WHAT A SURPRISE! GONZALEZ RE-ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF THE STARK DEMS IN A DEMONSTRATION OF POLITICAL MIGHT.

When the SCPR wrote earlier this week about  former Perry Township Trustee Jim Holmes challenging incumbent Stark County Democratic Chairman Randy Gonzalez (also Jackson Township fiscal officer, also Canton Municipal Courts clerk of courts employee, also chairman of the Stark County Council of Government 9-1-1 governing board chairman), the analysis of Holmes chances were "between slim and none and slim just left town."

The analysis was borne out yesterday as Gonzalez politically pulverized Holmes 126 to 7.

That the vote tally was released in and of itself tells one something:  "the internal operations of political parties are not about democracy, but about power politics."

Often, party chairmen withhold actual vote tallies on candidacies/measures voted upon by precinct committeepersons so as not to embarrass the losers.

However, when one has the audacity to challenge a party chairman and the vote is a smashing victory for the chair, then the vote will be released in order to send a message to any who would challenge the established order.

And that's exactly the message that Gonzalez sent in authorizing the revelation of the vote numbers after yesterday's vote.

When, on the other hand, a chairman or in the case cited below - his right hand man - has a closer call on whether or not he will retain a party selected office, then we never see the actual vote.

Such was the case a year or so ago when former Stark County Commissioner Jane Vignos challenged former Stark County GOP Chairman Curt Braden (bosom buddy with now Republican Chairman Jeff Matthews and director of the Stark County Board of Elections - BOE) for a seat as a board member at the BOE.

Because the vote was highly competitive, to release the vote would have been embarrassing to Braden, no doubt.

Reasons why Canton Mayor William J. Healy, II (who nominated Gonzalez for a new term as chairman yesterday) has fallen in line with Chairman Gonzalez are threefold:

1. He started out too far behind in the immediate sense in trying to overtake the Gonzalez/former Chairman Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. hold over the Stark County Democratic Party Central Committee and lost badly in the March 6, 2012 elections,
2. He wants to be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte - September 3 through 7.  It has been suggested (by a person in a position to know) to the SCPR that in exchange for Healy's recent endorsements (including yesterday's nomination), Gonzalez has promised to help Healy gain a spot in the Ohio delegation.
3. His sister Joyce Healy-Abrams thinks that she has a real shot at defeating incumbent Republican Congressman Bob Gibbs of Knox County for the redistricted 7th Congressional District which takes in a large swath of Stark County and Healy wants total local party unity to enhance his sister's chances and, of course, to that of Barack Obama to be re-elected president.

But make no mistake about it, the Stark County Democratic Party has fallen upon hard times under the chairmanship of Gonzalez (first elected in 2009).

Should: (in combination of any of the following)

• Obama lose the presidency and lose in Stark County or win the presidency but lose Stark County,
• Healy-Abrams lose her run for Congress and lose in Stark County or win but lose in Stark County (highly unlkely),
• Stark Dems lose any of the countywide offices (sheriff, prosecutor, recorder, clerk of courts or coroner),

then you can be sure that Healy will be back full force asking Gonzalez to resign or he will redouble his effort to put together an effective campaign to wrestle control of the Stark Democratic Central Committee away from Gonzalez/Maier so that in 2014 the party chairmanship will be a "real" test of political heft within the local party.

Increasingly, the voting public is totally turned off by the likes of the Healy/Gonzalez intra-party dances that take place.

Similar political undertows/dances/fights are being played out in Ohio at the state party level (Redfern, the Dems, DeWine, the GOP [who, by the way is stepping down effective April 13th]) as to whom, going forward, will be party chairman.

The public properly views these fights as having nothing to do with the public good but rather the personal political advantage of the participants themselves.

So the remedy?

To quote Shakespeare:

"A plauge o' both your houses."

Or, as frequently quoted:  "A pox on both your houses.

The phrase is a well known quote from Romeo and Juliet.

As the character Mercutio dies, three times he speaks this phrase, cursing the families whose rivalry led to his death.

This phrase is more and more heard in the actions of registered Republicans and Democrats in their moving to the roles of the independent/non-partisan voter.

Everyday Americans are increasingly understanding that the warring political parties engage in political warfare in order to feather the nests of those who control the political parties and thereby visit damage on the public interest.

The public response?

Indeed, "a pox on both your houses!"

While it is commendable that the likes of Jim Holmes and Jane Vignos would put up a fight to correct the imbalances within their respective political parties, they are engaged in fights they cannot win.

