Category: George Lang

I Support George Lang Emphatically for Senate in the 4th District of Ohio: Staying strong under intense fire in 2024

With George Lang’s term as an Ohio senator coming up this year, he’s up for re-election in 2024, I happily endorse him for another term.  George Lang has done a great job in the 4th District of Ohio, and I wish every politician were like him.  If they were, we’d be a lot better off as a country.  Yet, many people, especially my readers, have developed a healthy distrust of politicians of all kinds, and I know many wonder why I like George Lang so much, even though he is considered a mainstream politician.  After all, Candace Keller had filed to run against George, which she had done before when it was for a representative seat, and the campaign took a turn for the worse in the mudslinging.  I personally like Candice, her husband, and her family.  I tend to get along best in the world with people like her.  On most things, our politics are very much aligned.  But because she has filed and intends to run against George, I must talk about a few things as to why I am such a supporter of the very powerful senator for the 4th District and explain why he’s not a RINO as is so common a designation for a mainstream politician.  While I am certainly no fan of RINOs, I must set the record straight going into this election year as to why I have always supported George, which sometimes mystifies people.  But from my perspective, it’s an easy decision, because George Lang is a very good person from the ground up and I have known that side of him for a very long time now, around 15 years.  And he’s very much the same person now that I have known all that time, which brings to mind three examples that would put some rationality behind the decision-making process.

Yes, George Lang associates with compelling people and has for many years; John Boehner comes to mind as he was marching toward the Speaker of the House role in Congress.  Along the way, George and I formed a friendship as fellow Tea Party members who were very upset by the direction Barack Obama was taking our country, which goes all the way back to 2009.  Well, all this was before President Trump came along, but in 2012, I had a significant negative news story designed to push everyone away from me.  I was okay with it, but there were a lot of Judas types who were perfectly willing to kiss my cheek in public to be thrown to the wolves, to say it nicely.  We had an event in the back room of a local LaRosa’s restaurant to rally support for me in the wake of intense fire.  Guess who stood with me under the fierce fire in public.  There is a picture of us all at this event, but guess who took the picture?  George Lang came, probably on the same afternoon he was having lunch with John Boehner, Speaker of the House at the time.  My name was all over the media, on all the primary sources so he had a lot to lose.  But he came anyway and was even willing to be in the picture.  It was my suggestion that he take the picture and that we keep him out of it.  So we took the picture, and I learned a lot about George Lang that day, which has lasted for over a decade.  He’s the real deal and he will stand with you under intense fire.  He had much to lose being associated with me, especially by the donors.  But as I have seen many more times than once, George is strongly inclined to do the right things, especially under great fire.

I can also say that I have seen George work with Governor DeWine with the door closed and the pressure very hot.  My thoughts on any management, especially politics, is that you get much more done with the door shut than with dueling press conferences.  And George has been highly influential in these kinds of meetings. A lot goes on in the senate in Columbus, Ohio, that has George Lang’s name all over it, but he never seeks the credit.  And I’ve witnessed it several times personally with Governor DeWine, where just a few people were in the room, and George had to make his point.  These are no powder puff conversations; George is stern when he needs to be and knows what to say and when.  And as professionals should be, George and the Governor were able to shake hands and get things done at the end of the conversation.  I would point to the recent flip-flop by DeWine on the transgender surgery ban for kids as one such example.  DeWine does listen to people when he steps in it.  And George has been one who can shut the door and talk to him without compromising who he is politically.  This is a skill that many people never develop in their lives.  It comes easily to George.  Many people in his position get washed away by the giant waves when you spend time with some of these prominent personalities; it’s easy to happen.  But George can play at a very high level and never lose himself in becoming a RINO.

