We Are Not Going to Stop
Why The Angry Ohioans Need to Exist
Good morning, Angry Ohioans.
When I first started The Angry Democrat and The Angry Ohioan, there was doubt.
Not doubt about what I believed. Doubt about putting it all out there unfiltered. Doubt about opening myself up to criticism. Doubt about talking publicly about candidates, races, corruption, and practices inside the Democratic Party that are unethical, unsavory, hypocritical, or just plain fucking stupid.
And I got criticism. Enough of it that, at times, it made me feel like I was on an island.
Why am I doing this? Does this actually matter?
This week, a few things happened that made it a lot easier to say, yeah. It matters. This needs to exist.
The first thing might seem small, but it meant something.
I was driving north on 71, towing my camper, and I stopped at a random rest stop. That is where I ran into The Rooster.
We exchanged a few words. I introduced myself. And he said Northeast Ohio needs what we are doing up here. It is about time somebody is doing it.
That means a lot coming from someone who probably has the thickest skin in the industry. This is someone who has been taking on everyone from Mayors Suburbs to political insiders, and he was on his way to a pretrial where, from what he said, he basically told them to fuck off, he is not taking a plea deal, and he is going to fight bitch-ass Jerry Cirino tooth and nail.
So yes, that meant something.
The second thing was Graham Platner.
Laura Rodriguez-Carbone and I got a lot of pushback for criticizing Graham Platner. A lot. And the hypocrisy around it was pretty amazing to watch.
We knew Platner was going to be an issue. Ever since the Nazi tattoo, we were asking the same basic question: what the hell is the Democratic Party doing?
Then everything else kept piling on.
And even through all of that, through the same “vote blue no matter who” hypocrisy, we continued being critical of that candidate and the Democratic Party for supporting him.
Then the other day, we were justified in our skepticism.
Now, on a dime, everybody starts turning. Everybody starts abandoning Graham Platner. People who were fine looking past it suddenly want distance.
But we never supported him. We knew he was going to be an issue. But damn was the gas…lighting.
The third thing was Chris Quinn’s rant on Today in Ohio about corruption in the Democratic Party.
That is what pushed me to write this message.
We are not going to stop.
Laura Rodriguez-Carbone and I are committed to building something, especially in Northeast Ohio, that actually reflects the will of the people and the betterment of our communities. We are going to call out hypocrisy regardless of the pushback. We are going to talk about the Democratic Party when the Democratic Party deserves to be talked about.
And it deserves to be talked about.
So here is a reminder of just some of what has happened in less than a year.
DaveBrock was reelected chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. He originally ran on a platform of reforming the party and the endorsement process.
His original pitch was about strengthening voter contact and improving turnout.
Now he is deeply entrenched in the same structure he once claimed he wanted to change.
The party has become insulated inside a tight group of people, and people paying into the system that also pays his salary.
The county party took around $108,000 from a candidate and still endorsed in that race. At the very least, that is an appearance of impropriety. At worst, it looks like absolutely unethical backdoor dealing.
My opinion: It is disgusting and extremely messed up that Dave Brock didn’t have the wherewithal to not endorse in that race.
Good candidates have been pushed out of races. People have been threatened with their reputation and standing in the party if they run, or if they do not drop out, or if they get in the way of what certain people want. I even heard that a female candidate was told they would win if they showed more skin.
The party is financially weak. The fundraising efforts have failed. Even after hiring Sherrod Brown’s own fundraiser, the party has not made the kind of fundraising inroads it should have made. The chair is now paid a salary, guaranteed for another four years, but the party still does not look financially sustainable in the way it should.
And certain neighborhoods have basically been abandoned.
Then, just like Graham Platner, the party is allowing other candidates to become an obvious future problem.
Nicole Sigurdson is running in a district with one of the largest Jewish populations in the state. She has made comments on social media that Jewish voters have every right to find offensive. She has pleaded ignorance. And she was endorsed by the Cuyahoga Democratic Party.
Either she was absolutely ignorant of what she was saying, which makes her unqualified to represent that district, or she knew what she was saying, which also makes her unqualified.
Trust me, she is going to be an issue. Ineffective at best. Incompetent at worst.
So yes, we are going to double down.
We are going to keep writing The Angry Ohioans. We are going to keep examining candidates. We are going to keep calling out every side. We are going to keep talking about transparency.
Because we are way past “vote blue no matter who.”
We are way past pretending this cabal, this power structure, this influence network, this corruption, this insider baseball, this backdoor trading, this behind-the-scenes nonsense is just normal.
It is ruining our party.
It is ruining Northeast Ohio.
It is hurting people’s lives.
It is failing to provide the services people need.
It is milking and squeezing regular people until they cannot take it anymore.
And nobody seems to care.
We care. And you, the readers, care.