Stainbrook's return adds rivalry to local GOP
Former Lucas County party chairman has helped candidates file for March primary.
By Tom Troy / The Blade
Fri, 17 Jan 2020 05:00:00 GMT
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JUST WHEN you thought it was safe to go back to ignoring the Lucas County Republican Party, Jon Stainbrook is back.
Mr. Stainbrook brought color, controversy, and a heaping helping of dysfunction to local politics and elections during his 10 years on the job, lots of energy promoting statewide Republicans, but not a lot of success reversing the trend of GOP losses in races for Toledo and Lucas County offices.
He was ousted in 2018 when former state legislator Mark Wagoner, Jr., working with bitter Stainbrook critics in the suburban Republican clubs, managed to seat enough candidates in the 2018 Republican Lucas County Central Committee race to topple Mr. Stainbrook.
Since then, Mr. Wagoner has run up against the same resistance of Toledo voters to Republican candidates that confounded Mr. Stainbrook.
The 12-person Toledo City Council is down to one person who is not a Democrat — Republican Councilman Rob Ludeman.
There were three Republicans and one independent 10 years ago. It’s arguable that those 10 years of dysfunction didn’t help.
And Lucas County’s administrative row offices — commissioner, sheriff, prosecutor, treasurer, auditor, clerk of courts, recorder, engineer, and coroner — are as Democratic now as they were in 2010. That’s a monopoly Mr. Wagoner hopes to change, but his list of candidates does not include any obvious political heavy-hitters.
As to Mr. Stainbrook’s return from the political wilderness, as a sober journalist committed to only the highest standards of decorum and serious deliberation of the policies, I can only say, hallelujah.
He has re-engaged in local GOP politics by personally helping at least three GOP candidates to file for county offices in the March 17 primary against candidates that Mr. Wagoner has recruited to run. In one of them, the race for Lucas County Clerk of Courts held by longtime incumbent Democrat Bernie Quilter, Mr. Stainbrook’s candidate, Donald Grames, Jr., of Maumee, is the only Republican on the ballot.
Mr. Stainbrook says he’s back because he’s committed to having a Republican opponent against every incumbent Democrat.
That’s a good philosophy, but if the candidates never win it doesn’t accomplish very much. At some point, Republicans have to elevate quality over quantity.
It’s one thing to have party disagreement. In the end, Republicans should work together rather than against each other, as should Democrats.
Though Mr. Stainbrook was a lightning rod among Republicans in Lucas County, he was adept at servicing the political needs of statewide and national candidates.
Not only is he backing rival candidates, but Mr. Stainbrook is himself a candidate for state central committee.
Which is why the 2020 primary is going to be interesting.
Mr. Stainbrook won a term on the state central committee in 2012.
But though he has run every two years since then, he has lost each time to Bill Delaney, a former tavern owner who was known for resisting the city’s smoking ban.
Mr. Delaney says he means to hand Mr. Stainbrook’s hat to him yet again.
The post of state central committeeman is mostly ceremonial.
The members drive to Columbus four times a year to rub elbows with the bigwigs and to vote on party rules. Their biggest job is to elect the state chairman every two years.
This means that the most bitterly fought contest on the Republican ballot in Lucas County on March 17 will be for the least important post.
Tom Troy is associate editor of The Blade and member of The Blade Editorial Board.