Out of failure, the roadmap to the future
I lost to Mike Turner. It was expected. However, I spent a hell of a lot less to lose than anyone else- and had zero party support. To the little over 200 people who donated to my campaign and believed enough in me to put their money where my mouth is- I owe eternal thanks. To those of you who worked on my campaign, the same. To those that voted for me- thank you (although I know some of you were holding your nose.)
The first thing to realize is that the Ohio Democratic Party with it’s “Friends and Family” plan is totally incompetent and needs a total and complete house sterilization. No more elected officials in positions of power, no more patronage job underlings as their proxies. The party belongs to the rank and file- and they need to feel like they are welcome and in control.
To that effect, the immediate goals of the party should be to properly organize and work like hell to put an statewide choice constitutional amendment on the ballot as soon as possible. Along with that, fix the fiasco of issue 1 (2015) – where gerrymandering was somehow still legal- despite the voters endorsing fair districts by a 70% margin. As part of that issue- would come the removal from office and imprisonment of those on the redistricting commission who failed to give us fair districts.
To properly organize, the party would build a new statewide web presence for every county party. The entire system of websites would be done in open source software where the party owns the data- and the tools, no more “digital sharecropping” from some corporate master. This means eliminating support for NGP VAN and NationBuilder- and moving to WordPress multi-site and CiviCRM. The party would be able to quickly stand up websites for every candidate, and for every race, and manage all donations and data centrally. No more forcing candidates to reinvent the wheel every cycle. Instead of making money for ActBlue, manage donations with a proper processor.
There is zero reason that every presidential campaign should have to reinvent the wheel, hire staff, and build an entire ground team every cycle- this is the parties responsibility.
As to the organization of the party, the idea of there being winners and losers in precinct captain races is absurd. Telling someone who lost by 7 votes in a re-gerrymandered district after serving for 12 years that they are no longer a democrat or member of this party is criminal. But that’s what happens when the party insiders (patronage job holders, politicians and labor leaders conspire together to elect a despot criminal, Mohamed Al-Hamdani, party chair. I exposed his criminal behavior before he was even sworn into office on the Dayton School board and have zero respect for this tool) as their chair.
The way to build democratic party strength is to open the party membership up to all, and allow all regularly attending members to vote to choose by ranked choice, who will lead them, in a parliamentary type system, where building coalitions is key. This is supposed to be the “big tent” party not the exclusionary party. It’s also not supposed to be the party of election deniers- as in David Esrati won the primary, you support who the voters chose. Sorry.
The idea of “endorsing candidates” by the party isn’t practiced in Greene County or Clark County- nor should it be here or anywhere. That’s for voters to decide. As to “endorsing” by labor unions or causes- think about what that means as well. Usually it means “we’ll “back you” in exchange for you giving us something “back” if you are elected.” What does a union know that voters don’t- except they will be negotiating labor contracts with the candidates they back who win. I’m a chip off my old mans block, he fought in the sixties when the Newspaper Guild was giving his money to the Johnson Campaign- when dad wanted Bobby Kennedy and then Eugene McCarthy. There is no reason that because you are part of a union, you have to back a political candidate you don’t agree with.
The fact that AFSCME supposedly backed the criminal Phil Plummer for election- when Plummer should be in prison for his torture of prisoners in his jail is criminal. The fact that the party couldn’t capitalize on this- and elect Leronda Jackson is criminal contempt- as is the fact that the local mob boss, county prosecutor Mat Heck, didn’t prosecute the jailers who committed these heinous crimes. Heck is one of the criminals running the friends and family plan party- see my post from yesterday that explains it.
The goal of the party should be to educate voters and the community about things that affect them. It should be working toward lowering governmental costs in Montgomery County by moving toward uni-gov and cutting tax burdens by forcing Sinclair to start taxing Warren and Greene Counties before providing services there. It’s time for unigov- including a county wide municipal court (instead of having 6 mini-courts with substandard websites and substandard judges).
If the Montgomery County Democratic Party was working toward eliminating duplication of services, number of jurisdictions, bringing in ranked choice voting, and informing and educating the electorate- maybe the only win they had last night- eking out a slim win for Tim Ryan 88,208 to 87,850, could have actually won a race. The unseating of Carolyn Rice- the only county commissioner who actually put people before party, should be a wake up call. Full disclosure- my firm, The Next Wave, worked to help Jordan Wortham’s mother, Mia Spells Wortham on her campaign to be a Municipal court judge and then helped Jordan with his site, photography, printing etc. Jordan won by a slim margin that could still be reversed- 87,457 to 86,417 depending on mail ins and recounts.
Jordan’s was the upset of all upsets, although anyone who has being paying attention should have seen what’s been happening- Bob Matthews came close against Debbie Lieberman (who still hasn’t taken any responsibility for her assistant’s criminal involvement in steering public health contracts to her friend).
Astute observers should keep an eye out on Addison Caruso, who gave Andrea White a run for her money in the Ohio 36 district which was actually the closest thing to a fair district. Addison had a tenth of Andrea White’s money- and lost 20,017 to 19,147. He was part of my guerrilla co-hort which urged folks to “Funk the System” and win despite the auction of political offices.
