Well the ODP Chair Forum was interesting tonight. Lieberman, Redfern, Gwinn, Eckart, Reece and Mitakides turned up.
Before I go any further, let me just say that whomever is the next chair, it won't be any worse - it might not be any better, but it definitely won't be worse. All the candidates had some good points, and if you could mash all their positives together we would have one hell of a chair.
The game however changed tonight. First, Chris, when everyone is blasting you for wanting to do 2 or 3 jobs at once the last thing you want to do is leave the debate 30 minutes early to go to a Christmas party ! That aint the message to be sending.
Then came the bombshell - Eckart endorsed Lieberman. I turned to a couple of folks "Did he just say what I thought he just said?". I confirmed it after the debate, where he also dropped the nugget that more endorsements are coming from the Cleveland area, including Tubbs-Jones.
If you take this news together with the news that Labor is going to be pissed at Redfern for taking Wal-Mart money - Lieberman just became the front runner and next ODP Chair.
He is probably the most rounded candidate, with Gwinn clearly a GOTV expert the next chair should tap to organize that effort statewide.
The funniest moment of the night came with the first mention of Ken Blackwell's name, whereupon all the mics in the Church got feedback and it sounded like a message from God - and kept happening for about 5 minutes. I don't know about you guys, but I think God was sending us a message. I'll have to run the tape back backwards to figure it out though.

More below.

As some will be aware the ineffective ODP Chair Denny white resigned, and the replacement is to be voted on by the Ohio Democratic Party Central Committee (137 members) on the 19th December.

Grass roots in Ohio pressured ODP to hold regional debate forums as part of the process of selecting the new chair. This would give everyone a chance to hear what each candidate has to say, what their plan would be and to be questioned on it.

ODP decline this opportunity, so grass roots organizations set about "Democracy for Democrats"

If you follow Ohio Politics at all you will have heard that the Ohio Democratic Party (ODP) chair Denny White resigned last Wednesday. A good thing for all, given how utterly ineffective he has been.

Now we have a golden opportunity to get a chair who can rebuild Ohio and take it back from the GOP corruption and incompetence. But it isn't going to be easy.

There has been much rumor swirling around about insider moves, coup's, and smoke filled back room deals.

So to the gossip and the actions we can take in the extended.