ELECTION ANALYSIS: (SHERIFF RACE) POLICE/FIRE UNIONS PUT McDONALD OVER THE TOP?

Anytime unions figure into an election in a committed, big-time way, Republicans usually do not fare too well.

The SCPR recalls a bygone conversation with an East Central Building and Construction Trades official about an entreaty by a leading Stark County Republican official (at the time) to the union that it consider a more balanced alignment  between Democrats and Republicans as to whom unions put "boots on the ground" for and "money in the pockets" of in terms of political support.

Well, such has never happened.  Stark County unions have been the captive of Democratic candidates.  And in closely contested races, it has proved more often than not to be a difference maker.

Such appears to the SCPR to have been the case in the contest between Republican Larry Dordea and Democrat Mike McDonald as to whom among the two was going be be elected this past November 6th as Stark County sheriff.

The one part of union movement that Republicans can have some success with are the fire, police and teachers unions.

That is until Senate Bill 5 (State Issue #2 - November, 2011 election) and its perceived "anti-public-worker" stance.

Now, it appears, that opportunity may be evaporating.

In the case of the Stark County sheriff face off, The Report believes that Chief Deputy Sheriff Mike McDonald was able to capture the overwhelming allegiance of local fire and police unions and therefore get the edge over Dordea.

To be sure, other arguments can be/have been made as to the reasons why McDonald defeated Dordea.  The SCPR deals with these "other" factors in a prior blog. And there are likely a number of them that contributed in a significant way.

However, It became apparent to the SCPR in conversations with both Dordea and McDonald that the "police/fire endorsement" thing was a "really" big thing with the two candidates.  And in the judgment of The Report, for good reason. 

Why so?

Because such endorsements are way more powerful and effective than, let's say, newspaper endorsements.

In fact, in the Dordea/McDonald match up, The Repository endorsed Dordea.

And Dordea tried to capitalize on it in campaign literature, but there is not any capital to be had from newspaper endorsements these days.

The Rep also endorsed Democrat Bill Smuckler over Republican Richard Regula in their competitive commissioners race.  The winner?  Regula.

Moreover, Smuckler has never been a favorite of the Stark County union movement.  That William J. Healy, II was able to capture the loyalty of Stark's unions was likely a huge difference maker in their mayoralty competition back in the May, 2011 Democratic primary.

Smuckler was clearly organized labor's choice over Regula, but not with the vim, vigor and vitality necessary to make a candidate a winner.

There are endorsements and then there are endorsements.

A typical voter, no matter how diligent, has a difficult time knowing who is the better qualified in certain types of election contests:  judges, prosecutors and sheriffs come to mind as prime examples.

So what are these voters to do?

In the case of sheriff candidates, everybody knows a cop.

Answer:  ask your acquaintance, friend or relative who is a cop for a recommendation.

That is why the fire/police endorsements were such a crucial matter to Dordea and McDonald.

More importantly than the campaign finance factor, is "boots on the ground."

A policeman or Stark County sheriff deputy telling a voter his/her choice for sheriff played large in the McDonald/Dordea race.

In the end, the SCPR believes that the fire and police endorsements (the McDonald advantage, if you will) made Chief Deputy Sheriff Mike McDonald - Sheriff MIke McDonald.

ELECTION ANALYSIS: IT IS ONE THING TO OPPOSE DEMOCRATIC PARTY VIEWPOINTS AND CANDIDATES, BUT IT IS QUITE ANOTHER TO BE "ANTI-dEMOCRATIC, NO?

In September, 2012 the Republican side of the Ohio General Assembly (OGA) including Stark Countians Christina Hagan of  Marlboro Township (the 50th House District) and Scott Oelslager of Plain Township (the 29th Senate District) passed House Bill 319.

House Bill 319 was a piece of legislation which redistricted Ohio's U.S. House of Representative seats (as required every ten years by the U.S. Constitution) and Ohio's House of Representatives/Senate (as required by the Ohio Constitution decennially).

Led by President of the Senate Tom Niehaus and Speaker of the House Billy Batchhelder, the Republicans made sure that the Ohio delegation to the U.S. House would not match the political proclivities of the people of the Buckeye state.

