The streets strike back
We fell short of a moon landing last night, but City Hall is officially on notice. Plus, the Ohio Democratic Party turns over a new leaf as its old leader leaves on skeevy terms.
I thought we were going to witness history last night, with a machine-endorsed candidate eating shit in a local election.
While we fell short of that moon landing, we got the best next thing: nearly 60 percent of the electorate rejecting a candidate endorsed by Mayor Suburbs, City Hall, and almost every other party apparatchik:
I take solace in that, had Ross and Vogel switched totals, we’d still be in the same position of needing to score the knockout blow in November.
But it’s hard to overstate how impressive Jesse Vogel and Kate Curry-Da-Souza were.
The latter, especially, considering she pulled one out of every five votes after spending a fraction of the money that her opponents did.
Vogel and Ross will advance to November.
And while Ross won the night, this was an embarrassing performance for a candidate who enjoyed a slate of elected endorsements and over $60,000 in donations from some of the most powerful politicians in the city.
What happens next will be one of the most expensive city council races in Columbus’ history—if not the most expensive.
Vogel will probably need to raise around $250,000 to compete, because it’s not as if the local machine will fold its tent and go quietly into the night. Quite the opposite, actually.
Party sachems know that once a machine gets beaten, it goes into the dustbin of history with alacrity since the alliances that bind it are made out of nothing other than political convenience. They will do anything to prevent that because power never gives itself away.
I know some of my readership is skeptical of Vogel, as is their right as American citizens. But Vogel has shown he can raise the money required to go toe-to-toe with the local machine, so it’s time to put that cynicism aside and get on board.
We have to break the status quo in Columbus. Government isn’t supposed to function as an insider club where candidates emerge on a cocktail circuit with the blessing of their future colleagues. Every single piece of meaningful legislation isn’t supposed to pass 9-0. Policy should be discussed in public at meetings—not on private Signal chats.
Vogel is the only path forward toward that goal, and he deserves our support—whatever policy agreements we have, be damned.
Liz Walters hits the bricks in the shadiest way possible
You can learn a lot about politicos by what they do after they leave powerful and influential jobs.
Take Liz Walters, who resigned as Chairwoman of the Ohio Democratic Party yesterday—something her senior staff only learned about on Friday, despite it being in the works for a couple of months.
Walters, who then-Senator Sherrod Brown installed as chairwoman to co-opt party infrastructure to help his re-election campaign, didn’t wait long to announce her next job as CEO of something called TargetSmart.
From its website:
We specialize in providing data-driven solutions that empower clients to understand, engage, and activate their key stakeholders. Our mission is to empower forward-thinking campaigns, companies, governments, labor unions, and non-profits to harness the full power of data, technology, and strategy to win their battles and build a better future.
Corporate gobbledygook like that paragraph makes me want to perform my own lobotomy. When I read phrases like “activate their key stakeholders” and “empower forward-thinking campaigns,” my eyes almost roll out of my swollen Irish skull.
Just talk normally! It’s not hard.
TargetSmart supplies campaigns with voter information that, theoretically, is supposed to help them find persuadable voters and track digital ads.
It’s something that the Ohio Democratic Party under Walters pushed on campaigns, as seen here in a request for proposals for digital services for the Ohio Democratic Party’s Judicial Fund in 2024:
Well, we know how that election went. Every Democratic Supreme Court Justice lost their race.
“ODP paid for TargetSmart, but the data was never good and wasn't what actually informed our targeting,” said one Democratic campaign veteran granted anonymity to speak candidly about intraparty politics.
“Plus, the voter base files were trash, same with the predictive models. Our data director would spend days reworking the data from TargetSmart.
“The Coordinated Campaign for Sherrod did use TargetSmart, and look at how that ended up—the data they got landed them at solid Republicans’ doors, and not split ticket folks like they hoped.”
TargetSmart’s ad tracking services didn’t perform much better in the eyes of another campaign operative.
“The mechanical, actual placing of ads through them sucked too. Numbers weren’t making sense, we weren’t getting the performance we should’ve been, etc.
“It was also difficult for them to just provide us with very basic info we were requesting about the performance of the ads.”
Through that lens, Walters accepted a lucrative job at a campaign vendor after she used her previous position to funnel the company bundles of money in party business.
And that firm didn’t cover itself in glory, with final election results or behind the scenes with workers who were forced to use the company’s data and services.
Simply put, it’s harder for me to say anything better than Ohio State associate political science professor Benjamin McKean wrote on BlueSky last night:
Bon voyage to Walters!
Any good feelings I had about her time—i.e., helping enshrine abortion rights into the State Constitution—have been eclipsed by this obvious corruption that won’t get nearly the coverage it deserves because it’s not inherently illegal.
The meeting to replace Walters will happen on June 13. And as things stand, there are currently three names to watch.
Cuyahoga County chairman David Brock
Former State Representative and Portage County Commissioner Kathleen Clyde
State Senator Bill DeMora (D-Columbus)
As of this writing, DeMora is the only one who has officially thrown his hat into the ring.
