The Roger Reynolds Story: Politcal Revenge is a target rich environment

I supported Roger Reynolds, the old Butler County Auditor, when it wasn’t cool to do so.  And I must remind everyone that the story initially broke when Fox 19 in Cincinnati, Ohio, was looking to do a hit piece against the Republican Party of Butler County that started the whole mess.  So don’t be so surprised that they carried Roger’s story about a bloody dispute with the very popular Sheriff Jones and State Attorney General David Yost.  I get where Roger is; he wants to clear his name of any wrongdoing.  He wants to be back in politics.  I get the hurt feelings.  Many people did terrible things to each other, and the abuse of power that was on display is embarrassing and gives politics a bad name.  When David Yost, with the help of Sheriff Jones, tried to put Roger in jail for an improper interest in a public contract, we all knew that there was a lot more going on, and Roger found himself outside of a political party looking to cut him out of it.  And I was there for Roger in the worst of that.  But he wants revenge; they almost put him in jail and cost him a fortune to defend himself in court.  But changing people for who they are just isn’t going to happen.  If you want to be in politics, then you have to beat your enemies in politics, and don’t turn toward the courts, which those in power control, to do your business.  Get back on the horse, ride it, and play politics the way the game is played. 

But as far as I’m concerned, this story ended when Roger was cleared of wrongdoing in the courts.  No political apparatus should be able to destroy other people with the court system, but we’ve seen several instances of that happening in Butler County over the last couple of years, and it wasn’t good on any measure.  But crying about its unfairness and hoping that public sentiment will restore your good fortune is not the way to solve these problems.  And spitting in the face of people who were most supportive of you along the way is a good way to make political enemies.  And by how things work, Roger Reynolds has made himself a political enemy to my way of thinking because of his actions in the wake of this mess, so he’s not doing himself any favors.  Regarding Butler County politics, from my perspective, if you get sideways with Nancy Nix, the new auditor, then I won’t have a lot of sympathy for you.  Nancy, I think, is what all politicians should aspire to be.  She’s a sincerely good person in a very cutthroat profession, and she manages to still be very good at her job.  And she is doing a great job in Butler County as she moved to fill in that auditor seat that Roger had to vacate due to the criminal prosecutions he had to endure.  Roger went immediately to try to get his old job back, which would have been damaging to Nancy Nix personally and the team she has built at the auditor’s office, to make Roger happy, and that’s not a good way to go about things.  And in the upcoming elections, Roger wants to either run against Nancy for his old job back, which puts him against the person who went to court for him in a supporting role and helped him get back on his feet during all this, and was a very loyal friend until he turned on her after these court proceedings.  Or he wants to run for Butler County Commissioner, which will put him against Michael Ryan, the person I have already endorsed, so that will make it so I have to campaign against Roger, which won’t be a good thing for anybody. 

But don’t think that the media of Fox 19 and Channel 5 with Karen Johnson are suddenly pro Roger Reynolds.  I was surprised they picked up his story where he did his article on what had happened to him.  I had done it before for him over the past couple of years and talked about who did what to whom.  But this was the mainstream media getting Roger’s story out from his own lips, which they caused to happen in the first place.  So they aren’t suddenly anybody’s friends.  They are the same malcontents that they always were.  But they see blood in the water of Butler County politics, and if they can use Roger to harm Sheriff Jones, or David Yost, they will undoubtedly do it, and they did during the first week of April of 2025.  I read Roger’s story about the political hit job against him, where he named names and got specific.  But to what end?  Sheriff Jones is getting up there in age and has been vulnerable, especially in this last election season, where he didn’t get a warm endorsement from the Central Committee, because of stories like this one.  He’s good with the immigration issue now that Trump is back in office, and I agree with him on many things.  But politically, if Roger wanted to be a tough guy, he’d go right for the horse and not turn on his once very good friend, Nancy Nix, for his political comeback. 

Then there is Attorney General David Yost.  He wants to run for Governor against Vivek Ramaswamy, the Trump-endorsed candidate.  Yost is very vulnerable to having his entire political career destroyed, especially after what he did to Roger.  If I wanted revenge by the game of politics, you attack where people most want to be, and that is where he should focus.  They are trying to get Roger back in the ring as opposition who wish to divide up whatever party unity has been built now that Trump has been re-elected.  He is only hurting himself by splitting the party into either supporting him over Nancy Nix, or attacking a good commissioner candidate, which would drain away votes for both of them, opening the door for a third-party Christian conservative to win with their typical 35 to 40%.  Meanwhile, these liberal media hacks, like Karen Johnson and Fox 19 in general, get what they want: a damaged Republican Party.  So that’s why I didn’t pick up the phone immediately when Roger called with his story.  I wasn’t ignoring him.  I like him still.  I’ve even met with him a few times to see if there was a way I could help him out.  But once he got sideways with Nancy Nix, that’s the line for me.  And that’s a shame, because if he wants to get tough in politics, we are dealing with a target-rich environment.  And if you wish to take revenge, there are many political ways to get it.  But we all know how politics works, you have to build teams.  You don’t destroy them.  And the media coverage of his story wasn’t for his benefit.  It was to harm the Republican Party using him as the vehicle to do it.  And if you don’t love the Party for what it can do for people, then why do anything?  And why destroy friendships that were very real?  Nancy Nix could only harm herself by going to court to support Roger during all this.  But she did it because she’s the real deal and didn’t want to see something terrible happen to her friend.  And that friend turned against her because he didn’t want to go after the bigger fish that brought him harm in the first place, which does not come out well in a primary consideration, that could become bloody for no good reason.  In these kinds of things, you have to fight the right fight, not the one that you think is easiest, and turning on friends isn’t very enduring.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707