Over the weekend, Northeast Ohio Media Group reports that Ted Strickland received the endorsement from Ohio Democratic Party endorsement:
Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland now has the official backing of the Ohio Democratic Party in his bid to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman in 2016.
The party’s 150-member executive committee decided Saturday to give Strickland the nod. The former governor is trying to head off a primary challenge from a fellow Democrat, Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld.
Strickland may have secured the party’s nomination, but P.G. Sittenfeld is not backing down. The Columbus Dispatch reports:
Sittenfeld spokesman Dale Butland complained that the [Ohio Democratic Party’s] endorsement “smacks of a backroom deal orchestrated by party insiders” that “marginalizes rank-and-file Democrats.” He said Sittenfeld would stay in the race.
“We’re determined to let the people decide,” Butland said.
Many Sittenfeld supporters have expressed concerns with the Ohio Democratic Party’s chosen Senate nominee:
“I’m afraid if Ted Strickland is our candidate and he goes unchallenged in the primary, that the general election will be about the past,” said former Ohio Democratic Party chairman and Sittenfeld backer Jim Ruvolo. “It won’t be about the future. I don’t think we can win if the election’s about the past.”
Rank-and-file Democratic supporters were not the only ones upset with the Ohio Democratic Party’s decision to give Strickland an early endorsement.
The Columbus Dispatch highlights Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bill O’Neill’s scathing criticisms of the Ohio Democratic Party’s decision to endorse Strickland over Sittenfeld:
“Leave the Ohio Democratic Party immediately,” O’Neill wrote to his 2,462 followers. “I have just learned that they have made an endorsement in the US Senate race for my dear friend Ted Strickland. When you see Ted, give him a hug and kiss him goodbye. He is a walking dead man.”
O’Neill goes on to say that the endorsement makes it clear that the party learned “nothing” from the devastating losses of 2014.
“And now I am told the brain trust who LOST EVERY SINGLE STATEWIDE OFFICE IN 2010 is back and in charge,” he wrote. “Run people. Run. The inmates are running the asylum.”
Contacted by phone, O’Neill said he stands by his words. “I’m concerned about the future of the Ohio Democratic Party,” he said, adding that the party over the last three cycles has “amassed a history of losses that is an embarrassment to those of us who have worked inside the party for the past 40 years.”
With divisions among Ohio Democrats only continuing to grow, all signs point to costly and time-consuming Democratic primary on the horizon.
The Columbus Dispatch outlines:
One of the biggest disadvantages to a primary is money. Portman has $8 million in the bank.
U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Jefferson Township, who backs Strickland, said she worries that a primary will be “a drain on resources.” She said it will be particularly acute in 2016, when the Senate candidate must compete with presidential, judicial, congressional and local candidates for donors’ money.
With growing dissent from grassroots Democrats and both Democratic candidates struggling to match Senator Rob Portman’s fundraising prowess, it looks like Ohio Democrats face an uphill battle in the road to 2016.