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Ohio Dem Chairman Redfern explains his resignation
YOUNGSTOWN
Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern, who announced his resignation after his party’s statewide candidates failed to win a single race, said he was planning to quit in the foreseeable future.
“I like to have fun, and over the course of the last year, it wasn’t fun,” Redfern told The Vindicator.
“We started thinking 11/2 years ago and through this summer that maybe it was time to step back from politics,” Redfern said Friday about himself and his wife, Kim.
In addition to a Republican statewide sweep, Redfern lost his Ohio House seat and his wife failed to capture an Ohio Board of Education seat.
The two own an inn in Marblehead in Ottawa County, and are building a winery there.
“I was going to leave at some point, but the events of Tuesday night accelerated that,” Redfern said. “When you take a thumping, you don’t see too many friends. It’s the reality of politics.”
Redfern announced on election night his decision to resign, effective in mid-December. However, Redfern said Friday that he doesn’t know when he’ll resign.
“We have plenty of time,” he said. “No date has been set for the transition to occur, and thankfully that’s the case because of what happened with Denny over the last 48 hours.”
Denny Wojtanowski of Columbus, a close political ally of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, was touted as the front-runner to replace Redfern. But Wojtanowski removed his name from consideration Thursday.
When asked about who he’d like to see succeed him, Redfern said, “One name not mentioned is Dave Betras.”
Redfern said the Mahoning County Democratic chairman is “as smart as they come,” is one of the “best county chairmen in the country,” and encouraged him to seek the post.
Betras said he “was very flattered” but isn’t interested in the job.
Despite criticism from some Democrats, Redfern said, “I don’t feel I was pushed out by anyone,” and he has “near unanimous” support from members of the party’s executive committee.
Ed FitzGerald, the party’s failed Democratic gubernatorial nominee, had the lowest vote percentage for a major party candidate at the top of the ticket since 1994.
“Money was the problem,” Redfern said. “To call strangers for eight hours a day and ask for $1,000 is a miserable, difficult task. He was unwilling to do that.”
Another problem, Redfern said, was what he considered unfair coverage of FitzGerald by The Columbus Dispatch and The Plain Dealer.
“How do you break through” criticism FitzGerald received for not having a driver’s license for 10 years “when the two largest media in the state” constantly write about it? Redfern asked.
Redfern pointed to a number of successes for Democrats during his nine years as chairman, including being the only state party head in history to serve when a Democratic presidential candidate — Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 — carried the state twice with more than 50 percent of the vote, the election and re-election of Brown to the U.S. Senate, and several other victories.
“I got involved in more than 500 local races,” he said.
In a Friday column in The Vindicator, Harry Meshel, former state Senate president and state Democratic chairman, sharply criticized Redfern as “a clown who helped ruin the state Democratic Party,” and a “pip-squeak from a county with 12 people and a highway.”
That stems from Redfern leaving a telephone message in 1994 for Meshel calling for the then-party chairman to resign after a clean sweep of statewide elections, including a record low vote percentage for the party’s gubernatorial candidate.
“I have no recollection of what I did 20 years ago,” Redfern said. “Harry does, and I wish him well.”