According to one source, the Ohio Democratic Party’s Strategy Team (color me shocked they have one of those) sent a memo for “battleground research” to Innovation Ohio, an aligned think tank based in Columbus, on Monday, stating that Walters would support DeMora to replace her.
DeMora told Andrew Tobias of Signal Cleveland that the party needs a “pit bull” in that position. And I agree. DeMora is also the type of guy that you want on your team.
However, Walters lost the right to appoint her successor due to how she left the party. And DeMora has been an insider since before I was born, which is the last thing we need.
Clyde, for her part, has spent the past couple of years living in Columbus. Interestingly enough, former Senator Sherrod Brown, who recently moved to Bexley, supports Clyde’s candidacy, which is somewhat baffling considering Clyde has lost her last two elections.
She’s also listed as a “contributor” on the odious Federal Society’s website, for some reason?
Of the three names, I’m supporting Brock because nothing changes in this state until we fix the turnout in Cuyahoga County.
I understand anyone’s concerns about appointing Brock in that regard since Cuyahoga County turnout has been dismal on his watch, too. But those troubles predate Brock and run much deeper than the party chairman.
Brock has also done an admirable job of beating some of the more nefarious influences in the party, most recently when Congresswoman Shontel Brown tried to appoint area huckster Kenn Dowell to the Board of Elections.
Overall, the Ohio Democratic Party chairmanship isn’t an enviable position due to Ohio’s demographics and our urban vote being split among three major cities.
That said, 2026 could be our best chance to pull some upsets if Donald Trump’s popularity continues to collapse.
Dusty Dave Yost turns down Mediterranean appointment to lose to a notorious conman Vivek Ramawasmy
Earlier this year, rumors swirled that Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Dave Yost was angling for some sort of appointment in Trump Administration.
The thinking went that Yost wanted a federal judgeship or even the United States Assistant Attorney of the Southern District of Ohio, taking over what remains of the HB-6 investigation and prosecution.
As it turns out, there was some juice to the rumor, though Yost didn’t get an offer to become a judge or prosecutor.
From Reese Gorman of notus.com:
In April, the Trump administration offered Yost the position of ambassador to Cyprus, according to three of the sources familiar with the matter.
But Yost didn’t want it, the sources said. He rejected the appointment, apparently seeking a more prominent position than an ambassadorship to a small island nation in the Mediterranean.
The sources added that Yost’s refusal frustrated and annoyed many in the White House, who felt Yost was looking a gift horse in the mouth.
“For the White House to come through with an offer like this both shows their respect for him, and how much they value him, and then to turn that down is unbelievable,” one of the sources said.
Turning down an appointment to a cushy job on an island in the Mediterranean Sea reeks of an old man who wants to stay close to his children and grandkids, which I can respect even if it comes with the humiliation of losing to a notorious conman like Vivek Ramaswamy.
I will try to work some connections in TrumpWorld to see if that appointment to Cyprus is still open. I have debts to settle on that island, if you can believe that.
When I was $19, I wired $150 to Cyprus for a fake ID.
As you might imagine, I got stone-cold hustled. And I promised I’ll see the scammer in Hell when I arrive. But an appointment to Cyprus would offer a shortcut.
Larry Householder (and that idiot Matt Borges) lose their HB-6 appeals
Yesterday, the Sixth Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of former House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chairman Matt Borges for their roles in the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about).
Householder will be cheering for former Cincinnati City Council president P.G. Sittenfeld to take his similar corruption case to the Supreme Court, because Householder will go free too if the High Court agrees that bribery equals free speech.
Scott Pullins, a lawyer for Householder, issued the following statement in part:
In the HB 6 matter, Mr. Householder led one House in the legislative branch of State government. To pass HB 6 it required the support of former Senate President Larry Obhof and his chamber along with the support of Governor Mike DeWine and Lt. Governor Jon Husted. All received undisclosed, corporate donations from First Energy and worked closely with them to pass HB 6.
But the federal government singled only Mr. Householder out for prosecution. After reading the PG Sittenfeld case, and now this decision, it has become clear that the sixth circuit believes that the Supreme Court must act to clarify the law more clearly around political donations and bribery. We hope and fervently pray that they will do so. Free speech must apply equally to all and cannot be left to the whims and egos of individual US attorneys.
Pullins and I obviously disagree about some things relating to Householder’s prosecution.
However, I agree with his point that Householder only controlled one lever of power in state government; he couldn’t (and didn’t) pass HB-6 on his own.
Will any other politician be held accountable? I have my doubts!
THOSE WMDs. Americans are losing loved ones to AI-driven fantasies… She regrets her time with ISIS; now she’s reclaiming her future… The surprising ways that siblings shape our lives… Recession indicators are everywhere… The hidden struggle of John Fetterman.
Target literally sounds like a front for some insidious big dawg politics.
I would've taken the Cyprus ambassadorship just to have the word Plenipotentiary in my title.
https://cy.usembassy.gov/ambassador-julie-s-davis/