George has such an excellent personal foundation and can do the things I am talking about because he sincerely loves his wife.  I have known that side of them, and I can say that one of the reasons George and I have maintained a friendship all this time is because he has a great relationship with his wife, which I respect.  I don’t know many people who love their wives and kids like George Lang.  And it has been my observation that this is the key to George’s success.  When you can love a spouse the way George does of his wife Debbie and your kids the way he does, then you can love your country, your political party, your Constitution, your commitment to business, everything with that strong foundation.  And that’s ultimately why I like George so much.  I know a lot of politicians, but I don’t know of many who have such strong foundations as George Lang does.  If you can love a wife the way he does her, and she does him, then you are doing something fundamentally right at the start.  And that can then translate into many good things you do in life.  So, when it comes to other politicians, it may not be their fault that they aren’t as skilled as George Lang is.  And people frustrated that they don’t have those skills might assume that he possesses some voodoo magic in his associations with the very powerful.  But I know him very personally and know that his secret sauce is the love of his family, which allows him to play big ball without losing himself along the way.  Because at the end of the day, no matter what happens, he has his family, which is really all George wants in life.  And that makes him very good as a senator and someone we are lucky to have in the 4th District in Ohio.  I wish we could have him forever, but for now, at least one more term.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Endorse Bernie Mareno for Ohio Senate: The necessity of Defeating the radical Democrat Sherrod Brown

I had been thinking about Frank LaRose for the next senate seat in Ohio, where Sherrod Brown, the long-time extremely progressive Democrat, is vulnerable.  There are three Republicans looking to take a shot at taking on Sherrod Brown, and because he was Secretary of State and I knew the most about him, Frank was well positioned to defeat Sherrod Brown, which will be a tough job under optimal conditions.  I remember how tough it was when another person I supported, Jim Renacci, tried to do it a few years back but fell short.  Jim left some opportunities on the table, so this has been cooking in the background for quite a while.  Winning this seat would significantly impact the balance in the Senate from Democrat control to Republican.  But it needs to be a good Republican, and there was an upgrade when Rob Portman stepped down and J.D. Vance won that seat opposite Sherrod Brown.  Rob Portman had essentially become a Democrat, and between him and Sherrod Brown, Ohio was not being represented in the federal Senate with conservative values.  So, this next chance at Sherrod Brown was critical, and I thought only Frank had a chance.  The other guy running is another person I have met a few times, Matt Dolan.  He’s a good guy, but he’s a traditional country club Republican who doesn’t think much of Trump supporters, and nobody is going to win anything in Ohio if they don’t have the Trump base.  Plus Matt is one of the owners of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team in Cleveland and people haven’t forgotten how he caved to woke pressure to change the name from the Indians, which people miss.  So he is damaged goods.  Then there was this guy Bernie Mareno, who I didn’t know much about until I met him at a fundraiser for Nancy Nix.

I was surprised that Nancy Nix had already come out in favor of Bernie at that point.  But the special election in August hadn’t happened yet, and the loss on Issue 1 essentially damaged Frank LaRose for the foreseeable future.  And I couldn’t help but think how funny Bernie Mareno was at that event, which featured comedians for entertainment. That was quite a nice touch by Nancy.  Nancy usually has a great sense of people in politics, so I pay attention to who she supports and why, and suddenly, Bernie Mareno looked a lot better for that senate seat.  So, I was already leaning in the direction of Bernie when I had a chance to have lunch with him and get to know him better.  And I’m glad I did because there are things I learned that I wouldn’t have otherwise come to know about him personally, which makes him to me an emphatic yes on an endorsement. Bernie Mareno is undoubtedly the best Republican to take on Sherrod Brown, and after hearing from his team, they have the best game plan I have heard yet for taking down the long-time Democrat.  Bernie was good on all the conservative boxes, great on Ukraine support, great on business first in Ohio, and great on MAGA positions.  He has been a successful businessperson, so he has an independence that I find very valuable in political figures.  After spending some time with Bernie it was clear to me why Nancy came out so early in endorsing him.  Bernie was likable, brilliant, and getting into politics for all the right reasons.  Essentially, and I understand completely, he’s at a place where he has been very successful and wants to leave the country in good hands to the next generation. 

Unlike Frank LaRose, who is now damaged goods politically because of the Issue 1 failure, and Matt Dolan, who does not like Trump supporters and is best known for changing his name under woke pressure, Bernie Mareno is a well-connected fresh face.  He has a great relationship with J.D. Vance, the current senator.  I had met J.D. under similar circumstances in the backyard of Nancy Nix, by her pool, ironically.  So, it has been interesting to watch this new generation of politicians emerge and build a new teamwork network.  And Bernie is undoubtedly part of that because with J.D. Vance also comes relationships with the Trump family, especially Don Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle.  Bernie also told me that he had formal endorsements from Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA, so these were all great things, and there are many more to come.  Bernie Mareno had quietly put together all the pieces for a successful run against Sherrod Brown that he would need, which certainly consolidated the Trump MAGA base in Ohio without ostracizing all the other degrees of Republicans along the way, which can be a tricky balance.  And he’s full-time committed to running for this seat, which means a lot of leg work across Ohio, which he has already been utilizing, with a lot more work to do.  But it’s a tough job, even with great endorsements, and one obvious thing was that Bernie Mareno was a hard worker who was faith-based.  We talked about God and moral perspective on the Washington D.C. culture, which he was great at.  And he had the right mindset for what it would take and the energy to put it all to work. 

