Monday, September 03, 2007

Alex v. Kevin: Where's Alex? and Other Questions UPDATED

I've been trying to keep up with the latest salvos in the battle between Republican Chair Alex Arshinkoff and insurgent Senator Kevin Coughlin. Team Couglin has a few new bits of info in their website -- a few new minor officials who have signed on and a Labor Day rant about party finances.

Team Alex, on the other hand, has apparently retreated from the internet. Keep Summit Republicans Strong dot blogspot has disappeared from blogger (and interestingly, Google doesn't appear to cache deleted blogs.) It makes sense that the party establishment doesn't want to conduct a public pie fight and, face it, Alex isn't so much a grassroots/netroots kind of guy.

Meanwhile one of my correspondents has raised an intriguing questions. At some point the RCCC will presumably recruit a candidate to run against Rep. Betty Sutton. As much as the district is drawn for a Democrat, it's hard to believe they would just let a freshman Representative go unchallenged. But in fact R-trip will be mounting token opposition. Coughlin, on the other hand, has argued for going hard at every seat. If he succeeds in unseating Alex, if his guy is Chair, how strongly will the party the candidate in Ohio 13?

UPDATES: The pro-A2 blog is back up with new content. They've written up a flip-flop accusation and reproduced the Couglin part of Mark Naymik's satirical column. Memo to team Arshinkoff -- quoting without linking is serious bad form. Also, Ben Keeler has an interview with Coughlin up.

Finally, if you aren't following the comments to these posts, you should be. I pretty much just whack the hornets nest than backpedal to a safe distance to watch the chaos. Check below and you will see an Arshinkoff anonymouse accusing Coughlin of setting himself up to take down LaTourette and a response from Team Coughlin under the name Arshinsqellic. Classic.

8 comments:

Ben said...

I noticed their site was down as well. I was trying to contact them to get a few simple answers and I cant find contact info. I am not going to hunt it down either.

Anonymous said...

The site is up and running. They had some glitch on their web address:

Try: http://keepsummitcountyrepublicansstrong.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Goodie, its back up. Now we can all tune into Amateur Hour again.

Anonymous said...

Pho - You got it wrong - the whole issue is LaTourette's House Seat - Kevin told another State Senator he wants Alex out "So his Party Chairman will support him in his run against LaTourette in the 2010 Republican House primary."

He's gone so far as to tell other elected officials that LaTouretts isn't running and that it will be an open seat. LaTourette's folks have already said LaTourette is running for re-election in 2010 and are fuming that Kevin's trying to creat a primary challenge for them.

Anonymous said...

Hey Alex, peddle that stuff somewhere else. That whopper is wwaaayyyyy off.

Yes, Coughlin would consider running for the 14th, but ONLY if LaTourette left it open. Coughlin's already had that conversation with LaTourette, so quit with the divide and conquer crap.

Amateur league...

Anonymous said...

Divide and conquer is Kevin's entire goal. Shadow army and all. Majority of one. Maybe he ought to try doing his day job for which the taxpayers pay him handsomely.

A Nonny Mouse said...

Geeeeesh, guys ... there are important tasks to be tackled. Duke it out and get back to work already.

Anonymous said...

Some people just love to make things totally up. Fat Al, Kevin does not have the 14th in mind at all but first things are first and it is YOU. Your days of srcewing people are soon to be over and hope like heck the FBI is not looking for you after they get done with Masich. Credit card receipts are being looked at and write offs are as well and your methods will be dilligently looked at. What we as the Gut of the Republican party had better hope is that what ever the Feds find out does not hit the press before the 2008 election or it will be over for a long time to come, also do the conservative base in the Republican party know we have a Fouler/Craig knockoff? If they don't we had better clean out the closet before the MSM does and quick.