Were you able to follow the State of the University address?

That was quite a performance by UA President Scott Scarborough on his long state of the university address to counter his critics who have cast him as the bull in the China shop. It went on for nearly 90 minutes with a dizzying barrage of PowerPoint figures, a new video of a supportive LeBron James, historical readings (!), warm  greetings to politicians among the swollen audience of hundreds in E. J. Thomas Hall, cherry-picked quotes from projections by experts on the fate of universities, and a requisite introduction of his wife. E.J. Thomas Hall, for Heaven's sake, an oddly  reborn edfice that had  fallen from Team Scarborough's grace.

He even went so far as to tell the protesting scholars in the audience that when people don't understand something they resist it - a careless  putdown of the confused college graduates who are not on his side. An extraordinairily self-confiident preachy man at 52 with a slight Texan tilt in his voice, he has managed to remain standing  through four universities, sort of.  In mission and tone, think of Dr. Phil.

His mighty verbal sword  failed to cut away his repetitious narrative, and  he went on with  his rebranding plan to make the University of Akron "great" with an outreach to students to God knows where. The rebranding would include such  New Age identity as "polytechnic" that would even remove the "A" (for Akron) from the band uniforms and cripple some of the school's departments to bruise a  $60 million debt.

What he didn't say is that a debt-ridden school can't afford, as others have complained, to   create a Corps of Cadets  and more student coaches. But these things are his way of assuring  everyone  that he's a man of  the moment  in higher education.

And he didn't mention that his predecessor , Luis Proenza, drove up the debt  as the trustees stepped aside without demanding accountability. As we've  written before, if they aren't the gatekeepers, what good are they? (The trustees sat in their normal sphynx-like posture  in a row near the stage and it's doubtful whether they or anybody else fully grasped what all of those fleeting charts were all about.)

Scarborough spoke on the day that a new print voice, the Devil Strip (local bimonthly),  had published some troubling benchmarks on his   days as a young politician in Texas.  He was  the  Travis County, Tx.,  Republican chairman and even ran for state rep  - and lost  the primary.  Still his trademark was stamped clearly:  politically and religiously  conservative,  damning homosexuality and other social "evils".  The Austin  newspaper  noted:
 
      "Travis County GOP Chairman Scott Scarborough , whose term is expiring , told delgates they should "lift up King Jesus through their work as Republican activists."  

So how did he make it from his days in Texas to the stage of E.J.Thomas Hall, which had been on his hit list?

Well, you may wonder how the trustees let so much bad ink pass. You my also know that the Republicans hold a 6-2 majority on the board with two Democrats merely along for the ride. That's not all. Trustees chairman Jonathan Pavloff had been chairman of the Summit county Republican executive committee.

You won't need  PowerPoint to follow this:  The six Republicans, including Pavloff,  owe their seats to Summit County GOP party chairman Alex Arshinkoff. who,  we're sure,  was quite impressed to know that Scarborough was a bird of the feather. Everything else fell neatly into place.

Thank you, Alex. You  should have been there Tuesday to take a bow.  .

P.S.  When Scarborough , borrowing from Donald Trump,says he wants to make UA great, it extends the overused adjective which has little meaning because of its abuse.  It is regularly applied beyond precise meaning to everything from hamburgers and dandelion killers to depressions and wars. Great Scott! Just being good is good enough for most of us.




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Jim Jordan, local GOP favorite with party near death

As the Republican Party slams its internecine combat into finding somebody silly enough to take the job that John Boehner is leaving behind,  among the leaders of the fringe's weapons of mass destruction is Rep. Jim Jordan,  the chairman of the  House Freedom Caucus.  We need not mention that any time you see "freedom" in  a group's  title, you can be sure that it is conveniently rooted in  some crazy interplanetary cult that  has taken over the Republican Party.

It's also an element of Jordan's political profile that he is from southwestern Ohio and had a leading hand in hounding Boehner,  his Ohio neighbor,  into impending retirement.

It wasn't that long ago  - March 28, to be precise - that Jordan was hailed as the featured speaker in a party invitation to the Summit County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner, an annual event celebrating identity theft.  Signed by Party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff and his likely successor, Bryan  C. Williams, Jordan  was praised with breathless text.

It noted that Jordan, a former OSU wrestling coach who is said to live on a farm,  is "second to none"  as an outspoken watchdog and "a consistent and a straightforward  critic of the Obamacare trainwreck" as well as other things.  If you wanted to hear the rest of it from the party throne, it would have  cost you $50 a ticket to get into the room for dinner.The letter didn't mention that Jordan was also in the upper tier of those who preferred a government shutdown as a measure to overturn Obamacare.

Superlatives have never been Arshinkoff's weakest oratorical skill but it does seem odd that he would have chosen a hard right party-dissembler  to entertain  his people in a night out.  Even Ray Bliss would have been condemned by the Jordans now running the party.

So I'll let some counter-point slip in from David Brooks, a conservative columnist who is having none of Arshinkoff's version of what's shining so brightly in the upheaval.
Brooks writes that the "new Republican faction regards the messy  business of politics as soiled and impure.  Compromise is corruption. Inconvenient facts are ignored. Countrymen with different views are refarded as aliens.  Political identitity, and any compromise was regarded as a blood betrayal."

