For starters, if some in Alliance area think they have been marginalized by being put in Ohio 13th congressional district as the only Stark County factor in the district, such would be doubly so for the residents of the Stark County communities of Canal Fulton, Lawrence, Tuscarawas and Sugarcreek townships.
THE 38TH AND THE 50TH
With the new 38th House District and the 27th Senate District, the Stark County folks are likely only to be a factor in a very, very close election.
Of course, if you believe The Repository's Robert Wang in his coverage of the redistricting that: in the re-do of the 50th, the possibility that former Stark County Democratic Party chairman (currently clerk of courts in Massillon) is a political casualty in that he has been redistricted out of running against Republican Christina Hagan; you wonder why he did not offer up the possibility of Maier, who lives in Tuscarawas Township, running for the "new" 38th?
The answer: Maier - unless there is a monumental political calamity for him with his being defeated as the Democratic clerk of courts candidate against Republican Megan Todaro Kirschner on November 8th - is ensconced in the well-paid clerk of courts position with his political sidekick (Stark County Democratic Party political director) and "gofer" err chief deputy Shane Jackson and Maier wouldn't have taken on Hagan even if the district miraculously had gotten reconfigured to the way it was when Maier was first elected in the early 90s.
Another thing. Maier is busy right now consolidating his political power in Massillon. Should his political protege Kathy Catazaro-Perry be elected mayor of Massillon as the SCPR predicts she will be by a substantial margin, then he has the job of being the de facto mayor of Massillon, no?
Wang offered up other examples of the loss of Democratic potentials in the 50th.
Celeste DeHoff?
You have got to be kidding!
It took Todd "I helped 'impose' a county sales tax" Bosley to outdo her in terms of margin of defeat in the 50th notwithstanding the political prestige and political power of Maier/Jackson expended on (brought the then Governor Ted Strickland, former Senator John Glenn, Senator Sherrod Brown and the then state Treasurer Richard Cordray to campaign for her). Moreover, the Ohio Democratic Party - undoubtedly at Maier's behest - put tons of money into her campaign.
For Democrats to have put her up again, had the she remained in the 50th; you talk about a sacrificial lamb!
Gayle Jackson? A former Stark County commissioner who Maier (the employer of her son, hmm?) likes to say at Democratic loyalist gatherings is Stark's greatest commissioner of all time is likely to be remembered by the more realistic as being a run-of-the-mill commissioner who, at best, is one of a number of commissioners who have served in modern times to have allowed Stark to slide into financial and economic duress.
Only the starry-eyed on Jackson Maier would offer her up as a viable challenge to Christina Hagan in what son Shane recognizes (being the political cognoscenti Maier makes him out as being) to be a solidly Republican district.
Richard Regula?
Perhaps Stark County's laziest political candidate.
He has relied on the Regula name in his campaigns and has done very little, if any, hard nosed campaigning and as a consequence lost - notwithstanding the Regula name - to, get this: Gary D. Zeigler (who had lost multiple countywide races before defeating Regula) and political neophyte at the time: Todd Bosley. And, of course, notwithstanding having the former 16th district congressman in his corner, he could not out muscle the Hagans (can you imagine John Hagan having more clout in Columbus than Ralph Regula?).
THE 48TH (House) & 29TH (Senate)
As safe as ever (the 51st and the 29th [Senate]) for Kirk "musical chairs" Schuring and Scott Oelslager.
Until Stark County Democratic Party Chairman Randy Gonzalez gets up off his duff and finds a viable [name ID and money] candidate to run against Schuring and Oelslager, they will continue to serve in the Ohio General Assembly until they become too feeble to serve. Schuring and Oelslager play a version of musical chairs between the 51st [now to be the 48th] and the 29th where each of them gets a seat: just a different seat.
THE 49TH
Remains solidly Democratic.
The SCPR is told that Democrat Stephen Slesnick is "as worthless" in the Ohio House "as _ _ _ _ on a boar hog."
With the Massillon being included in the 49th, how about freshly defeated Francis H. Cicchinelli, Jr (Massillon's 4th Ward), at the hand of the Massillon Maier political machine, running in a Democratic primary to take on Slesnick?
Doing so would give Cicchinelli as second bite at the apple in his ongoing political feud with Maier, Jackson et al. One of things that Maier likes to do with Cicchinelli is to asperse him as being a de facto Republican. Cicchinelli bristles at such characterizations.
Cicchinelli running has two bright sides to it; one for the public and the other for the lame duck mayor personally. First, if he can unseat Slesnick, the step up in quality of representation would be manifold. Secondly, he would certainly be a downer for the powers Maier and his wing of the Massillon Democratic Party and for the Stark County Democratic Party which stood by (Chairman Gonzalez being politically close with Maier) and let Democratic stalwart Cicchinelli be humiliated in intra-party warfare.
Not likely, but an intriguing thought, no?
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