Montgomery County Republican Party factions playing games with OH-42 seat

Last week, Esrati.com gave you the long list of potential candidates to fill OH-42 existing term, and the ballot position for Terry Blair’s seat. You may have read about it in the Dayton Daily news a few days later.

Today, the DDn ran a press release from the “Conservative Republican Leadership Committee”- read that the Tea Party People who are pretending to not be Tea Party People:

A Republican Party group plans a candidates’ forum tonight on the eve of local GOP leaders voting to replace the late Terry Blair on the ballot for a seat in the Ohio General Assembly.

The Conservative Republican Leadership Committee forum will include three of the four candidates vying to replace Blair, who died June 26 during the last months of his third term in the 42nd District seat in the Ohio House of Representatives.

Niraj Antani of Miami Twp. and Washington Twp. residents Mark Crawford, Scott Paulson and Tom Young have expressed interest in replacing Blair. Republicans are set to vote Thursday on a candidate.

That person will face Democrat Leonard D. Johnson, 67, of West Carrollton in November in a district that also includes Germantown, German Twp., Miamisburg and Moraine. The winner will be elected to a two-year term with an annual salary of $60,584.

The forum, set for 7 p.m. at the Washington Twp. Recreation Center, will include all of the candidates but Young. Young said Tuesday that notice was too short for him to attend the event, which he became aware of late Friday.

The forum will include a question-and-answer session with the candidates followed by written questions from the audience, said Ohio House 36th District state Rep. Seth Morgan, the forum moderator.

“This is a great opportunity — and the only opportunity that we know of that is open to the public — for the public to ask questions,” he said.

Morgan said the forum will help voters assess the candidates in the “highly conservative district.” It tends to lean Republican, with 58 percent of the votes cast in the 2012 presidential election going to the GOP candidate, according to the Montgomery County Board of Elections. “We think this is a great opportunity for the public to engage in the conversation,” he said. “The party will do what the party will do.” District party precinct captains – which number between 65 and 70 – are set to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Mandalay Banquet Center, said Dave Landon, vice chair of the county GOP Executive Committee.

Each candidate will have an opportunity to address the audience, he said, before the vote. Landon is among the party precinct captains in the district but declined to say how he will vote.

via Forum set for House seat.

What they don’t tell you is that Tom Young already had a meet and greet on Sunday afternoon at the Chop House hosted by Sheriff Phil Plummer and Sharon Lowry- the “chair and co-chair of the Montgomery County Republican Party” (even though they weren’t elected to the positions after former chair Rob Scott stepped down). I’m sure Tom Young made that meeting on short notice. Here is a link to a badly scanned leaked invite: Plummer invite to Young event

Having Seth Morgan as the moderator sets the tone for this to be a more radical Republican event, however, Young is unworthy of office in my book if he can’t make it to the only candidates’ forum being held. Insiders say only Paulson and Young have a shot- with Paulson being backed by the upstarts who flipped the party to lean Tea in the last legal party election- including potential future House Speaker Rep. Jim Butler, OH-41. Old school GOP folks on the friends and family plan, prefer Young.  Crawford who immediately sent out a two-page letter to all members of the central committee asking for consideration, spelling out his global experience and qualifications, unfortunately- I can’t find my copy of it, but I’m sure someone will supply another copy within a few hours of my posting it.

Niraj Antani is the young go-getter in the group- who is being ignored by almost everyone. He’s probably the only one who is social media aware- favoring my first tweet about the showdown, and quickly following me on Twitter. Crawford also seems to have some social media chops as well. As to Young and Paulson- not so much.

If the Republicans really cared, the party would have sponsored this event and made sure a video was up on YouTube before the vote tomorrow night. However, this isn’t an open and welcoming Republican party- it’s a nest of infighting children arguing over whose daddy has more money. For now, that would be the Sheriff.

If you enjoyed reading true breaking news, instead of broken news from the major media in Dayton, make sure you subscribe to this site for an email every time I post. If you wish to support this blog and independent journalism in Dayton, consider donating. All of the effort that goes into writing posts and creating videos comes directly out of my pocket, so any amount helps! Please also subscribe to the Youtube channel for notifications of every video we launch – including the livestreams.