Posted on 08/25/2011 10:31:09 AM PDT by markomalley
Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, is considering a run against U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur in 2012, according to Republican Party sources.
Jon Stainbrook, chairman of the Lucas County Republican Party, said there is "high-level interest in the national Republican Party" in a potential Wurzelbacher candidacy.
"We are encouraging Joe to run," Mr. Stainbrook said. "He hasn't made any official decision yet."
Chris Maloney, spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, said a candidate like Mr. Wurzelbacher would have strong fund-raising capabilities thanks to national recognition he received during the 2008 presidential campaign, but added such star power would have to be weighed against the advantages of experience that someone like a state legislator could bring to the race.
Mr. Wurzelbacher wouldn't confirm or deny a congressional run. "I think it's a very interesting idea," he said Tuesday. "That's as much as I can say."
One GOP source put the chances of Mr. Wurzelbacher running against Miss Kaptur at "90 percent."
Miss Kaptur (D., Toledo) has represented Ohio's 9th congressional district since 1983. She won with 59 percent of the vote in 2010 and her district voted heavily in favor of President Obama in 2008, but congressional redistricting later this year could shake up the district's political demographics.
(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...
I really hope that the OH GOP doesn’t try to draw a district to defeat Kaptur—before you say anything, let me explain why. Toledo is heavily Dem, as is most of Lorain County further east (with the most heavily Dem lakeside areas in Sutton’s OH-13); in between is politically marginal territory. If GOP redistricters try to draw a winnable CD that includes Toledo, Kaptur would still be favored for reelection, and it would probably result in a Democrat also being elected from a Lorain-centric district (either Sutton or someone else). The most obvious move for Republicans in OH is to split up the two Dem strongholds in Sutton’s OH-13, with Lorain being given to Kaptur and the west side of Akron being given to Democrat Tim Ryan of Youngstown (who already represents eastern Akron), thus getting rid of Sutton. That’s actually easier to do than getting rid of Kucinich by combining his CD with Fudge’s black-majority Cleveland district (Kucinich represents too many Dem-leaning suburbs that wouldn’t fit in Fudge’s CD).
So I think that we should make Kaptur’s CD *more* Democrat, even if it would mean that Joe the Plumber won’t be able to beat her. Sorry, Joe, but the most important thing is to reduce the total number of Democrats elected to Congress from OH, and trying to defeat Kaptur would get in the way of that.
Reporting in from Ohio:
Fudge’s district will remain the same but extend down to inner city Akron. Think barbell shaped Voting Rights Act district.
Kucinich/Sutton/Kaptor three districts(west side of Cleveland to Toledo) become two districts
My understanding is that Ohio will lose two congressional seats and the two that are rumored to be eliminated are Kucinich’s district in Cuyahoga County and one GOP district downstate to be collapsed-—I heard that unfortunately Congressman Jordan’s district is on the chopping block. I was hoping that in case that were to happen, Jordan would consider running against Sherrod Brown the incumbent US Senator who is up for re-election next year.
Ohio GOP has 13 incumbents to protect. Which may be one more than they actually can protect. Drawing Kaptur’s district into a competitive one is near last on their list of priorities.
If Joe Wurzelbacher is the best that the Lucas County Republicans have to offer then God help them.
Why not Joe the Plumber? No one else in 30 years has come close to unseating Kaptur. At least he will attract a lot of attention and interest into the race. I say he should go for it.
I am so glad to hear that—I was afraid that they’d be slicing Cuyahoga County too thin and that a Democrat might get elected in the Cleveland suburbs. Akron is the only source of black voters for Fudge’s CD, but from what I had read earlier it seemed as if OH Republicans were insisting on giving Fudge all of Cleveland (which would mean that the CD would likely be just under 50% black and could lead to a judge throwing out the map and redrawing it himself). Kucinich would still have a heavily Dem CD in white partes of Cleveland and its Dem suburbs, and should be extended east through a narrow lakeside strip (which wouldn’t cost Fudge too many black voters) to take in Dem parts of NW Lake County.
The biggest problem with extending Fudge’s CD south through Twinsburg to inner-city Akron is what to do with LaTourette’s OH-14, which is stuck in a corner and could be forced to take on Dem precincts in Trumbull County if Ryan’s Youngstown-Warren CD still connected to Akron through Portage County. I was playing around with maps a couple of months ago, and found that the best way around the problem would be for LaTourette’s CD to scoot south from eastern Cuyahoga and Geauga through northern Portage and a land bridge in eastern Summit down to northern Stark County; Ryan’s CD would then connect to Akron through Alliance, Canton and Massillon. It would be ugly as hell, but effective.
