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Published: Sunday, 11/23/2014

BY TOM TROY BLADE POLITICS WRITER

As Ottawa County resident Chris Redfern prepares to relinquish the reins of the Ohio Democratic Party, candidates to replace him, grass-roots party activists, and county chairmen are engaging in listening tours, meetings, and rounds of phone calls to try to figure out who should lead the party and how to break out of its recent cycle of electoral failure.

Democrats are also looking inward, questioning their message as well as the candidates that have been spreading that message.

The state party is emerging from a political debacle with a gubernatorial candidate, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, who failed to raise enough money to be competitive. Republican incumbent Gov. John Kasich carried 86 of Ohios 88 counties, including Lucas County, normally a bastion of Democratic voters.

An issue thats getting some consideration is whether the partys stock of liberal policy positions is turning off, rather than energizing, Ohio voters.

Democratic frustration is understandable. As a force in the Statehouse and at the congressional level, the party appears to be running on fumes. It holds none of the five statewide elected offices, only one of seven Ohio Supreme Court seats, and minorities in the state House and Senate.

While Ohio has favored President Obama in the last two presidential elections and has a Democratic U.S. senator, Sherrod Brown, its state elections have trended Republican for more than two decades. Republicans have won five of the last six elections for governor. Republicans have controlled the state Senate for the last 22 years and the House for 17 of those years. Democrats controlled the House in 2009 and 2010.

Source of woes

Some blame the Republican wave election of 2010, which gave the GOP total control of the apportionment of state legislative and congressional districts and thus the power to squeeze Democrats into as few Statehouse and congressional districts as possible.

More:
State Democrats take stock of recent electoral routs