Or as Gene Lyons, National Memo columnist put it:  "The 'Freedom caucus' not only can't govern, they don't appear to believe in governance.  Hence the 58 futile show votes to repeal Obamacare, which accomplished absolutely nothing in real political terms."

With Boehner out, the crazies will romp even more

A moment of silence for John Boehner, please.  The dour weepy House speaker, I mean.  Remember?

A square peg in a deep round hole dug by the beastly carnivores in the Republican caucus who , of all things,  considered him too liberal  for their suicidal quest to rule anybody who wasn't as certifiably crazy.  His efforts to please often led him at times to be certifiably crazy , too.  The more than 50 failed attempts to kill Obamacare in the House.    The loopy invitation to Bibi Netanyahu to be his guest to kill the Iran deal.

Folks, don't let them fool you.  With Boehner's opponents, it has nothing to do with ideology.  Instead, it springs from idiot-ology.  They would shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, for God's sake?

We normally would say history won't be kind for such servility by the speaker in the face of his Potomac enemies.  In this instance, Boehner fell  on his sword, saying enough is enough as he made instant history to save future historians the trouble of panning him. .

Among the Ohioan's more toxic Republican tormentors was his fellow Buckeye  from a farm in southwestern Ohio, Rep. Jim Jordan, a possessed  hoofbeater who heads the congressional Freedom Caucus  and is regarded around Capitol Hill as in the arch-conservative crazy class.

Summit County Republicans may know him as a featured guest at one of the local party's
 (i.e., Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's) glistening dinners.  On other festive occasions as the locals moved farther to the right, Alex also enjoyed the camaraderie on the dinner dais  of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum in their Sunday clothes. Nothing reslly worked as the chairman continued to  raise money for local candidates who didn't win, including former Republican mainstay, failed former Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart.

I wasn't among Boehner's fans, but when the wild bunch now shaping the party
talked of impeaching the speaker (Jordan thought it might be nice if a strong
Tea Partier challenged the speaker in his own district) I at least had a shiver over how far the GOP has fallen. And will continue to fall.

Am I right, Sen.McConnell?  You could be next.  It would be ironic, I'd think, that as the one who dedicated himself to the instant demise of President Obama, you might be gone before the president.

Portman says he would tag along with Trump

Ohio's tag-along Republican Sen. Rob  Portman says he fully intends to support Donald  Trump if the demonizing carnival barker is  the nominee.

If so, I have a vision of him in workaday apparel tagging along at Trump's side across Ohio, just as the senator did in 2012 with Mitt Romney.  Who knows in this crazy crowd whether Portman might be thinking veep, although you have to wonder whether Trump would want anybody so meek and mild sharing the center ring with him.  

But you must also wonder why Portman committed himself so early to any choice.

He's  facing a tough challenge  from ex-Democratic Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland in the 2016 Senate race even though the Koch Brothers have claimed the senator's  obedience to their causes by chipping in $1.4 million for an early media blitz.

It's  Ohio, I know, a swing state,  if not  swinging state, where  GOP candidates take no chances in the Big Picture.

 Remember that Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine jumped ship on Romney in 2012 in mid-campaign and endorsed Rick Santorum.  The AG decided Rick was going to win, a thought that Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff probably shared with him while inviting Santorum to be the star of a big county Republican fundraiser.  The chairman even staged his poll of the feeders at the event and boasted that Santorum had virtually run the table.

P.S. As long as we've mentioned the Republican-style Summit fund-raisers, one even hosted Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Ultra Conservative U.
S. House Freedom Caucus.  Keep in mind that Jordan is now threatening to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood. 

Plusquellic's back, and good for that!

"I'm back!" the animated man in a loose-fitting patterned shirt and jaunty hat exclaimed with a broad smile.   As I  approached him on the sidewalk outside the  Uncorked Wine Bar downtown,  he repeated:  "I"m back in my city."

Well, yes.  Deeply tanned, apparently well-rested  from his tortured exit  and no longer in his dark mayoral suit, Don Plusquellic  was mingling with others ,  one of whom asked him to take off his hat.  When he did, it revealed a brush cut that had replaced his carefully groomed white hair that was a trademark of his Hollywood persona at City Hall. It was then that you came to realize that now out of the office he had occupied for 28 years, he was indeed tailoring hmself for a new life in the city.

Inside the noisy bar, a large crowd had  come to the reception for Pete Nischt, the   rising young Democratic party executive director who announced his candidacy for the Akron school board. The event was hosted by County Executive Russ Pry, who sat unobtrusively at the rear of the long narrow room to observe the  festivities..

Nischt will need all of the support that he can muster in a three-way race involving Debbie Walsh, Alex Arshinkoff's executive director at county Republican headquarters and Ernie Tarle, Plusquellic's nemesis. Need I say more?

