“Retirement” Watch – Steve Austria

Kind of like when an NBA player retires because no one wants to sign him anymore, Steve Austria retired because no one wanted him to run.

Dayton Daily News: Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Austria of Beavercreek announced Friday that he will not seek re-election, allowing the party to avoid what could have been a contentious primary with Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville.

The updated article at least mentions that Austria was in a bad spot with the makeup of the new 10th (some haven’t mentioned that), but let’s face it – he had about a 5% chance of beating Turner. Looks like even Austria wasn’t dumb enough to run. He had about the same $ that Turner had, but Turner just had too many of his own voters. Looks like Austria got the message, finally.

One lie that has been going around during this whole process of drawing the new lines is that the Republican who was going to be cut “had to come from SW Ohio” because so many were there. Not really – if you look at the map you can see that it would have been pretty easy to draw just about any of the incumbent Republicans off the map. The new map also proves that if the right people want you to stay in Congress – they’ll find you a favorable district somewhere. Just ask Bob Gibbs.

But back to Austria. When no one wants to work on your staff, none of your colleagues like you, everyone that used to like you turns on you, then you probably won’t get a favorable draw. That describes Steve Austria. Lets just say he wasn’t the most popular member of the Ohio delegation.

But don’t feel bad for Steve Austria. Even though he “retires” after 4 years in Congress, he will still get his congressional pension.

Lastly, a quote from the article. What??? Austria said he considered several options: running against Turner in the 10th or moving to the 15th or 8th districts and running against U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Columbus, or House Speaker Boehner, R-West Chester Twp. Austria said he made his decision Thursday night after consulting with his family.

So, happy retirement, Steve. Don’t worry, your absence will hardly be noticed.

Handicapping Kucinich v. Kaptur

Would have been nice to see both go, but thats not an option.

We were driving tonight and got involved in this conversation: As a Republican, and you were forced to cross over and vote for Dennis or Marcy in the primary, who would you choose?

Well, we both chose Dennis. Here’s why.

No one takes Dennis serious. He is “just Dennis.” Doesn’t really do anything good or bad legislation wise – he is just there getting on the news, grandstanding. He isn’t going to hurt anyone. Kaptur, the longest serving person in the Ohio Congressional delegation, is a true committed liberal, who believes in the cause (Dennis may have at one point).

Anyways. Kaptur is favored with the 50,000 extra D’s from her old district. Kucinich shouldn’t be taken for granted. He is a tough campaigner (unless running for president) and has a known name and Kaptur is like 89 years old think. (Actually we looked it up – both were born in 1946, Kaptur just looks like she was born in 1846). And, Kaptur has the huge money advantage – though not sure if that is that big of a deal, because no one lives in Toledo or Cleveland anymore.

So for now, after that in-depth analysis, we’ll choose Kaptur just based on the numbers. But she isn’t going to cruise to number.

Sorry, not going to choose Joe the Plumber over either.

SW Ohio for Gingrich, I hear.

In what seems like an already pretty dated article even though it was published on December 26th, this AP piece tells us about all the folks in southwest Ohio that are turning to Newt Gingrich to avoid Romney.

Ok. Fine. (Did Gingrich get on the ballot in Ohio?)

Romney is going to be the nominee. You don’t have to like it, but maybe start to accept that you’ll have to accept it. You might even need to read the opinion piece from the New York Daily News titled “We take this Mitt: Republicans and Romney, an arranged marriage.”

Mitt Romney doesn’t strike us as a McCain type, who looks to stick the base in the eye when possible. Romney at least tries to say the right thing because he wants us to like him. McCain it seemed didn’t even do that, though much of that was probably because he thought all the “independents” would propel him to victory. (It did not).

But back to the AP article. Lori Viars, a conservative activist and anti-abortion leader in Lebanon (our edit: huge supporter of Kasich, but thrown under the bus by him in the state central committee mess, but she still seemingly has his back), predicted that a Romney nomination would keep some Christian evangelicals on the sidelines in November because of concern about his previous positions on issues, led by abortion. Some in her crowd — Viars is among them — might also hesitate over Gingrich’s personal history, which includes two divorces and acknowledged marital infidelity.

Really? Who is going to stay at home when you are a Republican and the choice is Obama?

At the end of the AP piece, Cincinnati Tea Party leader Mike Wilson actually makes sense for once – he says that Obama is the ultimate opponent.” True.

When even Wilson seems to accept and know what is going to happen, other Republicans should probably do the same. If Romney wins in Iowa then New Hampshire – possible at this point now – it’s pretty much over.

Ohio’s Five Freshman

Decent article here about the 5 Ohio Freshman Republicans and their first year in office (looks like you have to count Steve Chabot in there).

Hard to believe that when you look forward to 2012, that all 5 of them are now sitting in more favorable districts than they were when they were elected. Of course, that doesn’t mean they will all win. But when you looked at the map and the numbers before the maps were redrawn, it didn’t look like a good possibility.

Nothing else to really add, so not the greatest post. Just bringing it to your attention. Also just realized we previously said no more redistricting talk. Due to the abbreviated nature of the post, probably ok on that front.

Might rank them or something like that after finishing up eating some leftover ham.

Tiberi Goes After DeWine

Normally we are fans of the work of Reginald Fields of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. His latest, however, probably just by honest ommission, leaves out a key piece of information.

A long serving Columbus Republican congressman is urging his state party chairman to get back to working for the GOP “instead of tearing it down.”

