Shocker: Politicians Are Massive Hypocrites When It Comes to Endorsements
The ORP needs to let iron strengthen iron. If a candidate is as strong as he projects, then he won’t need the ORP endorsement. He’ll crush his opponents no matter who they are.
Tomorrow, the Ohio Republican Party (ORP) State Central Committee (SCC) is meeting during which members could endorse candidates for the 2026 Republican statewide primaries. The news of this impending vote has sent those likely to get endorsed into the trenches to get endorsements, as those unlikely to get endorsed or who don’t like who is likely to get endorsed go into overdrive to stop the endorsements. The whole affair has, once again, shown unequivocally that politicians are glaring hypocrites. Mike DeWine is the leading hypocrite this time around.
Per the news:
DeWine and his advisers are working to deny Ramaswamy an endorsement when the state party meets Friday, four people aware of the effort told NBC News, including one who heard directly from the governor.
The moves place DeWine sharply at odds with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, an Ohioan who has directed his political team to steer Ramaswamy’s campaign. The move also reinforces long-standing tensions in the state between the old guard, establishment GOP that DeWine is trying to preserve and Trump’s MAGA movement, which counts younger figures like Vance and Ramaswamy among its next generation.
…
While DeWine’s involvement is viewed in part as an effort to keep the party’s powder dry in the event of a late entry by Tressel, it’s also viewed with a hint of irony: DeWine pushed the party to endorse him in a competitive primary for governor in 2018.
For years, DeWine had no problem with the ORP SCC endorsing candidates when he was always on the “likely to get endorsed” list. Now that a candidate for governor who he does not like (i.e., Ramaswamy) is likely to get endorsed, DeWine suddenly has seen the light on the problem with party endorsements. Don’t think for a minute had Jon Husted remained in the governor’s race and was likely to get endorsed that DeWine wouldn’t be pushing hard for the ORP to endorse. Similarly, DeWine will push hard for the ORP to endorse Husted for his U.S. Senate reelection whether or not he has a primary opponent. In the governor’s race, DeWine wants time to find someone to anoint to replace him since it appears his first attempt with Jim Tressel isn’t going anywhere. And, make no mistake, DeWine wants to anoint his replacement instead of allowing Republican primary voters to decide, especially if they decide to support a (gasp!!!!) Trump MAGA candidate.
Dave Yost is another hypocrite. He sent a letter to the ORP SCC asking them to refrain from endorsing in the governor’s race because he knows he isn’t getting the endorsement. Yost, however, was perfectly fine when the ORP SCC issued endorsements to him and other favored candidates for statewide races—even in races where there were other candidates. As reported:
Yost, in a recent letter to central committee members, urged a wait-and-see approach while also lobbying for their support if they decide to go forward with a vote Friday.
“The May 9 meeting is almost exactly a year before the primary election,” Yost wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Cleveland.com. “A great deal will happen in that year that could very well change your judgment. The world is a very fluid and unpredictable place, after all.”
Yost also likened a rushed endorsement to how Democrats quickly closed ranks around Vice President Kamala Harris last year after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid.
“No primary, no vote — just a coronation. That did not turn out well for the Democrats, and there is no reason to believe it will be better for the Grand Old Party,” Yost added.
As you may recall, I pushed aggressively against endorsements during my exploratory run for governor in 2023 because I didn’t believe it was the role of the ORP SCC to put its thumb on the scales for favored candidates. Here is what I wrote back in July 2023 in "It Will Take Money, Folks (and Fair Play by the State Central Committee)--Will Dave Yost and Robert Sprague Fail The 'Prisoner’s Dilemma' Challenge In Front of Them?”:
As a brief aside on the SCC, there are three issues I hope new Ohio Republican Party Chairman and SCC Member Alex Triantafilou will support—though I’ve heard from a very good source that he is actively seeking to remove anti-endorsement SCC members without his fingerprints being on the activities to help Husted. First, discontinuing the practice of endorsing in contested primaries. I’m a firm believer in Proverbs 27:17, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” The SCC should let us truly compete on a level playing and see who wins. SCC members are free in their personal capacity to do all they can to promote a favored candidate, but they represent their districts, not their personal interests. As noted, despite the endorsement, DeWine and Husted couldn’t even muster majority support in the gubernatorial primary last year, which is a clear indication that the SCC was wrong in making an endorsement in that race. Second, issuing endorsements on a whole slate versus on each race. This abhorrent practice is the EXACT smoke-filled backroom insider conduct that causes Main Street Ohioans to lose faith in their leaders. It promotes unsavory and unethical quid pro quo horse-trading to force through unpopular career politicians (you swallow my bitter pill by endorsing the slate for my guy and I’ll do it for your guy). Not surprisingly, such a practice is never employed for any candidate other than the statewide musical chair men who are part of the status quo and, therefore, part of the problem. Lastly, allowing secret voting on any endorsement. We conservatives have long believed that sunshine is a great disinfectant, as transparency and accountability are paramount principles to good governance. Allowing SCC members to hide behind secret balloting grossly undermines both transparency and accountability. If SCC members want to issue an endorsement, then they should have the guts to vote for that endorsement on the record.
