GOP delays picks after gubernatorial shakeup
There was outward harmony Friday at a gathering of the Ohio’s Republican Central Committee, but several controversies lurked just beneath the surface.
The committee postponed endorsements amid a tectonic shift in the top race, while the sex scandals that are roiling the country simmered in the background.
Attorney General Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Jon Husted, the frontrunners for the gubernatorial nomination, upended the race this week by announcing that they would run together, with DeWine at the top of the ticket. The other two candidates, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, vowed to stay in the race and run as Trumpian outsiders against the political establishment.
Meeting in Columbus on Friday, the central committee was poised to vote to endorse all the candidates who are running unopposed. But party Chairwoman Jane Timken announced the body would go into closed session to consider postponing the vote in light of the gubernatorial shakeup and news that Sandy O’Brien, who ran unsuccessfully in 2006, would again seek to become treasurer.
“The outlook for the gubernatorial primary has changed significantly,” Timken said.
It was rumored that DeWine and Husted had the votes to change the rules and force an endorsement of their ticket, but after a lengthy session, Timken announced that all endorsements would be postponed until the Feb. 7 deadline to file for candidacy passes.
Another controversy involved a committee member who was not there — Bob McEwen, a former congressman and executive director of the National Council for Policy, an evangelical activist group that in 2015 hosted a fundraiser for former Ohio Rep. Wesley Goodman, R-Cardington.
The Dispatch last month broke the news that Goodman was forced to resign after being observed engaging in “inappropriate behavior” in his Statehouse office. Two days later, the Washington Post reported that at the 2015 fundraiser, Goodman, then 31, had been accused of fondling an 18-year-old man against his will.
In emails on which McEwen was copied, Tony Perkins, president of the National Council for Policy and the Family Research Council, was told of the allegations by the man’s parents. Perkins reassured the parents, admonished Goodman to wait to run for office, but apparently did little else when Goodman ran anyway.
McEwen apparently didn’t warn Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, R-Clarksville, either. That led GOP chairwoman Timken to make a conditional call for McEwen’s ouster.
“I think every person has an obligation to say and do something about sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind when they see it. If Bob McEwen knew about this and did not say or do anything, he should resign” from the Republican state central committee, she said.
A GOP spokesman didn’t immediately respond to questions about McEwen’s future on the committee, and Timken postponed speaking with the media Friday afternoon.
Even the invocation at the meeting touched on the nation’s sex scandals. It was performed by Pastor Gary Click, a faith advisor to Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel.
On his blog and in Facebook, Click last month cast doubt on women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of trying to date them and sexually assaulting one when she was just 14 and he was 32.
Outside the closed session, Click refused to comment on his blog post or Moore’s assertion this week that accusations that he sexually assaulted teenage girls are the result of a plot by liberals, gays and socialists.