Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Kevin's New Chairman

The identity of Kevin Coughlin's slate of officers for the Summit County Republican Party's leadership is a better kept secret than Lou & Hy's Cheesecake recipe. Kevin has claimed that he's not a candidate for Chairman. Apparently, he wants a Chairman other than himself so that the Chairman can endorse his candidacy for any future office that Kevin might seek.

While pundits initially pegged former SCRP friend Pete Kostoff as the leading candidate for Chairman, it appears that even Kostoff doesn't want to be associated with Coughlin. So who's the candidate? Maybe Elvis is alive? Howard Hughes? Jim Petro?

Kevin has been dolling out hints to staffers and pundits in Columbus. The latest hint - The person ran against Alex Arshinkoff for Chairman. There are two living people who ran against Chairman Arshinkoff for Chairman - Mark Figetakis and Attorney Don Varian. Mark Figetakis hasn't been involved in Republican politics in decades. Thus, all eyes turn to Varian. Thirty years ago, Republican leaders wouldn't pick Varian because he was the law partner of the Democrat chairman Bob Blakemore.

Today, while Varian may not be partner of the Democrat chairman, his ties to Democrats and Roetzel run deep. Also, his participation in Republican politics has been scant - other than his contributions to the campaign of "pay to play" master Jim Petro. Can Summit County's Republican Party afford Don Varian as its Chairman. We don't think so.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

More and more people are saying that he has no candidate for chairman because no one wants to come forward to be his figurehead.