While President Obama won Ohio by about two percentage points and Democrat Sherrod Brown was re-elected to the United States Senate by about a five percent margin, the results from the enactment of House Bill 319's gerrymandered congressional districts make it appear that Ohio is a lopsided Republican state a la Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana.

An interesting fact is that the reliably Republican state of Georgia (in presidential [53% Romney to 45% Obama - 2012] and statewide elections) has more Democrats in its congressional delegation than does Ohio.

To the SCPR, the effect of HB 319 is to make Niehaus, Batchelder, Hagan and Oelslager and their partisan colleagues not merely the political opposition, but rather brings into question their commitment to representative government fairness and the values of America's democracy captured in the expression "one man, one vote."

There were a significant number of Republicans (six, including Jackson Township's Kirk Schuring) who opposed the carnage visited on redistricting fairness by the lopsided OGA Republican majority.

The bill did similar thing with Ohio's House and Senate districts and in the case of the House enabled Republicans to add one more seat to their already commanding lead of 59 Republicans to 40 Democrats.

In the name of Democracy, what Niehaus, Batchelder, and Stark Countinans Hagan and Oelslager and friends have done as the wielders of political power in Ohio is absolutely disgraceful.

Their action is not the kind of lesson that one would hold up to school children across Ohio as an example of how democracy should work.

The likes of Hagan and Oelslager like to justify their undermining of democracy votes by pointing out that Democrats have in the past and would in the future, if in control, do the same thing.

That argument only works with the wildly partisan.

Those of us who care more about the integrity and fairness of our government processes respond with a:  "pox on both their houses."

Politicos, whether Republican or Democrat, who support political party over competitive politics grounded in fairness and true representativeness of where voters really are in terms of the political affiliations, are not in the view of the SCPR small letter "d" democrats.

They are underminers of the greatest political and government experiment in the history of mankind:  the American democratic republic.

IT MAY BE A POLITICAL "COMEBACK" FOR RICHARD REGULA, BUT DOES HIS ELECTION MEAN A SET BACK FOR THE COMMISSIONERS?

As the SCPR sees it, the Stark County commissioners' office and the Stark County electorate would have benefited much had former Canton councilman Bill Smuckler been elected as commissioner (to replace the outgoing Pete Ferguson) rather than former commissioner Richard Regula.

One of the problems with the voting public is:

• how ignorant it can be as to the qualifications of the candidates,
• how vulnerable voters can be to such things as a well-known political names (Regula), and 
• the partisan bias they carry against candidates from certain political jurisdictions merely because the candidate of a specific political persuasion hails from a certain locale (a Democrat from Canton, in this instance).

 Regula is okay.  But Stark County cannot afford okay.

He will muddle along as a kind of "5th wheel" as commissioner letting Commissioners Tom Bernabei and Janet Creighton be the mainstays as the county continues it way back to fiscal solvency and effective local government.

Neither Bernabei or Creighton will complain.

But it sure would have be nice to have a fellow commissioner with the ideas and drive of a Bill Smuckler at their side shouldering the responsibilities of office and generating local government initiatives designed to make it more efficient and effective.

Sifting through what Richard Regula had to say in the campaign, it is the SCPR's analysis that he was still smarting from having lost to the-then Nimishillen Township Democrat trustee Todd Bosley back in 2006.

And personal vindication seems to have been his main incentive for running once again for countywide office.

Other than being "bananas" for oil and gas exploration (aka fracking) in Stark and re-building Stark's infrastructure (with no money to do so and no ideas how to generate needed revenues), Regula had nothing to offer other than to sort of suggest that being a countywide official is sort of a birthright for him.

Smuckler, with a solid record of achievement of leadership and substantive ideas that found their way into achievement in Canton government and his track record of and commitment to working to make local government more efficient and effective, clearly had the qualification advantage.

But being a Canton Democrat having to run in the Republican strongholds of Jackson and Lake Townships, he had an uphill fight to win.

And to boot, he was running against the name Regula.