I endorse Bernie Mareno for the Ohio Senate seat.  I would give it based on what I know about Bernie himself.  All the other good stuff is just reassurance.  To beat Sherrod Brown, you must be able to tap into his union support in the northeast, and only the Trump base can do that with the percentages needed.  There are a lot of union people who support Trump and are willing to vote for Republicans on anything, so long as Trump is part of the story.  Then, of course, the rest of the puzzle is that Bernie will have to perform with significant margins in the southwest.  Only Bernie has a chance at any of this.  I worry about Frank being stubborn and not repairing his brand before another run because he could easily make himself a future Ron DeSantis.  You lose a lot of political capital when you suffer a loss, and Frank needs to be part of some wins before he attempts anything like a state race again.  And, of course, the MAGA base won’t turn out for Dolan, and at this stage, there is no way to be who he isn’t.  Dolan will get soft support and nothing better, and that won’t peel away any votes from Sherrod Brown.  Only Bernie Mareno has a plan and personality to pull that off, which is exciting.  I’ve heard a lot of happy talk over the years about taking on Sherrod Brown, but nobody has had the gas in the tank to do it.  Bernie Mareno does.  And I’m looking forward to watching it happen over the coming race.  Replacing Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown with J.D. Vance and now Bernie Mareno would be excellent for Republican politics and change the face of the Senate into a much more conservative body of representative government.  And it is what Ohio deserves after several long years of the wrong people representing us.  We all deserve better, and Bernie Mareno is what we should have had all along. 

Rich Hoffman

Isaac Adi Loses His Man Card: Despite modern woke rules, people are still people

So they have drug Judge Lyons into all this? I love the Judge, and there he was in court serving as the stooge for a failed political figure, as Lynda is calling in all the favors, hoping to turn back the tides of reality like some crazy old woman seeks the fountain of youth before the grip of old age seals her doom. These political gymnastics can’t hide the terrible report card at Lakota. Lynda was in charge, and it’s on her, which will be the subject of tomorrow. But for now, man cards are still crucial in the world, despite the attempt to use new woke rules to remove such judgments from society. Men and women still have expectations from each other that have been relevant for many thousands of years, even millions. And that was something an old friend of mine, who ran WLW radio then, used to enjoy during his Saturday radio show from 9 a.m. until 11. Back before there was ever a YouTube, through the Obama first term, I used to do a lot of talk radio all over the country, and I had a good relationship, especially with Clear Channel Radio, who ran WLW, specifically through Darryl Parks when he was the big man at the station, setting all their programming priorities. He and I had similar politics, so I was a frequent guest with him and many other Marconi award-winning personalities, and we had a good time having fun with forbidden early woke social rules. It would be woke politics that would have Clear Channel remove most of the conservative talent (Bill Cunningham is not a real conservative; he only plays one on the radio), and Parks eventually lost his title. But while he had it, we had a lot of fun and did a lot of good radio making fun of ridiculous things, such as woke policies, well before anybody even knew what they were. We would often exploit that trait on his radio show, and one of the most popular mechanisms we would employ was removing people’s man cards when they showed weak behavior in a public setting, especially men who were not standing up for traditional masculine attributes. We would talk about them on the air during his show to hundreds of thousands of people and remove their man cards as a shame for their lack of courage and strength when it was needed most.