The next two years will be defining for the life of democracy in this country. Unless the January 6th Commission pulls a rabbit out of a hat, Donald Trump and his evil minions may end up back in power in 2024 with Ohio’s failure at the forefront (beating Steve Chabot isn’t good enough, and if Dems lose the house- elevating voices like Jim Jordan, Mike Turner and Warren Davidson will have a disastrous effect.
Now that the election is over, I wonder if the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals will finally get off their asses on my FOIA case to expose the tapes of Nan Whaley that were played to the Grand Jury in the “Culture of Corruption” case? And if we’ll actually get to court in my lawsuit claiming the Montgomery County Board of Elections broke the Sunshine laws at almost every meeting.
I’ll also be working to teach the local news outlets about how journalism is done. WYSO is on my shit list for interviewing a reporter by a reporter instead of interviewing the candidates directly. Someone also told me that WHIO-TV had Mike Turner on their news broadcast on election day- giving him free exposure.
The Dayton Daily news was also incompetent- leaving out information about write in candidates- and even ignoring my race 2 days before the election- summing up all the other congressional seats except Dayton’s.
Control of Congress
The map of U.S. House districts, like the state legislative maps, has to be redrawn before the 2024 election — and for the same reason: The Ohio Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutionally favors Republicans.
But also like the state legislative maps, the rejected U.S. House map is in force for this election cycle due to time constraints. And results from its districts, altered by census results from their decade-old configuration, may have nationwide impact.
Just north of the Miami Valley, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Urbana faces Tamie Wilson of Delaware for the District 4 seat. If re-elected Jordan, in Congress since 2007, will wield considerable influence if Republicans take control of the House.
To the south lies a reconfigured District 1, now represented by Steve Chabot of Cincinnati. He has served in Congress from 1995 to 2009 and 2011 to present.
His challenger is Greg Landsman, a member of Cincinnati City Council since 2018.
District 1 covers Warren County, plus eastern and much of central Hamilton County, making it “closely competitive” — Warren is heavily Republican, while Hamilton is strongly Democratic.
Source: Ohio voters will be key in many ways – Dayton Daily News
See something missing? Bueller? Bueller?
Last night, I attempted to pick up all of my yard signs. I don’t believe any politician has a right to blight our community with their political trash. If you see one somewhere, please let me know. This is why I much prefer putting up free green basketball nets for a campaign than doing yard signs. This year I couldn’t put up nets thanks to rotator-cuff surgery, but, I’ll start again in the spring.
Thank you for your support and for reading. Please subscribe to my youtube channel and to this site. And if you want to show support for my failed efforts- please go buy a “Defund Politicians” or “Elections Not Auctions” shirt from my campaign site.
special thanks to these folks: KH, T&V F, DC, JS, YS, SH, SF, MW, JB, SS, PH, JC, KB, KW & JG, RM, GL, AP, LK, MBB, LAM, and my super treasurer David Windmiller.
Your 3rd paragraph is confusing. Issue 1 in this election was bail “reform”.
On the state issues topic, please add to your crusade list the need to improve the way issues on the ballot are presented to people. Issue 1 especially was so confusing that almost everyone I talked to who had planned to vote yes changed their mind and voted no once they understood it.
Sorry Mary Sue- Issue 1 in 2015- the anti-gerrymandering/fair districts amendment.
I believe that in order to have real ranked choice voting- we need a real Voter Information System. I’ve talked about this more on my non-profit site- http://www.modernpolicy.org
David in a gerrymandered district you did phenomenally! Congratulations. Some real disappointments in Ohio and Montgomery Co. last night. Keep up the fight!!!
Hi Dave, Congratulations – you did great considering your circumstances. I for one do not believe that OH is now a “Red State.” We’ve got a lot of work to do in the next two years…
Regards, Stephen L.
I have a different take on the Ohio Democratic Party. Chairwoman Walters should resign. Some of it is the gerrymandering of districts but most state races were 58-42 to 62-38, where as Tim Ryan lost 53-46. The Ohio Supreme Court said the districts should be made about 54-46 Republicans to Democrats. Tim Ryan outperformed the state Democratic candidates by several points. In 2018, in a Blue wave, most Ohio state democrats lost their races while the country as a whole voted Democrat. I have a scoop that I will share, the Ohio Democratic Party has been accused of being racist in 2014 by state Rep. John Barnes, Jr who sued the Ohio Dems while Chairman Walters was the Executive Director of the Party for racism. In 2021, racism again was the object of that Dayton City Commission mailer. While the Montgomery County Dems created the mailer, the Ohio Dems approved the mailer and had to apologize. Chairwoman Walters was the Chair of the Party in 2021. Then, I’ve tried for over a decade to try to organize for the Ohio Dems from the 2012, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 campaign cycles and have been denied paid Field Organizer positions and this cycle I was denied the position of Regional Organizing Director in favor of a 25 year old, the entire Democratic State party system doesn’t regularly hire people over 40 as Organizers and when they do hire, they treat staffers like crap. In 2021, the PA Dems were sued for not paying overtime to their Organizers for the 2016-2020 election cycles. The Ohio Democratic Party and National Democratic Party doesn’t want the votes of older whites, doesn’t hire them regularly as Organizers. They want the votes of younger minorities. That’s who turned out to vote for Dems in this election cycle. Voters over 50 usually vote Republican at least whites over 50 do. The party has lost my vote. I gave about 15 years of my life to help elect Democrats and all I got was treated badly. I will probably vote Republican for the rest of my life. The… Read more »