With a name like Regula (the son of long time Republican Congressman Ralph Regula), it is hard to see how Richard could lose to anybody in Stark County, given how hung up Stark County voters appear to be on a well-known political name.

But the Bosley loss was not Richard's first failure to advantage himself with carrying the last name Regula.

Believe it or not, Richard Regula lost to the now former Stark County treasurer Gary D. Zeigler in 2000.

By nearly 14,000 votes.  Hmm?

So now Stark County is stuck with "the Comeback kid."

One of the promising things about a Regula stint as commissioner is that he may end up being a part-time commissioner.

During the campaign, he forthrightly said that such is what he intended to be.

After a firestorm of criticism of being paid nearly $77,000 for part-time work, he backed off the part-time thing and said that he had worked things out with his employer - Mercy Medical Center (MMC) - to work part-time for MMC and impliedly full-time as a commissioner.

We shall see.

The SCPR believes that when all is said and done and looking back four years from now, the record is likely to show that he figured out a way to in fact make being a Stark County commissioner part-time.

We shall also see what value added Regula brings to the commissioners' office.

The SCPR believes not very much.

He is likely to settle in, sit back and enjoy the status of being Stark County commissioner once again.

And enjoying his $77,000 a year for being a part-time Stark County commissioner?

CANTON CITY DEPUTY AUDITOR GARY YOUNG SHOULD BE A TOP CHOICE FOR CANTON CITY TREASURER?

UPDATE WITH A NOTE:  (12/07/2012 at 1:00 PM)  

Implicit in touting Young as Canton treasurer is the necessity that he actually be a resident of Canton.  The SCPR understands he lives just outside city limits.

Last week Canton's treasurer Bob Schirack announced that he will be retiring in 2013.

His retirement has been rumored for some time now.

And the political jockeying has been underway ever since the rumors surfaced.

Depending on the timing of Schirack's retirement, the replacement process could be highly political indeed with Canton's major Democratic politicos playing major roles in who is selected as his successor.

The primary election for 2013 is to be held on May 7th.

Already announcing that he intends to file is former Stark County auditor and long time city/county political player Kim Perez.

Also contemplating a run is Canton city councilman (Ward One) Greg Hawk.

One person whom has not expressed any public interest but whom the SCPR thinks should be at the head-of-the-line is Canton chief deputy auditor Gary Young.

Just look at Young's "official" credentials in the graphic at the lead of this blog:

• 27 years of service to Canton in financial sectors of city government,
• budget accounting,
• payroll management,
• annual financial reporting,
• office management, and
• Information Management Systems management

There is more and the "more" could be the most important:  Gary Young has the universal regard and respect of Canton and Stark County's political players and government officials alike.

As far as The Report is concerned, Young possesses all the qualities that one could want in a public official.

Behind this prospective line-up is a subset of Democratic movers and shakers who undoubtedly figure in as to whom becomes Canton's next treasurer.

Names, please?

Okay.  Mayor William J. Healy, II for one.

And The Report believes there are others.

Council President Allen Schulman is likely to be heavily involved in determining which Canton Democrat walks away with the treasurer selection sweepstakes.

Look for Stark Democratic chairman Randy Gonzalez to be actively enmeshed in the process.  Of course, he works for Canton's clerk of courts Phil Giavasis who the SCPR believes has a large say in the fortunes of who gets what in the context of internal Stark County organized Democratic Party politics.

Can anyone imagine Gonzalez doing anything with respect to local Democratic politics without having passed his thoughts by Giavasis and likely to have gotten a reaction?

Councilman Hawk would have a difficult time getting any encouragement from Healy as the two have been seen by many local political observers as being, let's say, not on the best of political terms.

Healy is thought to have been behind a challenge or two to Hawk's remaining as Ward One councilman.

So that only leaves Kim Perez among the announced or contemplating announcing for Healy to support.

One problem for Healy though is that Perez brings political baggage with him.

Rightly or wrongly, the Stark County voting public seems to have ascribed blame to Perez in his role as county auditor for not doing enough to catch former Stark County Chief Deputy Treasurer Vince Frustaci early on while he was stealing money from the Stark County treasurer.