So in that fabulous and influential tradition, we must bring back the removal of man cards when they show they do not deserve them, and that is certainly the case with Isaac Adi, the Lakota school board member who attempted to have court protection from fellow school board member, Darbi Boddy.  He and Darbi were at a conference in Florida and had several arguments, which isn’t unusual.  They ran for school board together and have turned out to be quite different politically.  It didn’t look that way at first, but since Isaac won his seat, he has essentially become much more liberal, whereas Darbi is still the conservative mom that she ran herself as.  But unlike regular politicians, Darbi didn’t say one thing and then show herself to be something else.  And that is what the establishment types call a lack of “professionalism” when politicians do what they say they will do with the naive assumption that they might be able to change anything. For most politicians, you throw populist opinions to the public to get them to vote for you.  Then you say other things to those who donate money to political campaigns.  But when you are in executive session with other politicians, you are all friends; you talk about Bill’s cat and Sarah’s new dress, and no matter who they are, Republicans and Democrats, you enjoy a kind of silent membership to the club.  Darbi was always the same person: the campaign Darbi, the fundraising Darbi, and the daily school board member.  So when efforts were led by Lynda O’Conner, a supposed conservative school board member, to get control of these two new school board members a few years ago, Isaac and Darbi, only Isaac listened.  Darbi remained independently conservative, and since then, Isaac and Darbi have had a very contentious relationship, and they argue frequently for obvious reasons. If it’s anybody’s fault for destroying their relationship, it’s Lynda O’Conner who did it.

According to court testimony on September 15, 2023, because of this incident, Isaac was admitted to a hospital for two nights and three days, and he had a medical bill as evidence. That says everything.

But the only time they’ve been violent, that type of thing was initiated by Isaac. At least two times, I know where Isaac has punched at cameras recording him, and it was women holding those cameras. Isaac has a temper and has expressed it openly. He likes to be in control, and when he feels he’s losing control, he turns to physical aggression. I never thought it was a big deal, but under the definition of harassment that he expressed to a court on September 15th, 2023, then the smeller is the feller in this case. He’s the guy in the elevator passing gas and then looking at everyone else as if it were their fault. So it is ironic that after that Florida trip for school board business, he went to the courts to file a petition against Darbi, citing that he did not feel safe around her and that she had been “bullying” him. And that she carries a gun and he doesn’t feel “safe.” Jiminy Christmas, that is not how men talk! I understand that Darbi is tough, and she has a powerful personality. I have been to the firing range with her and her husband, and I can report that she does know how to handle herself with a gun. But what world is Isaac living in? Everyone carries a weapon, or at least they should. It’s like saying that a woman has earrings. Carrying guns is a common social enterprise, so it should not have been a big deal to Isaac. But he went to the courts to seek protection from her, which was pretty embarrassing, and he felt he needed to. The judge denied the request, as should have been understood from the start. Isaac failed to present evidence that an ex parte order is necessary for his safety and protection from imminent danger.

They should have never tried to knock Darbi off the school board. They just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper.

All that might be fine in the legal world of court talk and political discourse.  And to say it’s a dysfunctional relationship doesn’t go deep enough to the true heart of the matter.  What is the purpose of these frequent confrontations?  It comes down to acceptance of honest public discourse, and what I find valuable about Darbi is that as a genuine representative of the community and an unpolished political figure, she is a good gauge of how people feel in the district.  Yet the political trend is to be one way in public and another in private, which is an inherently dishonest position, and that understanding has led to healthy conflict.  But if you are a man, you don’t run to the courts looking for protection, for the “state” to protect you.  You handle your battles and don’t seek government help to resolve them.  That is why Isaac Adi must lose his man card.  By the woke rules of the modern world, it’s OK for men to cry and be emotional.  And to be afraid of guns.  But by the fundamental laws of manhood, those are all reprehensible traits that women classicly find destructive and unattractive.  And I think Darbi’s primary source of disappointment, knowing her pretty well as I do, is that Isaac has shown himself to be everything but the kind and conservative person she ran with on the campaign.  Darbi never wanted to be a political figure in the traditional sense.  She just wanted to be on the school board to help kids get access to a better life.  And she has had no desire to become what Isaac has, and that anger spills over into their conversations.  The Lakota school board’s dysfunction started when Isaac attempted to remove Darbi from the school board with many other hostile people, led by Lynda O’Conner, literally the moment that Darbi gave her the critical vote to make her president.  So, who in their right mind would expect Darbi to get along with them at this late date or that she’d want to join hands under a banner of peace now?  She can only hope that she gets more people on the school board who are better representatives of the community to work with, and until then, she is just holding her nose, like many people are.  But compromising with people without integrity is not an option, or dealing with people who have lost their man cards. 

