After months of speculation, Gov. Mike DeWine announced that Jon Husted was his pick to be the next U.S. Senator from Ohio. Of course, Husted is replacing short-timer J.D. Vance, who job-hopped into the Vice Presidency.
In accepting the appointment, Jon Husted got a bit emotional about leaving his job as lieutenant governor and, perhaps at least temporarily, giving up his dream of becoming governor. However, he said he's excited to head to Washington.
What's amazing is how long this process took. Husted was not on the early, albeit speculative, lists of potential senators. That list included former Republican Chair Jane Timken, former State Senator Matt Dolan, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, and at the end, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's name emerged, even though he said in the fall that he was not interested.
Let the speculation begin as to who will replace Husted as lieutenant governor. DeWine is accepting resumes and surfing LinkedIn as we speak.
Snollygoster of the week
The leader of Ohio's Republican Party recently said publicly what most strongly suspected. Alex Triantafilou, the Ohio Republican Party chairman, told a party meeting in northern Ohio that they did their job campaigning to defeat the redistricting amendment - they confused voters.
He said, "Confusing voters was not such a bad thing."
In case you forgot, opponents of the current system, which has produced gerrymandered districts, said the amendment would force lawmakers to create fair districts. And unless you were paying close attention, it was confusing to many voters.
They were also swayed by President Trump's calls to vote no on the amendment, and Issue 1 went down to defeat.
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