TDB: Ohio Republican Party Goes to War With Itself, Leaving 2016 in Doubt

[OmahaBlueDog]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/04/ohio-republican-party-goes-to-war-with-itself-leaving-2016-in-doubt.html

So goes Ohio, so goes the nation.

At least that’s how every presidential election has gone since 1964, as both Democrats and Republicans have fiercely fought over this purplest of the purple states before it sided with the eventual winner.

But as Republicans look to take back the White House in 2016, the Buckeye State does not appear to be cooperating. Instead, Republicans in Ohio have slipped into an all out civil war, with a Tea Party faction threatening to break away from the GOP machinery.

Their complaints? A Republican senator, Rob Portman, after campaigning last year on his support for marriage between a man and a woman, abruptly reversed course once his son came out as gay. A Republican governor, John Kasich, pushed to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, despite remaining a vocal supporter of repealing the entire bill. An executive director of the Ohio Republican Party, elected after a bitter intra-party dispute, once worked as a lobbyist for Equality Ohio, a gay-rights group formed after the state voted to outlaw same-sex marriage. And never mind that House Speaker John Boehner, long a scourge of Tea Party types, is also an Ohioan, representing a southwest slice of the state.

[bluestate10]

1. Where do I send gasoline to throw on that fire? nt

[FSogol]

2. +1 n/t