Although the former mayor said he might take some time to work for Hillary Clinton in Iowa,  his political presence doubtless will be felt in his hometown as well as the University of Akron campus.  More than one person remarked that  Team Scarborough might have had second thoughts about an amateurish rollout of  job cuts  that  downsized the school's academic credibility  had Plusquellic, a feisty soul, been in its face.

No fault of interim Mayor Jeff Fusco, nor interim Democratic chairman  Sandra Kurt, both temporary caretakers of city or party business, the dominoes fell quickly in the post-Plusquellic scramble.  So  the party will need an infusion of kinetic energy for the forthcoming mayoral primary race pitting Dan Horrigan against Mike Williams and Frank Comunale.  I'm told Williams, an African American and perennial candidate, is already trying to fashion the contest into a racially acute  contest. If he persists, it will create two ugly camps that will divide a city with a progressive reputation in race relations.

The voters need to know the stakes as Akron approaches a critical decision for its future. So welcome back, Mr. Plusquellic.  Is there anything you can do about the city that you have long voiced with pride?

Baseball, politics work well for Plusquellic

So there, dominating the BJ's front page this morning,  was a smiling Mayor Don Plusquellic shaking hands with Ken Babby, the owner of the AA RubberDucks, as they announced that the Eastern League all-star game would be played this summer at Canal Park in downtown Akron.

Great news for business, right? And it firmly caps his history of promoting the construction of the new stadium and bringing a new team to the city.  Not the first  good deed for the mayor as he navigated enough rough moments  by local pols  and armchair critics, the latter of whom saw the man not as an honest  cheerleader and doer for his city but one who had "cooked up" a reason for retiring this year.

On the other hand,  some of the town's achievers thought the positive upside deserved far more attention.  In full-page ads, folks like Babby and Elizabeth Bartz sought to emphasize the mayor's great value  during his 28 years in office.   In all of those years covering the mayor, we've had some disagreements, but  I've never  known him to cook up anything.  And it was possible for the truth to hurt.

But that was then.  Print journalism wasn't performed from a foxhole but on the sidewalks, the union halls, the restaurants and watering counters where the local pols had lunch,  and in the crowds at the Labor Day parades without benefit of cell phones. I'm well aware that it's another world today,  but hardly a better one.

Plusquellic's departure is already causing alarm among  his hometown  Democratic friends.   Although they see positives in Council President Garry Moneypenny's rise to fill out Plusquellic's unexpired term,  they are also concerned  about the sort of candidate who might emerge to oppose him in the party primary.  Councilman Mike Williams, for example, who ran against Plusquellic before, reportedly is telling people that if he becomes mayor he would fire everybody at City Hall and only accept legislation advanced by his own faction on City Council.

There will be no end to reprisal politics in the stretch to the November election  (primary on September 8).   If Democrats are running scared today, they should be.  As for the Republicans,  Chairman Alex Arshinkoff may be working out a name in his meetings at the Diamond Grill  with his  wealthy cronies at the University of Akron.  Either that, or finding a way to gossip that Moneypenny will be indicted for some unknown  crime, as  the GOP Boss foolishly did so often  in trying to take down Plusquellic.

To end the nonsense, do you think Moneypenny should invite Arshinkoff to throw out the first ball at a RubberDucks game  in Canal Park this summer?

Mayor Plusquellic: a worthy choice for an 8th term

Has an entire generation passed since Don Plusquellic was first elected as Akron's mayor?  Remarkably, it has.  But who's counting? For the record, it happened in 1987 and has been happening ever since to the chagrin of his political foes as he surely plans to seek an 8th term this year.

Although the teetering maxim is that familiarity breeds contempt, in Plusquellic's case it has made him more secure in a high-risk job that can only  create some enemies along the way.  From potholes to hiring policies, from snow plows to budgets, from whispering campaigns to failed recall efforts, an  urban mayor's lot, like the policeman's in the H.M.S. Pinafore, is not a happy one on many days.

He has been called a bully, sometimes deservedly earned because of his  short temper and reputation as a single-minded visionary.  But what his opponents have never quite accepted is that someone who is looking at an 8th term has repeatedly won convincing support from voters who have found a lot to admire about their mayor.

And why not? The simple answer:  enlightened stability.  Cities can only survive as livable places if they offer  a reasonable amount of continuing day to day guarantees  of what is best  for their citizens.  Not an easy challenge.  But Akron has stood out in a disheveled modern urban environment thanks to Plusquellic's steady hand. Veteran Plain Dealer poliltical columnist Brent Larkin aptly put it  this way:

"Plusquellic is as ferocious and passionate a defender of his hometown as any mayor I've ever encountered.  Even some of his most outspoken detractors - not an especially small group - admit to harboring private fears about  the city's future when he is no longer mayor."

Detractors?  The mayor (read:the city) has had his hands full fending off the assaults on his policies by Federal Judge John Adams, a beneficiary of the mayor's biggest critic through the years, the frustrated and frustrating Republican chairman,  Alex Arshinkoff.  Time and again Adams  has slammed down the mayor's programs, only to be criticized for his decisions by higher courts. (The Beacon Journal accused Adams of an "absence of reason" and "mean spirit". That's a start.)

