Carpetbagger definition: “a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections.”
Yes, it’s totally legal to run for congress if you don’t live in the congressional district, just ask Niraj Antani who is running in OH-2 right now, or Amy Cox, who lives in Eaton, but wants to run against Mike Turner instead of Warren Davidson in OH-8. Or, she just got put up by someone who wants to make sure I’m not the candidate in OH-10 taking on Mike Turner again.
See article 1, section 2 of the US Constitution that makes it legal:
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Source: U.S. Constitution – Article I | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress [1]
Personally, I love primaries and competition. Every single candidate adds interest and drums up voters to have a reason to go to the polls. But, I don’t believe in “Endorsing” in a primary. And that’s what these 9 people decided to do in a closed room in Columbus- to tell you who to vote for.
- Chair, David Farrell- may have been Clark County Party Chair, ran and dropped out for State Rep in 2012 [2] He was a Green Twp Trustee until 2020 [3] former member of AFSCME and OCSEA unions.
- Vice Chair, Patricia Frost Brooks- Pat Frost-Brooks serves as Treasurer of the Ohio Democratic Party. She previously served as President of the Ohio Education Association. A teacher with the East Cleveland City School District, she also served OEA for many years as a member of the board of directors and as vice president. (I’d link to her bio on the State Dems site [4]– but they don’t know how to properly build a site).
- Andre Washington: Vice Chair of ODP. He was with OAPSE (Ohio Association of Public School Employees) which endorsed me last run. Same problem with his bio as Patricia for a link.
- Lili Sandler: is active in dem politics and the Girl Scouts in Oberlin Ohio.
- Dave Brock: Cuyahoga Dem Party (Cleveland) Chair [5] He also ran for Cleveland City Council and came in dead last. [6]
- Sophia Rodriguez: Ran for Ohio House in district 84 in 2022 and received a whopping 18% of the vote. [7]
- Mike Sexton: Head of the Franklin County Dems [8]. Party lifer according to this article. [9]
- Melissa Hedden [10]: Development Director for the Super PAC Bring Ohio Back and on President Biden’s Advisory Committee on the Arts.
- Jeremy Blake: ran in 2018 for OH state rep in district 71, then ran again in 2022 in district 9 and withdrew [11]. He was on Newark City Council [12] and ran for Mayor and lost..
- Courtney Belcher: ODP delegate and works for OAPSE as a legal assistant (maybe? her Linkedin has nada).
- Martha Campbell works for the Tuscarawas County Engineer’s Office and she’s a big Buckeyes fan [13].
It took way too much time to research these folks- probably because only one of them lives in OH-10. None of them has a blog- published since 2005, which uncovers the dirty underbelly of our local political establishment. Very few have won elections either- or served in the military (which by the way- wasn’t a question on their candidate questionnaire. They did care if you belonged to a union- as if it is comparable. Last I checked, you don’t risk your life for your country by joining a union- or the ODP).
What should the ODP do? Help every single dem to run, and have as much participation as possible in primaries. That’s where the PEOPLE are supposed to pick their candidates, not the folks in a back room.
Running for office is hard enough, expensive, and opens your life up to ungodly public scrutiny. It’s hard enough finding candidates who want to run, or who aren’t insanely stupid (see the bodycam tapes of Dion Green [14]who was supposed to run against Phil “The Torturer [15]” Plummer in Ohio 39). Why the party doesn’t try to support all the candidates and welcome them to the party is beyond me. The kissing of the ring for endorsements isn’t my thing. I even told them on their questionnaire that I wasn’t seeking their endorsement, but their support.
Here’s the letter they sent to me last night. They sent an un-secure word doc, I converted it to a PDF. If you don’t like the party insiders endorsing in primaries, I suggest you write a note to ODP Chair, Liz Walters [16]. I doubt she’ll listen.
Maybe if the Republicans who voted in George Santos had actually been warned that he was a fraud, what happened wouldn’t have. But that’s not quite the same as not endorsing someone. I think all primary candidates should be endorsed by the party as a signal that all are fit for office. Then it’s up to each candidate to sell themselves without bias direction from the party. Those that aren’t fit, even though they collected the 500 or so signatures, will have that non-endorsement to answer for, which all the other candidates are free to point out. Unfortunately, this works only when the party is perceived as honest.
The way the Ohio Democratic Party treats you should give you cause for concern that they don’t stand for the things they say they stand for. After 15 years having this kind of treatment from all state Democratic Parties, I left the Democratic Party in 2022. The Ohio Dems do unethical and illegal things and then run to the voters saying how they are for equality when they are not. The chair Elizabeth Walters blocked me on Twitter in 2022 when I posted about age discrimination. I still get their mailers ( abortion amendments) even though I’ve told them to take me off of their lists and they helped smear 2 African-American candidates for Dayton City Commission in 2021 by approving the racist mailers and don’t hire field staff over 40 to work on campaigns. All this evidence is of a corrupt, unethical Ohio Dem party. I’ll be voting in the Ohio Republican primary in March to officially change my party affiliation.
Jonathan, The Leader, a small weekly newspaper on the North Shore of Long Island New York, covered George Santos (aka Anthony Devolder, Kitara Ravache) before he was elected, but larger media outlets did not pick up and report that until it was too late and Santos was elected. Voters should take personal responsibility to educate themselves on candidates before they are elected, even if political parties or main stream media fail to timely do so.
Herbert, it appears you are writing of a personnel matter with a former employer which you assert did not end well. I hope you sought legal and professional help to remedy the problem. If you worked for various state Democratic Party organizations across the country, then you would know that there are political party laws, constitutions, bylaws, policy planks, rules, and values to follow. Switching to the Republican Party with Donald Trump possibly at the helm would be adopting a vastly different political and personal philosophy. You may want to carefully study the landscape before you leap. It’s your choice, of course, but just saying.
Publicly dumping on the the Democrat Party at all levels without evidence is not useful and merely an expression of opinion, such as what I am doing here. We all have them – opinions, that is.
[…] Unfortunately, this seems like the only forum we’ll have. Greene County Dems were in attendance last night, and the Clark County Dem party chair already made his choice behind closed doors on the Ohio Dem Party screening committee, where he endorsed a carpetbagger from outside the district to be… […]