Rich Hoffman

Isaac Adi Gets Violent Again: An Interview with Darbi Boddy

It has been interesting to watch the trajectory of two school board officeholders who essentially started at the same place but took two different paths upon being elected to satisfy the parameters of accomplishment. Obviously, there is more to the conflict this past week between Isaac Adi and Darbi Boddy on the Lakota school board, where the police investigated a condition of assault, where Isaac, yet again under pressure, lashed out at someone trying to record his public behavior. Darbi is a tough young lady who can handle conflicts just fine. But what’s interesting is how RINOs are created because once elected, Isaac went into an appeasement mode of the very kind of people he was supposed to be engaging with, whereas Darbi has stayed faithful to her campaign promises. I talked to Darbi about all this while we were both at a March for Children rally in downtown Hamilton, Ohio. Darbi never advertised herself as anything but a fighter for children’s rights, whereas the same was expected from Isaac. But once elected, what was witnessed was an instant barrage of influencers who often inject themselves into the newly elected person’s life, and the temptation to appease these new faces is powerful, and most people never develop resistance to it. When I see these clips of Isaac Adi acting violently toward people who put cameras on him to record aggressive behavior, I see that conflict in his actions. Isaac is not alone in this problem. Being authentic has a freedom of its own which was quite apparent when I was able to talk to Darbi on camera about her first few years as a school board member at Lakota. You can see freedom of conscience in her because she has stayed true to herself. But others have not, and that often leads to the kind of obvious frustrations on the face of Isaac Adi in the footage of him lashing out at Darbi.

I worked with both Isaac and Darbi during their campaigns because many of us wanted to help Lynda O’Conner have conservative votes to work with on the Lakota school board. We felt sorry for Lynda and tried to help her. Isaac and Darbi essentially ran together as a package during the campaign, and they won their elections easily. But as soon as the election was over, Lynda started talking about controlling the school board members in ways that didn’t sound very Republican. And immediately, the OSBA (Ohio School Board Association) started to do its work; it’s like a club. They invite new school board members into the warm embrace of friendship, and it doesn’t take much for that type of romance to entice lonely people or people with a natural personality to want to please others. Admittingly, that was a concern I had about Isaac during the campaign; he was so friendly and so outgoing that I was concerned that he would find the desire to appease the other school board members too lucrative when conflict was the best approach. One thing that we did talk about that didn’t make it on camera was Darbi’s support network, with Kelly Kohls at the National Leadership Council (NSBLC), which offers an alternative to the support of the more labor-union-controlled OSBA. Lynda O’Conner and I have talked specifically about the OSBA; she thinks it’s a good organization. I think along the lines of Darbi and Kelly on the matter. But the obvious results are in the influences that led to Darbi doing what voters expected on the Lakota school board and Isaac looking to appease all these new friends, which is the game of politics that happens at every level.

As I explained to Darbi, I am proud of her, as many are. I’ve been doing this kind of thing, supporting candidates in many ways, for many years, and most of the time, it results in a dud. It’s like going to the fireworks store for the Fourth of July and buying a bunch of fireworks that never blow up. You have great expectations, but they just fizzle out when you light the fuse. Whereas with Darbi, she has exploded in all the right ways that were very satisfying and surprising. Every now and then, your hopes and expectations are met, which is the case with Darbi. She was not seduced by all the forces that have taken public education in the wrong direction, and that has been great to see. The ratio for me is about 10 to 1. Of every ten candidates I have worked with over the years, you occasionally get one Darbi. Of course, I knew when such an honest person like Darbi, who simply wanted to do an excellent job as a school board member, confronted a system with so much bad behavior in it, and that bad behavior was hidden from the public through friendships that were designed to conceal it; then there would be conflict. I get emails from people all over the country from people who are political moderates who are jealous that they don’t have someone like Darbi Boddy on their school board. I am very proud of her and would love to have three or four more like her, people who could resist the temptations of group consensus at the expense of voter responsibility.

