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Why the governor forced out the chairman of the state Republican party.
Ohio GOP chairman Kevin DeWine celebrates the Republican statewide sweep in November 2010. Now, he's getting swept away by the governor.
Dan Trittschuh
It’s the hottest buzz around the Statehouse these days. Republican Gov. John Kasich is conducting a take-no-prisoners campaign against GOP state chairman Kevin DeWine. Until recently, DeWine was waging war on Kasich, too. Who was doing what to whom depended on who was talking. And there was plenty of that going on, except none for attribution. (Let’s say no one wants to become collateral damage.)
What’s clear is that Kasich has made no secret of the fact he wants a new chairman. What’s also clear is DeWine appears to have lost the fight. Soon after the Republican primary on March 6, DeWine released a statement saying that “for the sake of achieving unity, continuity and victory,” he will not run for reelection as party chairman when his term expires in January 2013.
But if Kasich gets his way, DeWine’s last day holding the GOP’s gavel could be April 13. That’s when members of the party’s state central committee, which chooses the party chairman, meet next. DeWine picked the date, but the governor and his allies may set the agenda.
The war between DeWine and Kasich peaked leading up to March 6’s Republican primary, when members of the party’s state central committee were elected. Some of the races got nasty. For example, Betty Montgomery, who served as state auditor and two terms as attorney general, sought a committee seat in Licking County’s 31st Senate district. A Kasich supporter, Montgomery claimed victory despite a blizzard of anti-Montgomery mailings, of uncertain origin, attacking her as an anti-gun, “pro-choice moderate.” One exhortation: “Meet the real Betty Montgomery. Ohio conservatives can spot a fake.”
Immediately after the primary, DeWine issued a statement claiming a central committee victory. But two sources close to Kasich say the governor’s faction has an anti-DeWine majority. “I think we’re around the high 30s to 40 level,” says one Kasich ally. (The committee is composed of 66 members—a man and woman from each of Ohio’s 33 state Senate districts. A committee majority is 34 members; a suspend-the-rules majority is 44 members. Exact tallies of the March 6 vote weren’t expected to be known until March 27.)
Before the primary, DeWine was willing to respond—barely: “I don’t really want to talk about it [Kasich’s challenge]. I don’t really see any value in commenting.”
But he was telling a different story just a few months earlier. Late last year, DeWine dropped a bombshell by disclosing the behind-the-scenes fracas. He told the committee that “the governor’s political team and others have aggressively recruited candidates to challenge those of you in [this] room.” That is, the Kasich team’s objective was to replace enough committee members to stage a coup against DeWine, who’s held the post since January 2009, when he succeeded longtime leader Bob Bennett.
Then, in an interview with Ohio News Network’s Jim Heath, DeWine took aim at Kasich’s entourage: “There are folks who are close to the governor—agents and allies and lobbyists and political consultants—who are trying to take over the party for the benefit of holding all the levers of power as it relates to politics in the Republican Party.”
DeWine’s blast drew a counterblast from Ohio House speaker Bill Batchelder, a conservative Medina Republican who is close to Kasich. “We do not need the state chairman of our party making comments about the people around the governor,” Batchelder told ONN.
Batchelder wasn’t done. He also sent a memo to fellow House Republicans assailing DeWine for his remarks to the central committee as “a direct personal attack on Governor Kasich.” And Batchelder claimed DeWine hadn’t helped Republicans win control of the House in November 2010.
DeWine, in an e-mail to Batchelder, countered that he was “shocked and dismayed” by Batchelder’s memo. But DeWine’s e-mail also confirmed tension with Kasich, observing that the governor “has declined to return my calls or e-mails.” And DeWine wrote he and “dozens of GOP leaders in this state” shared a concern that Kasich has people around him “motivated by ego, power, or profit.”
At some stage of the Kasich-DeWine feud, former Ohio House speaker Jo Ann Davidson, a central committee member from Franklin County, tried to broker a peace treaty of sorts. Davidson has enormous prestige as Ohio’s GOP national committeewoman; moreover, from 2005 to 2009, Davidson co-chaired the Republican National Committee. Third parties say that despite Davidson’s earnest efforts, even she couldn’t reconcile Kasich and DeWine. (She declined to comment for this story.)
“I think [DeWine] hurt himself when he went public,” says a key Republican. But the same Republican also praises DeWine’s overall stewardship of the party: “Kevin does a good job, let’s face it.”
The genesis of this family feud, Kasich’s allies contend, is that DeWine had no interest in Kasich’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign, when the former congressman narrowly unseated Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. Kasich’s pals think DeWine didn’t want him to win.
The anti-DeWine theory is that if Strickland had won, Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted, a close friend of DeWine, would be positioned perfectly to run for governor in 2014, when term limits would have retired Strickland, creating an open gubernatorial slot.
