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That’s what some of the leaders of the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County are calling it. Last night as I hung out at the back of a semi-filled room in the Independence Civic Center

for a meeting of the CuyCo GOP’s Central and Executive Committees the folks up at the podium were talking about the conflict between Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Ohio GOP Chairman (and lone CuyCo BOE hold-out) Bob Bennett.

Beginning with Brunner’s original call for the entire board (two Democrats, two Republicans) to step down, followed with the resignations from three of the four board members, continuing with a suspension and subsequent legal hearing and finally culminating in what is expected be another hearing, what started as a chance to clear the slate and begin anew has disintegrated into a study of political maneuvering and grandstanding. Now it is a war, a war of our (GOP) own creation and

…unfortunately for Republicans, we lost this war before it began.

Our Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has been in disarray for as long as I can remember. Regardless of who has sat around the Board’s table whether it be Directors or Board members, elections have been contentious in Cuyahoga County. As we’ve watched our county become a Democratic party stronghold, the problems with this elections board have only worsened. One would think that a properly thinking Republican state party chairman would recognize this and be able to make HUGE political hay out of the opportunity. One would think that the Chairman would put some hard-driving, hold no

prisoners, unconnected partisan delegates into the two seats that the Republican party controls on the Board. And one would think that the Chairman would be wise enough to do this from behind the scenes so as to affect a minimum of perceptual negativity for the party as a whole.

Not Bob Bennett.

He’s chosen to sit in the center of the storm and become part of the controversy instead of orchestrating it for our party’s benefit. Because of his prominence as state party chairman everything he does is magnified in the public eye. Because he is president of the county elections board, when a problem exists at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, the public perception is that by association the GOP is the problem.

Think about that for a moment - In a SUPER majority Democrat county, when a failure occurs in our county’s elections system, Republicans are perceived to have caused the problem. This in a county where Republicans cannot even fill our share of all of the available poll worker slots on election days.

Why?

Because the average citizen who pays limited attention to the election system hears two things:

• Cuyahoga County has problems running elections and
• The head of the CuyCo BOE is also Republican State Party Chairman Bob Bennett.

Heck, I’ve got family members in California who sent me emails two years ago asking me why Bennett would allow himself and the party to endure such scrutiny. The opportunity existed long ago (at least since the 2004 election) and remained for some time since for Bennett to make use of his political acumen and resign quietly and gracefully from this board. When Brunner asked for the resignations of the entire board, she gave Bennett the perfect opportunity to extricate himself with a minimum of political damage.

From the perspective of political maneuvering, this war is over.

Brunner performed a master stroke. She was able to take an incredibly political action and make it seem totally apolitical. As far as the public is concerned, she’s not at war, she’s doing her duty. As a partisan Democrat she’s succeeded with flying colors.

This war is over and the longer that Chairman Bennett refuses to recognize this, he does so at the peril of his own party.