I brought this up during our talk, how one player for the Reds inspired many others to get better. In many ways, Darbi has been that person for Lakota

We don’t elect people into politics to get along, which is becoming more evident in national politics. We don’t expect physical altercations either, but one of the problems that lead to so much corruption is the appeasement of peers, which is at the heart of the problem at every level. At Lakota, at the fundamental community level, we can see two people who started in the same place and quickly went in entirely different directions. From both perspectives, they had good intentions, yet during our talk, Darbi hit the nail on the head; much of the evil that starts in the world of politics doesn’t come from some pitch-forked devil; it’s often the friendly face who wants to buy you dinner and treat you like a king or princess. Of course, they expect something in return. But it’s often hard to see because it feels good to be liked. Some people will do anything to be liked; once others know that about you, they own you. And at that point, elected representatives often go bad when they fall in love with being loved because, just like a manipulative spouse, once they start jerking around your feelings, you lose the authenticity of why people voted for you in the first place. And at the heart of the conflict between Darbi and Isaac, two people who ran for office together and had been friends, is this villain of appeasement. The lucrative nature of being accepted in the warm embrace of friendship within institutional confinement is a nector all its own. And thankfully, in our community, Darbi didn’t fall for it, much to the frustration of those who wanted to seduce her into it. That’s why people tell me they are jealous of us in Lakota because they see the clear value in elected representatives like Darbi Boddy. The controversy only comes from those who want to steer her in a different direction. But she has stayed with the voters authentically, and people appreciate that, as they do with all people who do so. And with Isaac, it’s frustrating when you can’t please everyone, and that comes out in these outbursts caught on camera twice now. As Darbi said to me, she gets tired of how people talk behind closed doors and speak in public. That duality is the source of the problem because an honest person would be the same in any format. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

DeSantis at the Butler County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner: For 2024, its still Trump, Trump, and more Trump

It’s all about the Constitution. The only trouble these days are governments who violate it unlawfully.

It’s all about the chaos; in fact, the political fights we are fighting are not the ones we think we are, and that has been a harsh reality for the Republican Party. We’re not looking for a fair fight against a battle of ideas but a resolute cage fighter with an addiction to winning and destroying the enemy, which is the key behind the 2024 election. Because the enemy thinks it knows Republicans, and they want them to play by the rules they control. And as long as Democrats and a liberal world order control those rules, they control politics, which is why Republicans have always been on their heels and acting as victims when they hold the majority opinion. It’s been a trick that the political left has utilized against conservatives for most of the last century, and it’s time to put an end to it. And that was obvious at the 2023 Butler County Republican Party Lincoln Dinner at the Savannah Center, where a line of attendees wrapped around the building to see Ron DeSantis speak as the guest. Anthony Munoz was in line behind me, along with many other influencers who came to unite over a nice meal, even though their politics might be spread across the conservative spectrum to various degrees. Everyone intends to have the right ideas about things, but as is often the case in life, there is usually only one correct answer. And finding it can be a painful process with many hurt feelings. But it was good to see many friends gathering together to discover common interests at a fabulous event by many good people. I enjoyed the company, the food, and the atmosphere. But at the end of the evening, as I spoke to everyone I could, the question most asked me was, is it time to consider Ron DeSantis as the Republican nominee for President of the United States? And to that answer, which I gave repeatedly, was an emphatic no.

It’s not that Ron DeSantis and his very sweet wife didn’t present themselves as the best that Republican politics could offer. Ron’s speech was great, it was good to see him in person, and it’s good to see he has a functioning relationship with his wife, who was just fantastic. But this 2024 election isn’t about such good people or policies. It’s about a radical global plot to destroy the dollar and America with it. It’s about massive election fraud controlled by foreign investment and a full push from Chinese communists to take over all commerce in the world under the tutelage of the World Economic Forum. Republicans have underestimated the world’s villains because they think we are still dealing with elections as a domestic matter. But that is not the opinion of the hostile nations of the world who are looking to overthrow America without firing a shot. China has invested in espionage, deceit, election tampering, and undermining cultures from within. That is how they fight, and they have an army of billionaires helping them with their plans, people like Ray Dalio, George Soros, Bill Gates, Larry Fink, and his BlackRock money management firm. We are dealing with some really nasty characters who have invested heavily in the destruction of America, and they expect a return. Canada just was found to have had their elections rigged by China tampering. The same certainly was the case recently in Brazil. The pattern for China is to support some beat-up old man who is compromised and would otherwise be in jail and have them loyal to whoever puts them in power. That’s certainly the case with Biden in America. And that is obvious in Brazil with Lula (Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva). That communist insurgent was in jail, and they let him out to run for president. The election fraud system in key districts did the rest of the work. 