Adams has fairly well planted himself in the dark corner for  judicial decisions and it's likely to go on, at great expense to the city's taxpayers for the foreseeable future.  As you know, federal judgeships are cushy lifetime political jobs.

Finally,  any doubts that Plusquellic,  at 65, will go for the gold again have little standing on the streets or among  Democratic Party officials. When asked whether  the mayor will be back on the ballot this year, Party Chairman Jeff Fusco doesn't hesitate:  "I'm confident that he will be."

On the other side, Arshinkoff says he will again challenge the mayor , telling the BJ that it  will be some yet-unamed person.

Does the pool include former mayor Roy Ray?









 I

Jordanites accuse Boehner Republicans of cannibalism

Republicans  who will be laying down $50 or more for the Summit County party's annual Lincoln (!) Day dinner Saturday night will be treated to an upfront look at the guy who has dedicated himself to tearing the national party into oblivion.  I refer,  of course, to the local event's prized speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan of Urbana, a fringe conservative who  has  been leading a poisonous  assault on Speaker John Boehner  & Co. through Jordan's House Freedom Caucus - one of those wacko far right outfits that lean more toward anarchy than to whatever might be left of Republican centrism.

Anyone attempting to digest dinner at Quaker Station won't hear any of the negatives that night because the way Chairman Alex Arshinkoff has put it in the  invitation, his guest is a national recognized conservative and "second to none watchdog of President Obama's failed...(fill in the many blanks) policies."

As has been evidenced many times in the past, The Boss can get absolutely hysterical when he starts damning the people he doesn't like.  But does Jordan represent the new norm for the county   party's more sober days under the late Ray Bliss, who never encouraged a raised voice against any other Republican?

On the other hand, Jordan has close ties with Rep. Steve King of Iowa,  who seldom lets a week go by without saying something stupid, and enjoys doing so from his outpost somewhere out in Iowa.

Jordan and King were among those  maddening congressmen who condemned Boehner for not  agreeing to shut down  the Homeland Security Department in the fracas over Obama's immigration policies.   Their scandalous motives have so enraged the Boehner side of  wealthy influential Republicans that the latter staged a $300,000 advertising campaign  accusing Jordan and a couple of his congressional buddies on national TV , including Fox News, of  placing America's "security at risk."

That peeved King, who described the ads as party "cannibalism," or as King went on to explain:

"It looks like cannibalism by leadership to me.   I mean when you go after your own people, what else would you call it?"

Well, I would say it's a lot like what the anti-Boehner crowd  in the party has been doing to the Speaker.    (Trust me: I do not speak as an ally of Boehner, either.)

So, isn't it fair to ask whether the Summit gang under Arshinkoff has stooped to a shameful new norm in a party that once was known for centrism and quiet reflection by Ray Bliss?

Keep that in mind, Republicans, when Alex lights the fuse after dinner to introduce Jordan with a flood of compliments.  When you stop to think about what the chairman won't tell you -  as I just did -  you'll know what I'm talking about. And it didn't cost me fifty bucks.

P.S. Jordan sent out a release thanking Benjamin Netanyahu for speaking to Congress as a man who wants  to secure Israel from its enemies.  Homeland Security for Americans?    Apparently he'll think about it.

Courting GOP politics in the courts

The frigid  temperatures we've all been suffering still can't match the icy winds blowing from Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic's office to Federal Judge John Adams' court.

Don't know why anybody would be  surprised that the feisty mayor, from sheer frustration, unloaded on Adams in a letter that appeared on the Beacon Journal's op-ed page.  The volcano has been heating up for some time in the wake of Adams' hostile decisions against the city on a long-delayed sewer plan  and  other matters that the mayor found to be intolerably disruptive to the city's order of business.  Not only that:  the well-reported sewer issue has cost Akron's taxpayers a tall pile of money from the court-ordered delays.

Along the way the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has been critical of Adams' judicial behavior in a suit involving a Stow firefighter and withdrew the case from Adams' court.  In another case, the appellate court reversed his decision that was  detrimental to a federal public defender.  The Beacon Journal  said Adams had acted ''carelessly".

Meantime, the odd behavior  of a  Summit County   Common Pleas judge erupted into another unraveling of what the public has a right  to expect from the judiciary. Judge Tammy O'Brien  recused herself from about 60  cases because, of all things, her bailiff-in-command refused to share the court room with  Jay Cole, an assistant county prosecutor.  It took on  political soap opera proportions because Tiffany Morrison, the bailiff,  threatened to quit her job if Cole showed up in O'Brien's court to do his assigned job.  But daylight at last: On Wednesday, O'Brien, faced with the onrush of  public criticism,  said she would end her recusals.

 Tiffany is the daughter of Atty. Jack Morrison, who has had a few brushes with the law in which Cole appeared in a  case involving  the Ohio Ethics Commission. Morrison was  cleared of the misdemeanors .

Dad Morrison is a big kahuna in the Republican Party as a contributor and legal advisor to GOP county chairman Alex Arshinkoff.

