If UnWise (err Wise) has his way, the local GOP will become the "Stark Tea-bagger Party," He can do all the disclaiming he wants (i.e. until he's blue in the face), but it is clear to yours truly that UnWise (err Wise) is into doing a de facto take down of the Stark Republican Party and replace it with a bunch of Republican/Republican-esque right wing radicals.
But why is the SCPR concerned about the direction the Stark County Republican Party is heading in?
Because Stark Countians have very little political competition to pick from now and if the UnWise (err Wise) course is followed, then there will be absolutely NO political competition. Rational Stark Countians will not vote for the irrational.
Now it is said that Stark (countywide) leans Democratic. But there are still pockets of Republican officeholders. Brown, Sinclair, Stucky, Howard, James , Parks (all judges and therefore by Ohio Supreme Court edict low key in their political involvement), Oelslager, Snitchler (state reps) and Schuring (a state senator).
Were the Stark GOP to become perceived by the Stark County voting public to be synchronized with the Stark Tea-bagger Party, then if the aforementioned public officials identify too much with the local party, then might they also bite the political dust?
Stark County desperately needs a different perspective than the Democrats offer. But the Stark County Republican Party must re-invent itself to survive. The SCPR is not real wild about Oelslager and Schuring because they squandered 40 years in the Ohio Legislature (much of it in supermajority status) and have stood by and wathced Ohio and Stark County decline.
But they are a "sight for sore eyes" when one contemplates who the Republicans might put up if WnWise (err Wise) were to be calling the shots at the Fulton head
Snitchler? The SCPR sees him clearly as being in the UnWise (err Wise) wing of the Stark County Republican Party.
Recently Bill Moyers of the "Bill Moyers Journal" did a program on:
From the transcript of this program, wherein Max Blumenthal had gone out and interviewed some tea-baggers recently assembled in Washington to greet the "Tea Party Express" (which had stopped in Canton on the way), was the following:
Why put this excerpt in this blog?MAX BLUMENTHAL: So you're saying if the government eliminates Social Security and Medicare then you'll get out of the program?
WOMAN: No, I said if they get out of my life.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Out of your Social Security and-
WOMAN: No, out of everything.
BILL MOYERS: But they had also come to deplore and denounce President Obama- in their minds a tyrant akin to Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, and Saddam Hussein.
MAN: I'm afraid he's going to do what Hitler could never do and that's destroy the United States of America.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And what's the Obama revolution, what's going to happen?
MAN:Similar to Germany, like what Hitler did. He took over the auto industry, did he not? He took over the banking, did he not? And Hitler had his own personal secret service police, Acorn is an extension of that.
BILL MOYERS: They had found a new hero in Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican whose shout heard 'round the world was now the rallying cry of the weekend.
Because this is the kind of thing that is indicative of what the SCPR believes UnWise (err Wise) wants to install at Stark GOP headquarters in Canton.
But all is not lost!
The Stark GOP does have a viable alternative.
And the alternative is resident in the likes of Travis Secrest.
Secrest ran against the old Democratic political warhorse "politics as usual" Tom Harmon in the 2008 Stark County commissioners race for one of two open seats (Harmon had been appointed and not elected to the seat).
If one were to look only at the articulations of each candidate's vision, the choice was a "no-brainer."
Secrest, fresh out of college (Baldwin Wallace - political science major), was visionary and relatively specific in outlook. Harmon came across as the practiced politician who says nothing even as he utters words.
However, Harmon had the huge advantage of having been in office for decades (Canton Municipal clerk of courts). So politics being what it is (mostly name identification at the local level - that's why it is so hard for a judge to lose; once in office), Secrest never had a chance.
And Stark County is the worst for it. Harmon along with Doctor Ferguson are vegetating in office as Stark declines. Only Bosley offers any hope of real leadership and he is highly enmeshed in partisan politicals and his own personal political future.
Unfortunately for Stark, a guy like Secrest is too new to local politics to be a viable candidate.
Well, what role could Secrest play in Stark County?
If the Stark County GOP Executive Committee members were smart, they would go "hat in hand" and implore Secrest to take over the reigns of re-building Stark County Republican Party.
Secrest is open minded, rational, visionary and practical.
Take this quote in an article by Matthew Rinker of The Massillon Independent (It's Harmon's experience vs. Secrest's change message in commish, 10/31/08):
Though a Republican, Secrest said he is much like Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in that he will be an agent for change if elected.
“His message is change and so is mine,” Secrest said. “On a national level, change means voting for a Democrat. On a local level it means voting for a Republican. There is only one Republican officeholder in county government (Commissioner Jane Vignos) and she is retiring.”So the SCPR has set up the pronounced difference that a UnWise (err Wise) as compared to a Secrest-led reformation of the Stark GOP would bring.
UnWise (err Wise) demonstrates irrationality and reactive politics, us ("the true believers versus them") political mentality. Secrest: pro-active, how can we work together in a constructively competitive political environment to get the best out of our Stark County community.
The Stark GOP and its local patron saint and financial support should hope that Secrest would be interested in taking on the re-building project.
The SCPR does not know that he is available or that he may have already settled into something he is not about to give up.
But the Stark Republicans should ask him.
And, the local GOPers "powers that be" should provide him with a paid position stipend (meaning "I can live on this income") and administrative support apparatus to get the job done.
If Timken et al don't find an alternative to UnWise (err Wise), then Stark County will truly become a "one-party-county" a la Cuyhoga and Summit and we all know where that leads.
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