So, why Michael Ryan over the other two people running for the same Butler County Commissioner seat?  Well, a nice walk down High Street in Hamilton, Ohio, makes it all very clear.  Cindy Carpenter is the incumbent in this race, and she has held that seat for about 15 years.  The other is Roger Reynolds, who used to be the auditor of Butler County.  Before getting into any of the negative stuff, let’s just say that Michael Ryan is a good fresh start for the Butler County Republican Party, and he is coming into the race highly endorsed by a lot of very important people.  And he has great donors who are supporting him early in this process, which was quite evident at his October fundraiser.  Michael Ryan doesn’t have any baggage; he and his wife are a really good couple, and what he has done as vice-mayor of Hamilton has been very enterprising.  The good job that he and the city council have done for Hamilton is obvious just by walking down the streets of the West Side.  I was born in Hamilton.  I’ve lived in and around it most of my life.  And I have traveled all over the world and have an excellent idea of what good is, and the Hamilton of today is fantastic.  And Michael Ryan has a lot to do with its recovery from a not-so-good place.  Ryan has been optimistic and shown a remarkable ability to work with others to make things that seem impossible happen.  And there really aren’t many people anywhere better for the Butler County Commissioner job than Michael Ryan.  Butler County is lucky to have him, and I think he could do great things for the County over the next decade. I’m very excited to vote for him. 

But why not Cindy Carpenter?  Well, Cindy has always been thought of as a RINO.  Most of the time, she has run unopposed.  She has been a yes vote on police budgets.  But she has essentially been a Democrat socially, and recently proved it by campaigning for the Democrat mayor of Middletown, Ohio, Elizabeth Slamka.  Cindy was caught at a voting location openly pushing for the Democrat, and it was all caught on camera, which was very embarrassing for her.  Of course, when Cindy was caught, there wasn’t much she could say; she was the Republican endorsed candidate openly pushing for a Democrat mayor in a town that needs a lot of help, Middletown.  Simply put, after all these years, that’s the best Cindy can do, and she will never be a spectacular success.  She has had her chance; we know what she is, and we know she supports Democrats and doesn’t respect the endorsement process.  It’s not like the Elizabeth Slamka issue was in the past; it was very recent, and I think it ruined her forever.  She’ll never be able to live it down.  We’re in a period of party politics that wants more MAGA representatives, and Cindy isn’t one of them.  She’s too much of the kind of politics that people want to run away from.  Not to sign up for another term, especially when they openly support Democrats who have proven to be really detrimental to cities and counties where they gain a majority.  Hamilton didn’t improve because of people like Cindy Carpenter.  It improved despite her.  Michael Ryan gets much of the credit, and we want a lot more of his kind of presence.  I’m sure Ryan will support police budgets, even as tax cuts become a higher priority for him.  In a one-for-one comparison, all the positives go to Michael Ryan, and there are none for Cindy Carpenter.  She did her thing, it wasn’t perfect, and she is a closet Democrat.  So let’s dump her and move on to someone better.

The other candidate is someone I’ve supported in the past.  I would have preferred that he not run until he got his life back together after a rough trial he just went through, which cost him well over a million dollars.  I was very supportive of him during all that, so people are wondering why I’m not supporting him for commissioner.  Well, through the trial, I got to know him better.  I’ve known him for a long time, and I like him.  But he tends to get combative with people, and you learn a lot about them by how they handle pressure.  And under pressure, Roger Reynolds showed he’s someone people want to fight.  And that’s how he ended up in court to begin with.  As a commissioner, you need to be able to work with people and build relationships.  And Roger has a hard time with relationships.  So I might like the guy.  But he’s not ready for a public office.  He has had relationship problems with his wives, and in my book, if you can’t handle a marriage, you are going to struggle with a lot of other things in your life.  And after listening to the testimony of the former Lakota treasurer, Jenni Logan, there was a lot of poor judgment that gave early indications of spousal commitments.  Most of those are private problems, but he’s the one who decided to run for office, even though there are a lot of red flags about him personally that have only muddied this race for what I think are really selfish reasons. 

I would have said the same thing about President Trump’s marriages, and it took me a while to start taking him seriously.  I’ve met Trump several times, especially during the early Tea Party and Reform Party years.  And I’ve met Melania Trump, too, and I’ll say she’s been good for Trump and has made him better for the public office he’s now doing so well in.  Maybe Roger will find someone who will help him improve as a person, like Trump did.  But right now, he has a lot of digging to do to get out of a hole he put himself in.  And, unfortunately, he is seeking redemption through public office, even though a much better person is running for the job.  Roger is damaged goods, and he needs to present himself undamaged.  And it’s not just marriages that Roger has destroyed.  He has relationship problems, which raise major red flags for a job like this commissioner position.  Again, Roger has been around for a long time, and everyone knows what they are getting.  He’s not going to do anything significant.  But Michael Ryan has a chance to, so it’s really not a hard decision for voters.  Because of the way the world is changing toward better MAGA options at these positions, Michael Ryan is the only reasonable choice.  That’s why I am happy to support him over these other candidates.  If Roger wants to return to public office, he needs to fix some things about himself first.  Seeking redemption by voter validation isn’t healthy.  And Butler County needs to do good things for itself, not provide a platform for personal growth at the expense of progress.  And that is what anybody but Michael Ryan would be for the Republican Party, Hamilton, Ohio, in general, and Butler County as a whole.  People deserve the best person for the office, and for me, nobody would be better than Michael Ryan.     

Rich Hoffman

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