The chairman has been a forever critic of Plusquellic and has been known over the years to whisper that the mayor would be indicted, but never clear about what.  He's also played a strong hand in the appointments of Adams and O'Brien to their current labors.

Don't want to sound like a conspiracist, but there does seem to be a political intrusion into a couple of issues  hereabouts. It isn't cheating if you squint  for greater clarity. .

Tell me I'm wrong.

Al Teodosio, a man of peace (1924-2015)

During the years that Al Teodosio wore the badge of Summit County Democratic chairman,  he looked out at a local political landscape that was charged with internal combustion.  There were newly arriving party rivals seeking preferred honors as the city and county were  shifting away from decades of Republican control in the better offices.  It also was a time when unions jealously held powerful influence in the division of political labors.  A candidate, even at the City Council level, who ignored the fiery presence of URW chief Pete Bommarito, could  expect indecorous condemnation. Organized labor never failed to have its say.

That was the  state of being that Teodosio   inherited in 1976 when the party decided to have him succeed Robert Blakemore, himself a mystical 24-hour-a-day player in  moving Democratic candidates into his comfort zone.  But he did so quietly and with so little fanfare that most diners in the next booth hardly knew it..

So it was only natural that as a guy on the political beat at the Beacon Journal I met Al regularly with questions about his political health in the forever simmering environment where king-size egos where plotting at every turn.

To many questions he would respond with a tight-lipped smile that could be interpreted as pleasure or pain.  But as you got to know this dapper, trim-figured lawyer, you decided that he was good man and that was that.  Besides, I never knew him to lie to me, or even embellish a point.  It was the sort of honesty that doesn't  come easily to some politicians.

"He won awards by making peace," recalled State Sen.Tom Sawyer, one of Al's young disciples who went on to become Akron's mayor and eventually congressman.  "I have referred to Al as avuncular"-  not a household word to be sure,  meaning "uncle-like"

It was Teodosio, after all, who persuaded Sawyer to run for mayor in 1983.  Sawyer was hesitant because Robert Otterman had taken steps to be the party's candidate.  "Al assured me that even if there would be a primary contest, it  would not turn into a knock-down drag-'em-out fight and neither candidate would get hurt. Sawyer won and defeated Republican Mayor Roy Ray.

Actually offended by the muck of politics, Teodosio succeeded in upgrading the level of discourse  within his range.   "He was an all-time referee," Sawyer says today.

Al was sorely tested at times by the Republican chairman (and still is!) Alex Arshinkoff, whose political resume is  frequently ruptured by temperamental  outbursts.

So yes, Al Teodosio's passing at age 90 recalls a good man who cared about the sensitivities of others in carrying out his mission.

In Sawyer's precise words. a man who made peace.  May he now rest in peace.

Robart returns against Coughlin to show that he's a leader

 I see that Don Robart, the former long-time mayor of Cuyahoga Falls, will attempt to be the Comeback Republican of the year.  In Stow, Oh., no less.    At age 69 and eager to have a day job again as the town's clerk of courts after his defeat in 2013.

 That's the post now occupied by Kevin Coughlin,  Robart's arch rival over the years, who says he hasn't decided whether he will run again. If he does, he could be a very conservative Republican running as a very conservative independent against a very conservative ex-mayor  to make the general election a 3-way race that will include Democrat Diana Colavecchio. She once held the job  briefly before  Coughlin narrowly defeated her by a couple of points.

But that's getting ahead of the story, which already has been described in a Beacon Journal headline as the "stage for political fireworks."  For now,  however, it is more about the current intrigues of the Summit County Republican Party. Coughlin has forever been in the cross-hairs of party chairman Alex Arshinkoff as a pain-in-the-ass mutant from party orthodoxy, which Arshinkoff has largely controlled as his private domain. There's also been bad blood between Robart and Municipal Judge Kim Hoover, a Republican who transferred his court to Stow from Cuyahoga Falls in a dispute with the mayor.   Connect the dots.

I would be shocked if Alex  hadn't had a word or two with Robart on how to rid the county of the monstrous presence of Clerk Coughlin.  Along with those briefings, there would also be assurances of how Robart's campaign would be paid for, which  has always been Arshinkoff's forte when candidates come a-callin'.

Although the post is largely paperwork-bound, Robart said he wants to prove his leadership talent.   But considering other possible options  for his comeback - another mayoral campaign? -  you can only wonder why he chose the one leading to Coughlin. In polite society, it would be called a grudge match.

Debate-less Press Club series for state candidates

Through the combined efforts of the Akron Press Club and the Bliss Institute the  Akron area will get a closer view of some statewide candidates on the November ballot. Democrat State Rep. Connie Pillich, who is challenging Republican Treasurer Josh Mandel,  will open the fall series on Sept. 30.

Unfortunately,  there will be no political debates.  University of Akron political science professor David  Cohen, who does much of the  heavy lifting for the fall series, said the  process of setting up debates has simply become too complicated.

We experienced some of those complications when I served as the Press Club's program chairman.  Republicans simply  aren't keen on meeting  their Democratic opponents  on a debate  panel, particularly in Akron, where more than a few nitwits accused the Club of being a subversive Democratic hideaway.  (As Press Club president, I had at  least four Republicans on my board.) One critic even reported me to the national Veterans of Foreign Wars for catering to socialists!