It is the likes of Gonzalez, Maier, Healy, Matthews and Braden who will always win in their concocted political worlds and not those Democrats and Republicans who want and demand that political parties serve the public good over personal political goals.

When the numbers of those exiting the established political parties reaches a critical mass and thereby leaving them more or less irrelevant, then, and only then will the party chieftains come on bended knee with hat in hand begging to be restored to the public trust.

But then it will be too late.

The American political landscape will have been changed forever!

GONZALEZ - HOLMES BATTLE HEATS UP! HOLMES TO CHALLENGE FOR STARK DEMS PARTY CHAIRMANSHIP

Updated:  3:25 PM

This coming Wednesday evening the Stark County Democratic Party will be holding an central committee meeting, to - among other things - select a new party chairman to serve for the next two years.

The SCPR has received a copy of former Perry Township Trustee Jim Holmes letter to sitting Chairman Randy Gonzalez announcing his intent to be a candidate at Wednesday's meeting at the Mayfield Senior Center located on 13th Street in Canton.

The Report has learned that one of Holmes' primary objectives will be to get away from the practice of the chairman to place on the executive committee only those Democrats who pledge to support the chairman in whatever proposals he may advance to the committee as practices and policies.

Holmes and Gonzalez got into a tiff in the run up to the Stark County Democratic Party election held on March 6th.  Gonzalez admits that he was behind a letter supposedly sent out by Holmes touting himself over opponent J. Fred Stergios in Perry Township's 13th precinct.

In a recent interview of Gonzalez by Matt Rink of The Massillon Independent, Gonzalez used words that makes it appear that he made a effort to get Holmes' permission prior to sending the letter out.

Holmes says that he was never contacted by Gonzalez. 

Holmes was outraged by the intrusion and it seems clear that he is not done in responding to the Gonzalez overreach.

Holmes has filed a complaint over the letter with the Stark County Board of Elections and the Ohio secretary of state.  However, Jeff Matthews and Jeanette Mullane (director/deputy director of the Stark BOE) has suggested to Holmes that he file his complaint with the Ohio Ethics Commission.  Holmes in consider such an option.

Running against Gonzalez for the party chairmanship appears to be another part of his reaction.

While the likelihood of Holmes being successful is somewhere between "slim and none" with slim having just left town, it is believed that Holmes is sending a message that there is growing dissatisfaction with his leadership of the Stark Dems.

Recently, according to a source, Gonzalez agreed to make wholesale changes in the makeup of the party's executive committee to bring many more union members into the fold. A source tells the SCRP that there may be 15 to 20 union members on the committee.

However, one of the members is not, and, apparently, will not be for the foreseeable future,  AFL-CIO Hall of Fame president Dan Sciury.

Years ago (2005), Sciury and Gonzalez had a falling out over Gonzalez (not then chairman) support of a then Republican candidate (Burger) for Jackson Township trustee over union member candidate Kathleen Kelly.

The relationship between Scuiry and Gonzalez was already frayed from his support of Steven Meeks over Kelly in 2003.  Though Meeks is a Democrat, he is a political confidant of Gonzalez.

Putting unionists on the executive committee is designed to heal a rift between Stark unions and the organized Stark County Democratic Party that was created by former Chairman Johnnie A. Maier, Jr. several years ago in replacing long time organized labor stalwart Billy Sherer, Sr. (a retired ironworker) as one of two party members of the Stark County Board of Elections.

Maier claimed that the then Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner more or less ordered the change in her promoting having an attorney on the board.  Brunner denied Maier's claim.

Under Gonzalez' leadership, Stark Dems are in danger of losing its one time ironclad control (under former Chairman Maier) of countywide (nonjudicial) offices.  At the end of Maier's tenure, Republicans held no nonjudicial county offices.

In 2010, Stark Republicans elected Alan Harold as the county auditor.

In October, 2011, Gonzalez was put into the unhappy position of prevailing upon the Dems central committee to appoint Republican Alex Zumbar Stark County treasurer in replacement of Democrat Gary Zeigler who resigned/retired in settlement of litigation between himself and the county.

Zumbar is standing for election this fall and The Report believes that he will be easily reelected.

This year the Republicans are contesting incumbent Democrats John Fererro (prosecutor), Rick Campbell (recorder), Nancy Reinbold (county clerk of courts) and P.S. Murthy (coroner).

Democrat Sheriff Tim Swanson is not seeking reelection.  His chief deputy Mike McDonald is running to replace him.  It appears to The Report that he is in a "toss-up" race against Republican Larry Dordea who lost to Swanson in 2008.