Today's revelation in the Akron Beacon Journal that Alex Arshinkoff's hand-picked candidate for a County Council seat is a felon reminds us of the sloppy and reckless job the current GOP chairman is doing.
Let's review the last few months:
• First, Arshinkoff attacked the only Republican incumbent on the County County, Louis Heydorn, running John Widowfield against her in a primary. Widowfield won with Arshinkoff's help, then resigned from the Ohio House and from the race for County Council in disgrace over an ethics scandal.
• Then, Arshinkoff refused to replace Widowfield on the ballot with Heydorn - the only Republican who has successfully been elected to Council. His choice? A candidate who has run four times for office and never won.
• More recently, Arshinkoff announced that he would run Twinsburg Township Trustee Carol Gasper against popular Republican incumbent Judge Lisa Coates in 2009. Coates is a good judge. And Gasper? She's so inept that under her stewardship, Twinsburg Township was evicted from it's own town hall. Smart.
• Now today, we learn that Arshinkoff's candidate for County County Ward 7, Mark Young, plead guilty to breaking into a church and stealing a popcorn machine. He is now seeking to have a judge (an Arshinkoff crony) seal his records.
First, all potential candidates should be carefully vetted before being embraced by the party.
Second, what is Arshinkoff thinking? Nothing he does is designed to win elections and beat Democrats.
Third, the cumulative impact of Arshinkoff's corruption and incompetence is to do harm to John McCain and Sarah Palin. Summit County is important to the McCain-Palin ticket's success in Ohio. But if Alex Arshinkoff continues his race to the bottom as the leader of the local party, we're in for four years of Barack Obama as president.
Given McCain and Palin's record of taking on corruption - even within our own party - it's safe to assume that were either one of them Ohio citizens, Alex Arshinkoff would have been driven out of the Republican Party years ago.
Summit County Republicans... Ohio Republicans... how much longer do you want to do this?