In one instance,  we had succeeded in lining up a debate between Democrat Capri Cafaro, of Niles, Oh., and then-U.S.Rep, Steve LaTourette, a Lake County Republican.  We  later learned  that LaTourette had canceled his appearance for the age-old standby, a scheduling conflict. So Cafaro had the benefit of the entire program for herself.

The late U.S. Rep. John Seiberling, a towering Democrat who had  nothing to be gained from debates, agreed to more than a half-dozen encounters  with restaurateur, Mark Figitakis,  a Republicsn  running squarely and hyperactively  on the anti-abortion issue.  I covered the first one at the Tangier Restaurant  in which Seiberling calmly, cooly,  and collectively  left the Republican for dead.  (I told Seiberling  afterward that he  could debate as often as he wanted, but this was my first and last  one as a political writer.  He smiled gently and said he enjoyed  fulfilling his obligation to voters to debate, no matter what.)

Akron Mayor, Don Plusquellic, a Democrat , also accepted debate invitations from  the Press Club.   But over on the other side, Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff refused all attempts to haul him up to the debate panel against Republican Kevin Coughlin, who was challenging Arshinkoff for his job. The normally voluble  chairman flatly turned it down.    "I should have known," Coughlin told me.

I should have, too.

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For Husted a very busy week

It's been a busy week for Secretary of State Jon Husted.  While he was attending to his re-election campaign,  he also had to rule on a Summit County Board of Elections matter and then suffer a setback by a Federal judge on his  controversial election reforms.

To no one's surprise, he informed the county board that he would step aside from a request from Democrats that he investigate a board worker's use of her cellphone to post many times on Facebook as a sort of personal phone bank while she was on the job - a big-time  no-no.

Husted called upon the board to settle the issue in a "bipartisan fashion".  He said what?
Bipartisan?  It is  beyond acceptable naivete to use that standard of civilized behavior for a gathering of  board officials with English-speaking accents.  Six years ago, former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, even unceremoniously removed board member Alex Arshinkoff,  the county Republican chairman, from his hallowed chair for being disruptive.  (He has since returned under Husted.)

There's more.  Husted's decision to cut and run had a deeper context:  the  worker in question is Cecilia Robart, the wife of former Cuyahoga Falls mayor Don Robart,   the fellow who   had a brief stay on Husted's office payroll as a liaison in northern Ohio - brief because of the stuff that later was found on his office computer after he left office. Yep, pornography.  That damned Internet can be a career killer.

In that instance, Husted acted promptly in an election year by removing Don Robart from his ranks.

When you connect the dots, you can't make these things up.

Arshinkoff's solution to the latest hometown guyser   was to call for a probe of everybody's  cellphones, which , of course, eliminated any further thoughts of bipartisanship.

* * * * *

We assume the alarm button in Husted's office ran overtime when U.S. District Judge Peter C. Economus in Columbus declared Husted's restictrive voter plan was unconstitutional and ordered him to restore all of the cuts in voting hours.

The secretary's deal was gilded with Republican repeatedly expressed concerns that voters were cheating like hell when they went to  the polls.  Voter fraud? All  subsequent studies revealed  no such thing and merely raised serious concerns that minorities were being targeted, which indeed they were.

Normal etiquette returns to Board of Elections

Every now and then, a warm and fuzzy slice of political life reminds us that there is a glimmer of hope in the future of civilized discourse.    Such was the case today in the Beacon Journal report that normalcy has returned to the Summit County Board of Elections.

The story told us that Cecilia Robart, board worker and wife of former Cuyahoga Falls Republican mayor Don Robart, was quite active in using her cellphone while on the  clock.  An investigation  revealed that she had been on Facebook 48 times  in a single day (twice that number over a longer period!) even though board workers are prohibited from taking such liberties on company time.

Well, now.  The probe called for a studied temperate response from Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, a board member, and he rose to the occasion.  He  considered the affair a dirty trick by Democrats. He didn't call it dirty, asking only: "What kind of crap is that?  That's baloney." The reporter said he pounded his fist.

We all know that throughout his millennia as GOP boss for the party of family values,  Alex has set near-impossible standards for gentlemanly etiquette for his line of work.  He had long rumored that Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic would be indicted for reasons not fully explained.    And leaping to  the solemn defense of his party when United Way included a stop at Democratic headquarters to pick up a bauble  for a scavenger hunt, he once called for a boycott of the charity.There were other times, but we're talking here about more pleasantly  controlled moments. As they say in hockey, no blood, no foul. 

As for Cecilia Robart, she wasn't pleased, either.   In her cellphone  chatter,  she merely raised the spectre of  recalling Don Walters, the Democrat who vanquished her husband, because the new guy ended Rockin' on the River in the Falls. (Last concert Friday night.) She called him a liar and  threatened the Democrats with the return of her husband to oppose Walters the next time. Aside from that, well...you've heard enough.

Looks like more halcyon days ahead, right,  Alex?

