Reorganization touted as key to defeating Hillary Clinton
Republican party leaders in Warren County are evoking images from 2004, when the local GOP banded together to help George W. Bush take Ohio and the presidency.
In order to do its utmost to help elect a Republican in the November presidential election, the Warren County GOP needs new leadership, party leaders said last week.
While making overtures to keep Chairman Ray Warrick in the mix, some party leaders say Jeff Monroe - chairman of the Warren County Board of Elections and a past party chairman - should replace Warrick as the party chief.
“I think Ray needs to be part of it or could be part of it,” County Auditor Matt Nolan said last week before meeting with Warrick and Monroe in anticipation of Thursday’s party reorganization meeting. “We need a real leader that can bring us together and bring us a win in 2016.”
In 2004, Bush strategist Karl Rove credited areas of Ohio including Warren County with helping Bush win the state and national election.
Warrick, a leader of the county's Tea Party, was relatively unknown until he was chosen at the top of a slate elected to party leadership positions two years ago. It was the same day, Eric Cantor, majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, was defeated by a Tea Party opponent.
Over the past two years, Warrick has upset other local party leaders by pushing for the unendorsement of Gov. John Kasich's reelection and most recently running against Scott Lipps for the 62nd District seat in the Ohio House of Representatives.
Under Warrick’s leadership, other grassroots efforts including the annual Lincoln Day dinner and representation at parades and the annual county fair suffered, opponents said. The party headquarters next to the Golden Lamb Inn, where phone banks were conducted, closed.
“It’s not the way to run an organization the size of the Warren County Republican Party,” said County Recorder Linda Oda, who was elected as vice chairman of the executive committee two years ago on a slate including leaders from the Right to Life and Tea Party factions.
Two years later, Oda is among working to mend fences between the Right to Life or social conservative wing and the “old guard” in hopes of getting the kind of national exposure that came with helping Bush in 2014.
“I think the party wants to have influence in Columbus and Washington D.C.,” she said.
Warrick is aware of the move to replace him, but isn’t ready to predict the outcome.
“It all comes down to who has the most votes or can get the most votes,” Warrick said, adding more Tea Party precinct candidates were elected in the March primary. “We actually gained seats. We’re in a little better position.”
Oda and other leaders promoting the leadership change see it as a big step toward bringing local Republicans together in the effort to elect a Republican as the next president, by manning phone banks, even going door to door, to get voters out on Nov. 7 in Warren County and other parts of the state.
“It’s important because we’re hoping we’ll have a strong conservative candidate,” said Lori Viars, a Right to Life advocate and head of the local Conservative Caucus. “We are very keen on winning Ohio.”
Two years ago, Viars - who led a shift in control from the old guard of the local party a decade ago - was voted out of the local leadership in 2014.
Since then, Viars said she had built her coalition and was polling members for their perspective on who should take over leadership.
Last week, she favored Monroe but wasn’t ready to predict Thursday’s result.
“It’s hard to say,” she said. “Who knows what this year will bring.”
The split within the local party mirrors divisions credited with putting Donald Trump in the lead in the Republican presidential primary.
“I think Warren County is a microcosm of what’s going on in the nation,” Oda said, calling for a slate combining all three elements of the party.
But forging a compromise could be even more difficult because the local party is actually split into as many as eight different groups when you include elected officials, former elected officials and other segments, according to Nolan.
“There are no less than seven or eight parts of this party,” Nolan said. “It is fractured all over the place.”
Settling on Monroe would return the custom of the party chief also serving as election board chairman, while readying the party to back the GOP nominee in the presidential election “so that we can beat Hillary (Clinton) in six months. That’s all I’m working for,” Nolan said.
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