Will Chris Redfern stay or go?

Another article has come out about the fate of Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern and the strong rebuking he received from former DNC Chairman Harry Meshel that we shared with you last week.

This time, its from the Toledo Blade. While no Democrats other than Meshel are going on record as wanting Redfern out, there is a lingering question among them about what happened to the ODP's supposed "GOTV-machine", and how it failed to materialize last November, especially in Cuyahoga County.

Jerry Chabler, a Democratic party fund-raiser and operative, said Mr. Redfern raised more money than any other chairman he's ever known. But a promised "get-out-the-vote" effort on Election Day in Cuyahoga County never materialized and he wants to know why."There have been some folks who were disappointed in the failure of the vaunted get-out-the-vote effort. There's no question about it. If we got 100,000 more votes out of Cuyahoga County, Ted Strickland would be the governor today. What exactly happened in Cuyahoga County I don't know, but myself and other Democrats were led to believe there'd be this great get-out-the-vote program," Mr. Chabler said.

Teresa Fedor, a former state senator and now state representative, said she and fellow Democrats questioned, in the days and weeks immediately after the election, why the party didn't have more success in 2010.

Chris Redfern, Ohio Democratic
Party Chairman and Pirate

What does Ted Strickland say about our favorite pirate?

"I think the turnout was not as robust as we had hoped. No question about that. It's not the fault of the party. In fact, our turnout efforts were totally unprecedented," Mr. Strickland said. "I think what we had in Ohio was a very difficult economic set of circumstances, and it's not unusual for the party in power to suffer the electoral consequences of that."

"The election that we went through in November was largely affected by economic circumstances that were beyond the control of Chris Redfern or anyone else, to deal with," Mr. Strickland said.

Well, its not surprising that Turnaround Ted would have kind words to say about Redfern these days, when you see what he has been working on, which is the rewriting of the Strickland legacy. Just this past weekend, he held a "Legacy Dinner" for Strickland, which we also brought to your attention last week.

Now, feast your eyes on the new website and video. Sure looks a lot nicer than his original campaign site ever did.

I wonder if Ohio Democrats are happy with Redfern spending so much time propping up a failed, defeated one-term governor, instead of preparing for the 2012 elections.

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