt took under 48% in her hotly-contested primary in 2006, I won’t rule anything out. But Brinkman will have to move fast and raise a lot of money to out-hustle Schmidt. Like her sartorial idol Mr. Knievel, Mean Jean has already defied (political) death more than a few times. She may have another jump in her still.