Moreover, many in the Stark public perceive Perez to have been political pals with former county treasurer Gary Zeigler, whom was blamed by many inside and outside of Stark County government for not doing enough in terms of having structural controls in place as well as policy, practice and other mechanisms in place to have prevented the Frustaci theft.

But being the pragmatic and highly skilled politician he is, Healy likely has already looked at how Perez did in the Canton precincts when he was defeated by Republican Alan Harold in Perez's quest for reelection as auditor in 2010 (which he lost countywide by a 58% to 42% margin).

Here is what the Canton precinct numbers will reveal to Healy:

• Perez won all but a handful of Canton's precincts and in eight of Canton's nine wards.
• And the average margin of victory in a given ward are as follows:
• Ward 1 - 63.43% (Councilman Hawk)
• Ward 2 - 78.51% (Councilman West)
• Ward 3 - 54.37% (Councilman Griffin)
• Ward 4 - 87.58% (Councilwoman Smith)
• Ward 5 - 63.02% (Councilman Fisher)
• Ward 6 - 77.80% (Councilman Dougherty)
• Ward 7 - 51.34% (Councilman Mariol)
• Ward 8 - 45.64% (Councilman Mack)
• Ward 9 - 63.56% (Councilman Morris)

While the name of Kim Perez might remain a political liability out across Stark County, it does not appear that he has much of a problem garnering votes within the city.

So it could be and probably is likely that Perez will be Healy's man.

But readers can bet that Healy will do an thorough analysis of whether or not it is politically beneficial to him to throw his support behind Perez.

But as mentioned previously in this blog, there are other political players in this matter.  One factor that should not be discounted is where the Democratic councilpersons stand on the matter.

They could be the difference maker as to who would come out of a Democratic primary.

One person who certainly would not fare well in a Democratic primary would be SCPR favorite Gary Young.

Gary Young comes about a close as one can as being a person, while a solid Democrat, who is not viewed across Stark County political circles as being all that political and certainly not in terms of performing his duties as a Canton auditor.

No less a person that Stark County Commissioner (a former Canton mayor) and, the SCPR believes, the county's most pre-eminent Republican has high praise for Young in the integrity and impeccability he demonstrates in the job performance.

The most probable scenario in which this "impartial job performance over political party interest" man could actually become Canton treasurer would be for Schirack to resign right after the first of the year and for Gonzalez and the heavy hitters within the Stark County Democratic Party apparatus to ask the central committee (SDP-CC) in deference to the chairman to select Young as the Party's appointee.

Moreover, Gonzalez and party honchos would have to weigh in with prominent Canton Democrats (such as Perez and Hawk) to stand aside for Young.  Young operates is such a non--political manner, that the SCPR believes he would have a hard time wining a contested primary if numbered among the opponents was a name Democrat.

Alternatively, if Schirack decides to hold out until December 31, 2013 as treasurer, Gonzalez et al could choose to weigh-in on the Democratic primary and make it clear that he and the party leadership that Young is their man.

Readers will recall that there was opposition to Gonzalez's request that the SDP-CC appoint Republican Alex Zumbar as county treasurer when Gary Zeigler retired/resigned.

Sheriff-elect Mike McDonald stood front and center and urged central committee members to support the chairman on the Zumbar selection.

Well, it would take a similar effort of the likes of Gonzalez and McDonald to get the highly qualified Young in as treasurer.

How likely is it Gonzalez and his party hierarchy friends will take up the cause for Young?

The SCPR believes that there is very little chance of such happening.

Neither (Gonzales or Matthews) Stark County political chairmen strike The Report as being a person that will look primarily to the qualifications of prospective candidates as a guiding criterion as to whether or not to push ta certain person for office and thereby benefit the body politic at large.

Nevertheless, to the SCPR, Gary Young is a person who by virtue of his high degree of qualification and actual performance as a public official is the man to succeed Bob Schirack as Canton treasurer.

In the end, it is put up or shut up time for Gonazalez and his local "kitchen cabinet."

As Gonzalez has told the SCPR, he really had no choice in the Zumbar matter as there was a public clamor in favor of the Alliance Republican.

