Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Well I'll be ....

OK .. I was "wrong."

Maybe a better phrase is "incorrect." "Right" or "wrong" will ultimately play out in the coming weeks as the Republican Party looks to solidify a chairman.

Instead of the visible front-runner of Don Varian (see post below) the New Summit Republicans announced a short time ago that they plan to push Carol Klinger as their nominee for party chair.

In the words of Clark Griswold, "if I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am now."

I'm told that NSR's spiritual advisor, State Senator Kevin Coughlin, was not at the announcement .. even though he's been spearheading this group for months. Instead, Varian .. also known as the-man-who-would-be-the-NSR-nominee did the speaking and introduced Klinger to the group at the John S. Knight Center.

So who is Carol Klinger? She's an at-large councilwoman from Cuyahoga Falls who works on the city's finance committee. Beyond that, many outside the party will be researching her credentials beyond the club she runs in her civilian world in Cuyahoga Falls.

So will Klinger be heir apparent to Alex Arshinkoff as party boss?

I'm not sure .. but I need to do some source checking to see how I got my wires crossed last night.

3 comments:

Eric R. Swanson said...

No sweat. They had me fooled as well. My guess is that they didn't go with Varian for a couple of reasons, both of which are related to his BOE appointment. First, he was recommended to Brunner for the BOE position by Wayne Jones, and that has a certain appearance of impropriety for the hardcore GOP faithful. Second, Varian's appointment to the BOE may very well be overturned by the Ohio Supreme Court. If that happens, it would certainly hamstring him as party chair.

Anonymous said...

A 13 yrs old with $200 in his wallet and $130 pair of shoes? Whats wrong with that picture?

Ben said...

They couldnt have chosen Varian after the BOE appoitnment - it didnt make sense.

I agree that both sides think they have the numbers to win. Each side is counting some of the same people, so either Alex or the NSR is going to be surprised.