Another way to get around this problem would be not to give Ryan any part of Akron at all, and have his district snake south along the PA border to take in Poland, East Palestine, East Liverpool, Toronto (boy, there sure are a lot of foreign-sounding city names in eastern OH!), Steubenville, Martin’s Ferry, St, Clairsville and Bellaire—unfortunately, it might take in more Republicans than I would like. That would also leave all of Canton, Massillon and Alliance in a GOP district, and the cities now vote Dem enough that it would be hard to draw safe Republicans all around. White parts of Akron would then need to be placed in Kucinich’s CD so as to avoid them ruining otherwise GOP districts, which means that not one but two narrow tentacles (Fudge’s from Glen Willow and Kucinich’s from Walton Hills?) would have to stretch from Cuyahoga to Summit County.
As for which GOP district in the rest of OH to eliminate (there are no current Dem CDs outside of NE OH and Toledo), that will be tough. The marginal OH-06 (Johnson) would make most sense if Ryan’s CD goes down to Belmont County, and maybe it can be combined with Schmidt’s OH-02 (which will likely need to give up her Hamilton County precincts to shore up Chabot in OH-01). That would still make it difficult to draw a map around Columbus with nothing but GOP CDs, since the two Columbus CDs (held by Tiberi and Stivers) are extremely marginal and the third GOP CD that dips into Columbus (held by Austria) can’t take in too many more Dems. Maybe give Jordan part of Columbus could solve the problem; if Jordan was running for the Senate (which he isn’t, and we already have a fine candidate in Josh Mandel), it would be a no-brainer to break up his heavily GOP CD and split up his counties among Tiberi, Stivers, Austria, Dayton’s Turner and Bowling Green’s Latta.
Frankly, I think that it would be nearly impossible for Republicans to hold every CD south and west of the imaginary line from Toledo to Youngstown for the next decade, and Republicans should consider drawing an über-Democrat, black-majority district that goes from Cincinnati to Dayton to Columbus, which would make every surrounding CD comfortably Republican. That would likely resuly in Turner’s CD being eliminated and Schmidt and Johnson being placed in the same CD, but it would pretty much guarantee an 11-5 GOP congressional delegation for the next decade (which is not bad at all for a state that leans only slightly Republican). I know that OH’s current delegation is 13-5 Republican, but our hold in 7 of those 13 CDs is rather tenuous and trying to draw a map with 12 GOP CDs out of 16 could result in the *Dems* getting an 11-5 majority in the delegation.
A little birdie (actually a damn big one) told me that Austria and Schmidt might be in trouble (two go in, one comes out), that made no sense to me until I read your comment. Hmmm.
As for LaTourette, give him all of Portage county, so he can go from winning with 70% to winning with 65%
Portage County has too many heavily Dem parts (particularly the city of Kent, which in 2004 had 11,300 voters and gave Kerry 70%, and Ravenna city and township) to add the whole county to a marginally GOP CD without any repercussions. The problem with LaTourette isn’t his winning percentage, but the fact that his CD only gave Bush like 52% in 2004 and voted for Obama in 2008; it’s voters are by no means strongly Republican, and if the Dems run a strong candidate, LaTourette could be gone (and if LaTourette retires, the Dems could easily pick up the CD). Same thing for Tiberi in Columbus/Delaware County, by the way.
What I would love is for black leaders in Cincinnati and Columbus demand that a second black-majority CD be created, and threaten to sue if the legislature doesn’t do that, so that Republicans can say “gee, our hands are tied, we just have to stick every heavily Dem area in SW and Central OH into a single district.” BTW, I forgot to mention that such black-majority CD would also take in the most heavily Dem precincts in Clark County (which is en route from Dayton to Columbus).
Go Joe!
And he won’t come close either. He’s the GOP equivalent of Levi Johnston saying he was considering running for mayor of Wasilla.
Joe the Plumber had FAR MORE experience running a business, than Obama had before he obtained the job of running the largest business in the world.
” - - - Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, is considering a run against U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur in 2012, according to Republican Party sources. - - - - “
Well, how about an update on Joe?
Is Joe going to run or not?
I agree...
Joe the Plumber files as a Congressional candidate-Drudge headline
(August thread! That was a blast from the past;) LOL!
Here’s an update
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2790636/posts
Funny thing - that same anti-Joe the Plumber is posting nasty stuff again.
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