Well, Gary Young is a Democrat and in terms of qualifications, he far and away supersedes anyone who might want to be Canton's treasurer.  And you have the opportunity to do the right thing by the citizens of Canton!

Opportunity knocks for the chaiman.

Will he be willing to strike a blow for the highly qualified Gary Young as Canton treasurer?

ELECTION ANALYSIS: U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE JOSH MANDEL NEEDS TO LEARN TO ANSWER THE QUESTION ASKED. AND SINCE HE WOULD NOT: WHBC'S RON PONDER HUNG UP ON HIM!

Republican United States Senate candidate Josh Mandel should have had a premonition after his October 11th radio interview (LINK - for full interview) with WHBC1480 's Ron Ponder (Points to Ponder) that November 6th was not going to go all that well for him.

Mandel's responses were "political spin" all the way and NOT responsive to Ponder.

While Ponder actually asked a number of questions (e.g. "how's the campaign going," Mandel's auto industry bailout viewpoint, et cetera), the interview from the perspective of the SCPR really boiled down to Mandel avoiding Ponder's pointed questions:

• in talking over Ponder, and 
• in trying to force a redirection of the dialogue from the question asked to Mandel campaign political propaganda points.

But Ponder was having none of it.  He ended up directing his Points to Ponder assistant Stephon King to hang up on Mandel.

The focal point of the redirection effort was on the question of allegations that Mandel has full blown political cronyism going on in his office.

An example.

“[Ponder to Mandel] Joe Aquilino, I believe you pronounce his name, a former campaign aide, was named director of debt management, paid $90,000, had no experience in finance and you sent him to a beginner’s course in the subject. How do you answer those charges?"

This specific Ponder question was one of a line of questions that had to do with Mandel's 2010 (campaign for Ohio treasurer) statement that, if elected he would have qualified financial professionals manning the state treasury.

Other questions had to do with:

• Mandel's 27 year old former campaign manager (the Mandel for Treasurer campaign) getting a $100,000 position; having worked for Mandel as a legislative aide at $13.85 hourly), and
• Seth Metcalf, a Mandel college buddy, being paid $150,000 as a member of Mandel's treasury staff as general legal counsel and chief financial officer.  (Metcalf ran Mandel's campaign at The Ohio State University in his quest to become student government president).

Mandel's response?

Talking points, that's what:

• "we've (the treasurer's office) earned the highest rating on our bonds,"
• "we've earned the highest rating on our investments," et cetera, and
  
• "you talk about someone who has served himself, talk about Sherrod Brown ... ."

Ponder comes back:

• "the question is Josh, it's a pretty simple question, when you were running against Kevin Boyce you accused him of filling the treasurer's office with his friends and cronies,"
• "now the Democrats are accusing you of the same thing, so I am just asking you the question about the salaries and the folks you have hired ... ."

Mandel responded not with specific answers to the Aquilino, Lord and Metcalf and whether or not they represent cronyism in the Ohio Department of the Treasury, but with the political-spin-talking-points answer of guess what?

"We have qualified financial professional in our office."

Here is the reduced version (to the cronyism question) of the Ponder interview of Mandel that went viral on YouTube:



A SCPR "hats off" to Ponder.

Ponder maintained control of the interview and thereby put Mandel on notice that some journalists will ask probing questions and will not allow a spinmeister candidate such as Mandel to twist an exchange into a spewing of political propaganda.

Ohioans and Stark Countians should be pleased that Josh Mandel was not elected U.S. Senator from the great state of Ohio.

Brown is 59, Mandel is 35 and the difference in maturity showed big time in their respective interviews with Ponder.

It is distressing that the "not wet behind the ears" Mandel (as described by Sherrod Brown), who announced mere months after taking office as treasurer that he was running for the Senate, could garner the support of 45% of Ohioans and Stark Countians.

But when you have upwards of $40 million of campaign finance resources (direct and indirect) to wage a campaign with, "you are going to be able to fool some of the people some of the time."

The good news is that there were enough Ohioans savvy enough about what Josh Mandel is really about to turn back the unseemly Ohio treasurer from achieving higher political office.

