Not all county chairman knew of letter demanding DeWine resignation

Conservative bloggers and Republicans across the state have been talking about the internal battle for control of the Ohio Republican Party. Following the contentious primary election for seats on the state central committee, ORP Chairman Kevin DeWine announced he would not seek re-election. After that announcement, seven chairmen of large counties in Ohio, including Lucas, signed a letter requesting that DeWine resign immediately.

Many of us wondered when the county central committees met to authorize their chairmen to take such action only to find out that they didn't. Others wanted to know if their county chairman had been asked to sign the letter as well.

Matt Hurley, at Weapons of Mass Discussion learned that the Butler County GOP chairman was NOT asked, and was "dismayed" by what had occurred.

I'm pretty confident that if we asked the other 80 party chairmen, they'd say the same thing.

So not only is the internal dispute now a public one, but seven of our Republican Party County Chairmen are adding to the problem by excluding the other 81 in their actions.

Some will say that not all chairmen needed to be invited to sign the resignation demand letter. But their letter purports to speak for "hundreds of thousands Republicans" so it's not as if the seven were speaking only for themselves. So why not ask the other county party chairs?

These seven party chairmen, including Lucas County's Jon Stainbrook, have not helped the ORP by this action and, despite the vast numbers of Republicans who agree that DeWine needs to go, their method of speaking without first checking with their own parties and of excluding other party chairmen leaves a lot to be desired.