Ohio House District 24: Lazy Republican running against Celeste

If I were challenging an incumbent who already had 100k cash on hand 16 months before the election, I probably wouldn't be sitting on my ass doing nothing. That, however, is exactly what Upper Arlington City Councilman Tim Rankin has been doing. Rankin, who is challenging freshman Rep. Ted Celeste, didn't bother to file his designation of treasurer until October 2nd. This despite the fact that he received his party's endorsement almost two months ago.

Celeste, who reported on July 30th raising $122k with $100k on hand, has been aggressively raising money all year. He has several more fundraisers scheduled between now and the end of the year and expects another strong fundraising report in January.

So, what's the deal here? Speaker Husted has supposedly promised hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising for the district, but just dumping money won't beat an incumbent with significant grassroots support. And the GOP is going to have its hands full defending seats across the state, as the Democrats are planning a full court press to take back the Ohio House.

This may just be personal laziness on Rankin's part (he does have that reputation). Or, it may a symptom of general malaise being felt throughout the GOP. Their prospects don't look good for the '08 cycle, and Rankin doesn't have to make a formal decision about running until the end of the year. He has plenty of time to bail on the race if he decides that Celeste looks unbeatable.

Finally, municipal elections across the state are often seen as indicators of things to come, and District 24 is no exception. Rankin, term limited from UA's council, has a handpicked successor running this November. Leslie Heath, one of Rankin's right hand people in his previous attempts to remove any and all gay-themed news material from the public library, is in a five way race for three seats. Unfortunately for Heath, the Ohio Department of Taxation wants about $11k in income taxes that she and her husband allegedly never paid.

It gets better. Heath is tied to Brett Sciotto of Hilliard City Council and American Strategies consultants and possible OH-15 candidate. According to an unconfirmed report in the comments on the previous post, Sciotto also consulted for former Franklin County Commissioner Arlene Shoemaker, a woman with her own $300k tax bill. If true, American Strategies might be more of a tax haven than the Bahamas.

But I digress. If Rankin's hand picked candidate can't win one of UA's city council seats, then it might demonstrate a significant weakness in his own standing in Upper Arlington. If he can't blow Ted Celeste out of the water in this suburb, then he has little or no chance of overcoming Celeste's huge advantages in suburban Grandview or the Hilltop neighborhoods of Columbus. Celeste lost UA by 1000 votes in 2006 and still won his seat by 9%. Rankin has quite a hill to climb and he doesn't seem to be working too hard to get to the summit.

Note to Husted: If your strategy for keeping your precarious majority involves taking back seats you lost in 2006, then you may want to consider running candidates who will actually work for it. Just a thought. If this in any way reflects GOP strategy statewide, then we are likely looking at a Democratic Speaker come January 2009.