The bad news is that he is only 35.

Undoubtedly and unfortunately, we have not heard the last of Josh Mandel.

But maybe, just maybe, Ron Ponder's interview (a portion of which went viral on YouTube) went a long way towards wising Ohioans up as what Josh Mandel is all about.

And just what is that?

Josh Mandel and only Josh Mandel many times.

He is a prime example of being an aspiring politician consumed with himself!

The sooner Ohioans catch on to what Mandel is all about, the better of we will all be!

ELECTION ANALYSIS: IS JIM RENACCI ABOUT TO FOOL US ALL?

From the results of Tuesday's election, it is still apparent that America is deeply divided along partisan political lines.

Here in Stark County, the results of the Obama/Romney face off:

A mere 644 votes of 173,272 cast separate the two.

So Stark County could have gone either way and still may switch inasmuch as the provisional ballots voted on Tuesday will not be counted until the week of November 19th.  About 5,900 provisional/absentee ballots remain to be counted.

One of the consequences of Obama's reelection will be that Obamacare will in fact become fully implemented except as modified by a United States Supreme Court decision earlier this year.

One of the most strident voices against Obamacare since he ran against and defeated former Democratic congressman John Boccieri in 2008 is 16th District Republican congressman Jim Renacci.

Based on his continuing harangue and rail against Obamacare ever since the '08 campaign, one would expect that he will join hands with nearly all the other 234 Republicans elected to the new Congress on Tuesday to do everything but throw in the kitchen sink to make the Affordable Care Act (the official name of the health care reform law of 2008) unworkable.

But maybe not.

About a year out from this week's election, Congressman Renacci burst forth with an announcement on MSNBC that he had formed a bipartisan breakfast group.

Here is the MSNBC video of the announcement.



And, as recent as his and Sutton's appearance before the Jefferson Action citizen-participation project in Summit County (July through October), the need for more bipartisanship action in Congress seemed to be a continuing and emphatic Renacci theme.

The SCPR is somewhat skeptical of Renacci's new found "come let us reason together" way of being, but it could be for real and his Stark County constituents should hold his feet to the fire on his apparent change of heart.

As noted above, he has been a firebrand against Obamacare.  Now that Renacci has lost on the issue given the reelection of Obama, he should square up with political realities and be a constructive force within his blossoming breakfast group to find ways and means across the isle to have Obamacare be the very best in health care that it can possibly be.

While he has lost on the debate over the Affordable Care Act, Renacci did win his reelection bid over Democrat Betty Sutton on a relatively narrow scale in the "new 16th" (constituted for 2012 by the Constitutionally required decennial redistricting) which includes parts of Cuyahoga, Medina, Portage, Stark [Jackson, Lawrence and parts of Lake Township], Summit and Wayne counties.

The vote breakdown: (unofficial count)

To The Report, his personal post-election victory over Sutton and his supposed campaign commitment to bipartisanship will be put to the test on the health care issue.

Will he be a help or will he continue to be a hindrance on whether or not Obamacare gets accepted and embraced by Americans?

The SCPR for one will be watching to see whether Renacci's breakfast group will produce nourishment for those of us who want Congress (with a favorable rating ranging from 9 to 17 percent) to find solutions to the nation's problems through the political parties reaching out to one another.

Is the bipartisan breakfast group the real deal or will it prove to have been a cynical political manipulation designed to get Jim Renacci reelected?

2012 GENERAL ELECTION LESSONS: (1) CANTON-BASED POLITICIANS CANNOT WIN COUNTYWIDE WITHOUT DIVINE INTERVENTION (SMUCKLER) & BEWARE WHO ADVISES YOUR CAMPAIGN (DORDEA)?

The Stark County Political Report's take-away from last night's election from a local politics standpoint is twofold:

1. Confirmation that Canton-based politicians cannot win countywide, no matter how good of a campaign they run (e.g. the Smuckler/Regula commissioner match up), and
2. One should be very careful as to whom they take campaign advice from (e.g. the Dordea/McDonald sheriff race)

First, Smuckler versus Regula for Stark County commissioner.