GOP judicial employment office working overtime

If you've been trying to figure out the comings and goings of Republican judges in Summit County,  you may need more experience in following  the bouncing balls. I'll warily try to explain.  Get out your pencil and paper for these curious twists and turns.

Our journey began with Gov. Kasich's appointment of State Rep. Todd McKenney to the coveted Probate Court bench in November, 2011.

Within  weeks, he announced that he wouldn't seek a full term because he didn't want a political campaign to distract his work in his new job.. The buzz at the time was that he had  made a couple of appointments that distracted Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff,  who would withhold campaign cash from him in a Probate primary race against Common Pleas Judge Allison McCarty.

McCarty lost anyway to  Common Pleas Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer, a Democrat.

After a stint in private practice, McKenney seems to have gotten back into Arshinkoff's good graces and was appointed to the  Barberton Municipal Court  bench by Kasich on April 11.

(Still with me?)  Then Common Pleas Judge Jane Davis , who had held her appointed  seat for no more than a year,  announced earlier this month  that she would not  seek election in November. Hmmm...

Sooooo...the Summit County Republican Executive Committee, chaired by Arshinkoff ally Bryan Williams, nominated McKenney to seek election to the seat against Probate Court Magistrate, Jon Oldham, a Democrat..

It's a given  that Arshinkoff's hand has been in the middle of all of this judicial mobility.    And although we've been asked to solve the riddle of why Davis withdrew, she didn't return my phone call and Republicans aren't talking -  or aren't in Alex's  loop.  Whew!

Here's stuff to brighten your day...

In my querulous quest to bring light to the planet's endless darkness, I offer today  some vignettes  that you may have missed  in the numbing front-page  media coverage of LeBron's return:

Dollar Tree has converted its dollars $8.5 billion times for its purchase price for Family Dollar. Don't know where that leaves discounter Dollar General, whose latest flier told us of scads of items well above a buck (The only stuff  that sustained the $1  tag were Animal Crackers and a few other Back to School "Snacks and Treats" .)  As a wag once  said of Starbucks in New York City, they should call it "FiveBucks".

* * * * *

All writers, including me, should mightily thank  New York Times columnist Gail Collins for liberating us from the cumbersome burden of politically correct references to his/her...When she began a sentence "Look, everybody has their own way of demonstrating..."  it was a wicked dismissal of a singular subject and plural pronoun that has tormented me since I was still  figuring out how to replace a typewriter ribbon. Now,  everybody and their  have been reconciled in the Times by a leading national columnist.   Will she now move on with who and whom?  Gail, I'm waiting.  Desperately.

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After years in my line of work, I learned that you can't  tell  politicians from their covers. No better example of that is Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine, a
Republican,  who seems so meek and mild but is a first-tier religious zealot.  On Tuesday,Team DeWine was in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati, again arguing against what he considers sinful, lawbreaking same-sex marriage.   No one has  been keeping score on how much all of this costing Ohioans - a personal crusade that extended  for DeWine in earnest when he ran for the office in 2011 promising to fashion an AG  career on family values and opposition to ObamaCare. (Summit County Republican Chairman was a paid DeWine liaison in northern Ohio, which paid adequately and required no heavy lifting). Although Outlook Ohio Magazine pointed out that 29 consecutive court decisions support marriage equality, DeWine is Ohio's King Sisyphus, who was  forced  to repeatedly roll a huge boulder up the hill and then see it roll back.

* * * * *

Finally: It's getting harder every day for a baseball writer to cover the sport.  When Pirates star outfielder Andrew McCutchen was forced out of the lineup with a fractured rib, the medical report  called it an "avulsion fracture involving the costochondral cartilage of the left 11th rib."

Anybody?

With Team DeWine, experience hardly matters

Didn't get into the Arshinkoff/Spitalieri/DeWine Bermuda Triangle in preceding post, saving the best for last. In assessing the Ohio attorney  general's magical powers of choosing the ablest private  firms for his collections agency,  legal experience can be trumped by political contributions.

As the Dayton Daily News reported, a veteran debt collections agency that had worked  with five previous attorneys general was bypassed in the awarding of lucrative work to a company that was formed only two days before DeWine set out to take care of his contributors. He chose, instead, CELCO, bossed by Pete Spitalieri, the Hudson guy who was channeled into DeWine's  world by Summit County Republican chairman Alex Arshinkoff, who has long enjoyed Spitalieri's generous contributions to Team Arshinkoff ($23,000).

That ain't the end of this, Folks.  The  Daily News reported that  CELCO's  proposal to win the job  "acknowledged the company had no experience handling collections accounts.''

Got that? Unqualified.

Although DeWine has engaged in mental jujitsu to dodge the issue, one of his spokesman said the winning firm was determined by "points" assigned to each supplicant.   With Arshinkoff doubtless adding them up on his special pocket calculator.

Dayton Daily News: Arshinkoff a pay-to-play DeWine figure

The Dayton Daily News investigative  report on Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine's  elaborate campaign fund-raising scheme widened the narrative of the AG's  money machine by mentioning Summit County Republican chairman and lobbyist  Alex Arshinkoff as one of the varsity enablers. Who knew?