The anti-DeWine move “started with paranoia about Husted,” says a veteran Republican who likes and supports Kasich. Some people close to Kasich “see one plus one and get 15,” the bystander says.
But another Kasich ally says there was nothing imaginary about DeWine’s tepid—on a good day—approach to the 2010 Kasich campaign: He was “throwing marbles under our feet.”
One fact of Statehouse life is that Kasich’s inner circle is just that, and DeWine isn’t part of it. “That’s a pretty tight clan around John,” says one source. “They’ve been with him a long time. It’s hard to break into.”
Another example of this cracking Republican unity dates to Husted and DeWine’s perceived tilt in a November 2008 contest inside the Ohio House’s GOP caucus. Husted, who was term-limited out of the House after serving as speaker, had just been elected to the state Senate. That meant House Republicans needed to elect a new caucus leader. The candidates were Batchelder and then-Rep. Matthew Dolan, of suburban Cleveland, whose father, Larry Dolan, owns the Cleveland Indians. Batchelder, who won, and others believe that Husted and DeWine favored Dolan. (Husted has said he was neutral.)
A Republican close to Kasich claims Husted has told other Republicans that the quest to oust DeWine “isn’t about Kevin, it’s about my [Husted’s] political future.”
The usually genial Husted angrily denies the comment. “I never, ever said that. It’s absurd,” Husted says. Such stories, he added, “should not be taken seriously.”
Husted was the Ohio House speaker from 2005 through 2008; in 2007 and 2008, DeWine was Husted’s deputy as the House speaker pro tempore. Before serving in the House, DeWine, of suburban Dayton’s Greene County, was a Statehouse lobbyist for Dayton Power and Light Co. (He also is a second cousin of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.)
Husted was elected Ohio secretary of state in 2010, racking up a 458,000-vote margin over the Democratic nominee, Franklin County Clerk of Courts Maryellen O’Shaughnessy. (Between the House speakership and January 2011, when he took office as secretary of state, Husted was a state senator.) In Ohio’s 2010 non-judicial statewide contests, only two Republicans ran more strongly than Husted: U.S. Sen. Rob Portman and Treasurer Josh Mandel.
Husted says Kevin DeWine is an old and good friend. But Husted says that in no way diminishes Husted’s support for Kasich. “I’m focusing my energy on helping John Kasich do a good job as governor, and I’m focusing my energy on helping Kevin DeWine do a good job as chairman.”
He says his own political future will be determined by how he performs as secretary of state and not by the outcome of party disputes. “If I do a good job, the future will take care of itself,” he says.
As usual in big-stakes Ohio political fights, the Kasich-DeWine conflict has its share of ambition and ego—and not just for the two contenders. Each side’s allies have business interests at stake. One DeWine ally is veteran political strategist Brett Buerck and his Majority Strategies, which describes itself as “the premier political and public affairs direct mail firm in the U.S.” In counterpoint, two Kasich allies are principals in the lobbying firm of Van Meter, Ashbrook: Robert Klaffky and Doug Preisse. Preisse is also Franklin County Republican chair and, in some eyes, Kasich’s likely candidate for state chair, though Preisse disclaims interest in the job.
At least some allies of Kasich have tried to frame the fight as a debate over Buerck’s political past, an angle Batchelder raised in his memo to the House caucus, though without naming Buerck. Last decade, Buerck was the maestro of then-GOP speaker Larry Householder’s “Team Householder,” legendary for its single-minded focus on fundraising and follow-the-leader discipline. Its tactics sparked an investigation by the Justice Department, but, after two years of probing, it declined to file any charges against Householder, Buerck or fundraiser Kyle Sisk. DeWine, in firing back at Batchelder, noted that 2006 exoneration, writing, “Fairness demands an accurate portrayal of history for all involved.”
One key Republican lobbyist, who apparently isn’t allied to either side in the Kasich-DeWine war, says neither Buerck nor political philosophy figure in the fight, but rather the selection of party vendors: “If [you] can control the party, [you] can control how the contracts go out,” he says.
There also may be a concrete political factor in play: Kasich’s long-range prospects, the lobbyist says. A Quinnipiac University poll released in February reported 40 percent of registered voters approve of how Kasich is doing his job. Microscopically, the trend was in Kasich’s favor: A Quinnipiac poll in October found Kasich’s approval at 36 percent.
But if by the end of this December—roughly 22 months before the 2014 gubernatorial election—Kasich’s approval rating isn’t at or near 50 percent, Ohio Republicans may get restless. And that possibility, the lobbyist says, makes control of the state party essential for Kasich.
Tom Suddes is an editorial board member of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, columnist on Ohio politics and adjunct assistant journalism professor at Ohio University.