Earlier this year, Stark County Commissioner Pete Ferguson decided not to run for re-election.

Long time Canton politician Bill Smuckler (as a Canton councilman) ultimately became the standard bearer for Stark's organized Democrats to succeed Ferguson.

Former Commissioner Richard Regula (who served from 2003 through 2006 and son of former long time congressman Ralph Regula [the 16th when it included all of Stark County), became the Republican candidate.

What Smuckler knew and failed to overcome is that there appears to be an antagonism between non-Cantonian voters and Canton-based politicians.

Witness the strong likelihood that former Canton Democratic councilman, law director and Healy administration chief of staff Thomas Bernabei would not have been elected in his candidacy for commissioner in November, 2010 had an independent and conservative candidate not been in the race. The Report believes that the independent drained off votes from Republican candidate and Jackson trustee James N. Walters and thereby was critical to Bernabei's election.

Ironically, Walters who figures into the Dordea/McDonald sheriff contest as Dordea's campaign manager which the SCPR analyzes below.

The Report followed Smuckler's campaign closely and is convinced that he ran very hard.

However, he did not have a divine-esque intervention type factor going for him that Bernabei had going for himself and therefore The Report was skeptical that he could win.

The only hope for Smuckler was that perhaps this being a presidential year and Democrats having a tendency to come out in greater numbers in presidential years, he could win especially if the Democratic presidential candidate (i.e. Obama) runs strong.

Obama not only did not run strong in Stark, the final numbers (when the provisional ballots are counted in two weeks) will probably show that he loses the county.

So there were no Obama coattails for Smuckler to latch on to.

Moral of the story?  A Canton-based politician cannot win countywide given the current Stark County political climate without a stoke of good luck.

Second, Dordea versus McDonald for Stark County sheriff.

Another case of an incumbent deciding not to run for reelection; namely, Sheriff Tim Swanson.

Dordea had run against Swanson in 2008 and made a respectable showing.

As it turns out, it appeared that Dordea would be the odds on favorite to defeat Swanson's hand picked candidate Chief Deputy MIke McDonald which according to sources what actually Swanson's third choice.

And the campaign started out well enough for Dordea.

There was a general consensus among a number of Stark County political observers that both candidates were well qualified and that it would be a highly competitive race but conducted at a high level.

The turning point in the campaign terms of becoming vitriolic may well have come a number of weeks ago when the Dordea  campaign, apparently acting on the advice of his campaign manager Walters, went off on a negative track in alleging:

• that McDonald was receiving longevity/vacation pay in contravention of Ohio law,
• that he was insensitive to the death of a young lady who had just been released from the Stark County Jail (McDonald is chief of the jail division of the sheriff's department) due to being hit by a motor vehicle as she walked along the busy four lane highway in front of the jail,
• that Swanson in endorsing McDonald, and further that Swanson has a history of supporting former Stark County Treasurer Gary Zeigler, somehow connects McDonald to Zeigler,
• the point?
• a not too subtle effort to bring out the political memories of the Stark County electorate, large numbers of whom undoubtedly remain upset with the way Zeigler managed the Stark treasury insofar as sufficient infrastructure, policy, and practices are seen by the public as having not been in place so as to have prevented his former chief deputy Vince Frustaci from having stolen upwards of $3 million of Stark County taxpayer money.

The SCPR believes that what appears to be Walters inspired advice to not have been a wise course for Dordea to follow.

While McDonald did his own bit of negative campaigning (e.g. "Dordea is not qualified to be sheriff," and "he (Dordea) is a politician, but I am not,"  it seems to The Report that it was mostly reactive to allegations of the Walters-led Dordea campaign and does not appear to have the same stridency about it.

A supporter of McDonald's (who says he had no official role in the campaign and confirmed by McDonald) did go after Dordea in a "letter to the editor" making certain allegations of four facts (LINK).

There may be a remote chance in the counting of provisional ballots that Dordea could end up being the winner.  It will depend on how many of those ballots there are.

But if not, could it be that the well-respected Larry Dordea ends up having lost because he took some ill-advised campaign strategy advice?

Did he get counterproductive advice that cost him the election?