Still, it shouldn't surprise anyone.  Arshinkoff has long - and I mean long - prided himself in his ability to  lay piles of campaign money at the doorstep of this GOP pol or that one. The rule of politics Alex once breezily said, "is all about money."  He so impressed DeWine  that he once served as  the AG's  liaison  in northern Ohio .

Did I say lobbyist?  How about $10,000 a month  representing the University of Akron to Gov. Kasich?

In her telling report, the paper's prize winning investigative reporter Laura A. Bischoff
wrote that DeWine, despite his denials, has been  "actively  involved" in the lucrative debt-collection process in which special counsel appointees could pocket princely sums from their work with hundreds of thousands of dollars returned to his political coffers.

She wrote:  "A review  of his calendar shows  he has met routinely  with debt collection attorneys, vendors and their lobbyists, many of them with close ties to DeWine's political  operation."

How close?  Bischoff disclosed  this untidy plot device in which DeWine emailed top aides  on Feb. 20, 2011:

 "Please call Debbie Walsh in Alex arishnikoff (sic) office.  He wants to bring in Pete spiteleri (sic) ...The issue is collections.  So figure out who needs to be in the meeting."

Spitalieri is is a well-connected Hudson businessman, Republican contributor  and Arshinkoff's close friend.  They didn't plan to play ring-around-the-rosie at the meeting.

"In his first 16 months in office," Bischoff wrote,"DeWine met four time with Arshinkoff and Spitalieri  in his office, lunched with the two men at Spitalieri's property in Hudson and held a conference call with them, according to DeWine' work calendar.  DeWine said he doesn't recall meeting that many times with Spitalieri..."

Bischoff told me there was no point in calling Arshinkoff.  "He hasn't returned  any of my calls in more than 10 years,"  she said.

In a campaign year, this story will grow.   But in the event that the Beacon Journal editorial writers might possibly read it, will  they hesitate in damning DeWine's opponent, Democrat David Pepper, for raising pay-to play questions?

Major disclosure: I will be a Republican!

OK! That's it!  I'm heading down to the Summit Count Board of Elections to register as  a Republican.  (Which will finally satisfy my late father and let him rest in peace.)

I've been tinkering with the idea ever since they started paying GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff $10,000 a month to be a University of Akron lobbyist.  And after Bryan Williams (Alex's heir-apparent as chairman?)  landed on the county Board of Elections  following his resignation as a board member  of the State Department of Education under fire for a conflict of interest.   After all, I have to eat, too.

But the decisive point in driving me into the land of the enemy  was the announcement  that Don Robart,  the recently defeated ex-mayor of Cuyahoga Falls, has been hired as the "eyes and ears"  of Secretary of State  Jon Husted to keep book on several Northern Ohio counties for an annual fee of $40,000. As you can see, conservative distaste for public spending doesn't include the immediate family.

Well, folks.  As one who has not had a regular  pay check since I left the sagging newspaper world in the late 1990s, you should not ask why  I am so sour about certain people returning to the inglorious public trough for jobs that don't require much heavy lifting.

Robart told the Beacon Journal that he hasn't ruled out running for elective office again.  If so,  I would be interested in the eyes-and-ears job.  After all, as they say, the legs go first.

With Bryan Williams, you can go home again

Should anybody be surprised that Bryan Williams has found his way back to the Summit County Board of Elections? All that remains for him to add $18,000 per annum to his lifestyle is the pro forma appointment to the board by Secretary of State Jon Husted.    Nice work if you can get it.  And Williams usually does.  He owes Republican county chairman Alex Arshinkoff, the bell cow of the county party for decades, big time.

You may recall that Williams resigned from the State Board of Education in December after the media started printing the nasty word that he was multitasking as a lobbyist for the non-union Associated Builders and Contractors of Ohio.  That group has a private charter school and there was more than a little notice that he was  aggressively  trying to persuade the board to support the school with your tax money and mine. That, after all, is what lobbyists  do.

There was some heartfelt disappointment about  Williams' departure from the state board.  
The panel's president.  Debe Terhar, a certified Tea Party member, sent her regrets and told him she would keep in touch.

His return to  the Summit board on March 1 will be a reunion  with his old stable where he once served as the board's director via the  good graces of Arshinkoff . Williams also  ran against Mayor Plusquellic  in 2003, losing mightily.  He highlighted his campaign by accusing the Democratic mayor of  corruption (another Arshinkoff theme).  He hissed   declaring that his opponent had generously given a tax break to a friendly company  that filed for  bankrupcy.

There was a problem.  The charge was not only untrue, the company, Qualilty Mold,  was quite healthy and doing business.  Under fire for an egregious error,   Williams ultimately withdrew the charge from his website and apologized.

Now Williams and Arshinkoff will be united again, working in tandem on the board in the interest of the people, or at least some them.   That will more than please the chairman who returned to the board himself under Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted after the previous secretary, Democrat  Jennifer Brunner,   ousted him for being so damn disruptive.

He's back?  $18,000 per annum?    No, we're not surprised.