A final note: these issues won’t get resolved unless large political donors withhold ORP funding until Triantafilou commits to ending the three mechanisms to thwart grassroots candidates and stops whatever funny business he is engaged in to take out anti-endorsement SCC members. In politics, money talks. I also hope Yost and Sprague will join me in demanding these reforms to the SCC endorsement process. As the great Indian political strategist Kautlya wrote in “Arthashastra" (yes, I read it), “The enemy’s enemy is a friend.” In this setting, I hope Yost and Sprague realize that joining me to stop Triantafilou’s pro-Husted machinations and to push the anti-endorsement count above thirty-four SCC members is in their best interest so as not to risk Husted getting the endorsement and placement on the ORP slate card that goes to all Republican primary voters. Hopefully, neither of these men fail this "prisoner’s dilemma" challenge.
Not surprisingly, unlike now when he faces certain defeat in a mano-a-mano fight against Ramaswamy, Yost was silent on the endorsement issue, as he believed he could outmaneuver Husted for it (Sprague, too, was silent).*
The ORP’s job is to run the state party, not decide who represents Ohio. That decision should solely be left to voters to decide at the ballot box. If the only thing that came with the endorsement was an “atta boy” it wouldn’t matter. The issue is that ORP endorsements largely decide the races because every Republican primary voter in Ohio receives an endorsed slate card in the mail to take to the primary polls to use to vote. This slate card is worth millions of dollars in in-kind campaign donations due to the shocking number of low-information (i.e., uninformed, if you prefer) voters who depend entirely on the slate card to vote. That massive in-kind donation is exactly why DeWine is working so hard to stop the ORP SCC from endorsing Ramaswamy. He knows that, along with Trump’s endorsement and Ramaswamy’s money and name ID from appearing on Fox News, the ORP SCC endorsement makes next May’s Republican primary a mere formality.
We on the political Right, especially conservatives, have a tendency to wear the Bible on our sleeves (politicians grossly so). As noted above, I like to quote Proverbs on the issue of primary endorsements:
"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17.
Nearly twenty-three years ago, I served as the campaign manager in Colorado in what became the number one congressional race in America. The primary involved five candidates: the sitting Lieutenant Governor, the state party chairman who owned a $300 million bank, a dotcom millionaire, a former legislator and ambassador under Ronald Reagan, and, my guy, a thirty-two year old who never ran for office and served as the policy director for Governor Bill Owens. Owens remained neutral. The Colorado State Party did not issue endorsements. Despite being outspent 5:1 by the state party chairman, we lost the primary by just 1,900 votes after besting the lieutenant governor, the dotcom millionaire, and the Reagan ambassador. Our grassroots campaign was seen by most people as the far superior one, but we lacked the funds to be on radio and television during the final two weeks and the uber-wealthy state party chairman used his own funds to do so. You know how I know our campaign was better? A few days AFTER the primary ended, the winner called me to see if I would take over his campaign for the Fall, as he knew it was going to be a grueling race.
It was. When the dust settled, he won by a wafer thin 527 votes. You know what he told my candidate and me after he won the general? He said he won because we had pushed him so hard in the primary election that he had become a better candidate. You see, iron sharped iron. I relate this little story because it is why I have pushed back on endorsements—they deprive the candidates of the hard fought battles that forces them to improve. Easy victories do nothing for the winners. It is like a soccer team beating an inferior opponent 15-0—neither side learns anything from such a lopsided contest. Perhaps the practice of ORP endorsements is why Ohio is and has been led by such weak politicians. They never had to fight tooth and nail to beat a strong foe. They never had to dig deep to win. They were annointed by a group of forty-four ORP SCC members. As a result, once elected, they don’t fight for us because they don’t have to. They just need to keep securing the blessing of forty-four Establishment ORP insiders.
The ORP needs to stop endorsing candidates and let iron strengthen iron. If Vivek Ramaswamy is as strong as he projects, then he doesn’t need the ORP endorsement. He’ll crush Yost and any Establishment minion DeWine props up.
P.S. Why is the name of God is Donald Trump using tariffs to rescue California? Yes, I know he claims it is to rescue Hollywood, but Hollywood is struggling because of the left-wing policies of California. Due to high regulations, high taxes, high energy costs, and extreme employment requirements enacted by the Left, making movies and shows in Hollywood is too expensive. That is why more movies and shows are being made in Georgia, Nevada, and Texas, as well as internationally. The entertainment industry hates Trump. Actors and actresses hate Trump. Californians hate Trump. Trump should let Hollywood die on the hill it built and allow other states (and countries) to make movies and shows tariff free.
*I’m often asked about supporting Yost for governor. Unfortunately, while I like Yost personally, during my sixteen years in Ohio public policy which largely overlaps his time in statewide offices, Yost has not once joined me in fighting the Establishment. Severance tax? Nope. Medicaid expansion? Nope. JobsOhio? Nope (he now hedges on it with “cautionary” language). Eliminating the state income tax? Nope. Enacting right-to-work? Nope. Local government reform? Nope. I could go on, but you get the point. In many of those fights, I could have used a statewide elected official to help win the day, but every damn one of them sat by silently as Ohio got weaker and weaker. Thus, Yost has given me no basis to believe he would suddenly embrace the bold colors agenda needed to fix Ohio should he become governor. Ramaswamy might.