Treasurer Reardon agrees to drop out of primary for state auditor

The state party is retiring the former candidate's campaign debt.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Faced with challenging the Ohio Democratic Party's anointed state auditor candidate in an expensive primary, Mahoning County Treasurer John Reardon chose to get out of the race.
State Democratic leaders have urged Reardon, of Boardman, to quit the race for about two months, and let state Rep. Barbara Sykes of Akron, D-44th, run unopposed in the May Democratic primary.
Party officials wanted to have people with diverse backgrounds on the Democratic ticket. Sykes and Ben Espy of Columbus, who is running for an Ohio Supreme Court seat, are the only two blacks on the Democratic ticket.
Obvious move
The move by Ohio Democratic leaders to get Reardon out of the race became obvious a month ago when U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland of Lisbon, the party's likely gubernatorial nominee and a friend of Reardon's, publicly withdrew his endorsement of Reardon and gave it to Sykes.
Reardon opted not to seek the state party's endorsement about two weeks ago with Ohio Democratic officials because he was getting out of the race.
Reardon, an auditor candidate since June 2005, said he was initially disappointed by Strickland's decision, but realized the gubernatorial candidate was following state party philosophy to have a diverse slate of candidates on the statewide ballot, and he isn't angry at him.
Sykes initially had planned to get out of politics at the end of this year, when her state House term expires, but said she reconsidered in January because prominent Democrats urged her to run for auditor.
"Soon after her announcement, the money and support started to gravitate toward her," Reardon said. "It was hard to raise money after that."
Too expensive
Reardon said he believes he'd win a primary against Sykes, but it would be expensive and divisive and he would have to spend about $400,000 to $500,000 to win the race.
Reardon said that money would be better spent beating state Rep. Mary Taylor of Green, R-43rd, the Republican auditor candidate, in the November general election.
"Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in a primary is counterproductive and would have left our party's nominee at a tremendous disadvantage," Reardon said. "We simply can't afford to be in that position."
As part of his decision to quit the race, the party is paying back his campaign's outstanding debt and loans of about $100,000. The party has given $50,000 to Reardon's campaign and plans to give about an additional $50,000 to completely eliminate the debt and loans.
Also, Reardon had lent $100,000 to his campaign, but that money was repaid through contributions.
Oral promise
Reardon said the state party gave him an oral commitment that it would help him in the future if he considered running statewide.
"He is a gentleman, a team player and sometime in the future will make an excellent statewide elected official," said state Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern in a prepared statement.
Reardon will work to get people to vote for Democrats -- particularly Strickland -- in the November election.
Reardon also asked other Democrats running for statewide office without the state party's endorsement to quit their races.
skolnick@vindy.com