A frustrated Congressman Pat Tiberi confirmed that he sent an email to Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine on Wednesday after the chairman this week took his spat with Republican Gov. John Kasich on television, accusing Kasich of trying to unseat him.

That’s fine. Tiberi certainly can have his opinion on anything he wants. That said, nowhere in the story are the long ties between Governor Kasich and Congressman Tiberi mentioned. Tiberi used to work for Kasich as a staffer when the now Governor was in Congress. This was before Tiberi ran for the seat Kasich vacated in 2000.

We don’t know Tiberi’s intentions here. Maybe he is honestly trying to pull the party together ahead of 2012. Maybe he is trying to help his old mentor and friend in his quest to boot DeWine. Who knows.

What is known is that this piece of key information was missing from the article.

Sick of Redistricting

I assume one is the 11th?

DDN: Montgomery and Greene counties are part of something unusual in Ohio — a competitive U.S. House district.

An analysis released Wednesday by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting concluded just three of the 16 new districts in the congressional map created by Republicans and signed into law last week by Republican Gov. John Kasich are competitive.

So sick of hearing about this. We here are going to try and not talk about this anymore, but it may be tough, if not impossible. Sorry the districts weren’t drawn to the Democrats liking. Yes, we get it. Ohio is a “50-50” state. Well, it wasn’t in 2010, and that is when it mattered for these line drawing purposes. If it was up to us, we would have drawn them 13-3, leaving Fudge, Ryan, and another one (does it really matter).

Now, that State Rep. seat Chris Redfern is running for was drawn equally so both sides had a chance to win right? Because that would be the fair thing to do.

Maybe the Kasich staff can help him get his petitions signed and turned in to the Board of Elections. KIDDING. Sort of.

Redfern Mad DCCC Didn’t Want to Waste Money

Roll Call: Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern blasted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for refusing to help fund the party’s efforts to fight the state’s new Congressional map.

“I’m deeply disappointed by the response from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,” Redfern told Roll Call. “Knowing that we had a chance to limit our losses as a Congressional delegation and actually, we were in one of those rare situations, where we could have dictated our future from a map-drawing standpoint.”

The DCCC didn’t spend money because they knew there weren’t going to be enough signatures. Pretty much everyone knew that. Even Redfern, despite his attempt to save face here. Hence his attempt to shift blame. Why should they keep money for valuable races in 2012 when they can help his image!!!!

Without the signatures, the Democrats fighting the redistricting maps really had no leverage. Likely any GOP map would have held up in court and the GOP could have also just forced through a map even more punishing to Democrats, which was possible. So they had to sign on to a deal.

As Republicans, its easy to sit here and say “to the victors go the spoils” but its actually true.

Kasich’s staff used in effort to oust DeWine

Headline ripped verbatim from the article.

Dispatch: In an exclusive interview, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine revealed that members of Gov. John Kasich’s staff were used in an ongoing effort to oust DeWine as head of the party.

Official documents show Kasich’s regional liaisons Nicole Kostura, Nick Gatz and Sherri Carbo each turned in petitions for candidates to run for the GOP state central committee against candidates who support DeWine. The petitions were delivered by the Kasich staffers during weekday work hours.

You can read the article. But in summary, someone had Kasich staff members recruit candidates to run against sitting central committee members, who likely busted their asses to get Kasich elected (and as you recall, he needed the help). Quite the reward they received.

Of course, the work was done on “days off” of the staffers.

We don’t know yet who had the staffers do this, but two things can be assumed. First, they didn’t all independently do it on their own, and secondly, it probably wasn’t someone in the mailroom that gave the orders.

So if the presidential primary looks sealed up by someone by March 6, at least we know where the drama will be.

Steve Austria Pissed

Or at least “shocked and upset” according to this Dispatch article from this afternoon. I guess everyone but him knew what the new map was going to look like.

Apparently when you are universally disliked by everyone, and someone from your party has to get the short end of the stick, it might just be you. Let’s just say Austria isn’t the most popular congressman within the Ohio delegation. He should lose to Mike Turner in the new 10th (handily), though we aren’t sure anyone actually knows anything about Turner, anything he has done, or what he looks like.

Personally, we would have liked to see a Stivers-Austria matchup, but oh well. That said, the Austria-Turner showdown should be bloody. Austria has nothing to lose, so should be an interesting couple of months.

You’d have to say Jim Renacci is probably a little displeased also, though the recent poll that shows him tied with Betty Sutton seems a little far fetched. Wayne and the portion of Medina County he has should ensure his victory in 2012.

On the flip side, you’d also have to say that fellow frosh both Bob Gibbs and Bill Johnson made out well. Gibbs famously said that “Washington doesn’t like him much,” but obviously someone does like him when you consider he could have been drawn into an incumbent v. incumbent race – but instead got a new district that has a lot of his old territory from his statehouse days.

Now we know the battle lines. Finally.

Update: Source says the new 15th has 38% of Austria’s old voters and 35% of Stivers’s. Austria has said he won’t run against him, but when it’s that or leave Congress…..

House Republicans eye single May 22 primary

Maybe we will get some certainty soon.

Dispatch: House Republicans are now proposing to merge Ohio’s two primaries into a single date on May 22, but Senate Republicans do not appear to be onboard and are instead looking for a merger on March 6, the date currently set for state, local and U.S. Senate races.

Of course “the split” was only made to buy more time for the congressional map to get finalized, but it would be nice for candidates to know when their election date is (especially local candidates). There isn’t going to be two primaries, but looks we are finally closer to finding out when the one will be….