As I moved around the room after the DeSantis speech, I was genuinely happy to see around 50 to 60 different people I have a long history with who greeted me with lots of hugs and fist bumps. It had been challenging in Butler County; not everyone has the same conservative commitment and understanding level. But we treated each other with respect, which was really good to see, even with people I had been sideways with in a big way during 2022. But I was concerned as I talked to them, and they were still elated with Ron’s speech. I told them I hated to see Ron DeSantis ruin his brand in a conflict with Trump when the real enemy was foreign investment into America, not just at the banking level but our election system. Trump was the only one who could run in 2024 because he was the only one willing to tackle the real problem, but he had the financial incentive actually to perform the task. And if DeSantis got caught in the crossfire, it would ruin him for 2028 and 2032. I kept saying to everyone that Republicans need a ten-year plan, not just to be looking at 2024. America is literally under attack, and this was no time for happy talk about reaching across the aisle to Democrats. Democrats, at this point, are assets of Chinese aggression, they are communists, and they want that for America, and we have to deal with them in that fashion, with the same vigor that we approach the trans issues in public schools and the destruction of our children with CRT learning. This is not a time for middle-ground politics.

I thought it was great that we could have had some of the debates in the Republican Party and still shake hands at the end of it and, in many cases, exchange a warm embrace. And after 2024, that will be the case in national politics, and I really want Ron DeSantis to have a place in it. But first, the rest of the country needs to see what authentic leadership is at the governor’s level. States need better governors; they need to focus on good, conservative secretaries of state. And they need to get control of their elections, especially in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. As long as massive election fraud is a way of life in Milwaukee, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia, the election fraud network, which is controlled by Chinese infiltration and money, will not allow a Republican in the White House. That is the actual fight, and as of this election, the only way to beat the cheat is with a Republican who can generate over 75 million votes on election day. And it’s not suburban moms who are going to get Republicans there. It’s the beer drinkers, the monster truck drivers, the immigrants who came to America for an opportunity, who ran away from socialism and communism in their home countries. They need to go out and vote when they otherwise might not. But they will vote because of the Trump brand. If he were the nominee, DeSantis would only get a vote count in the 60 million range, just as Barack Obama had.

Only people educated on the matter will vote on election day, which is typical. Republicans in 2024 need and overvote much more than usual to overtake the cheating in those key battleground states who still have radical Democrats in their Secretary of State positions. And that is why I have been saying now, especially to the critical influencers in the Butler County Republican Party, its Trump, Trump, and more Trump, and only Trump for 2024. DeSantis was great at the Lincoln Day Dinner. I want to see a 10 to 15-year plan that has him in it and eventually in the White House. But we have to get there first, which requires understanding that we are in a global war with China, and they intend to control international elections to suit their cause. And that is the battlefield of 2024 and is something everyone must deal with in their own way of understanding.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

George Lang: The Morality of Money

I get asked often why I like George Lang, the Ohio senator for the 4th District, so much. I cover a lot of topics, and having so much respect for an establishment politician doesn’t often seem like they are elements that are conducive to each other. I think it’s the same kind of anxiety that is often witnessed when showing respect for Ayn Rand while still having great reverence for the religious right, the hard biblical conservatives. How can you serve the God of money and still serve God because we think of those things as opposed to one another? Yet, while Ayn Rand was an atheist, she was able in her work to cut through the true value of the measurement of money in a culture in very beneficial ways that are well represented in great American novels like Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. And few people in the world understand the morality of money more than George Lang, not in serving it as a deity of its own, but as a measure of good human conduct. It’s a side of politics that not many people get to see, especially translated by a media culture that has no way to express such a topic to the public, because they don’t understand it themselves. However, an economic report coming out will show Ohio in a very favorable way. The time of improvement is when George Lang has been in Columbus as first a representative, then as a senator. I see his fingerprints all over the detailed findings showing the state of Ohio becoming quite an economic powerhouse. I’m not allowed to talk about it yet, not in detail. But I was quite impressed with it, and it points to some not-so-well-known attributes that come directly from George Lang’s Business First Caucus, where he has stayed very focused, along with a handful of other politicians in Columbus. And that is very unique among any political class because if they don’t understand the “morality of money,” they quickly become the detriments often talked about in the Bible who lose their way and get distracted by every shiny thing. And by walking that tightrope, George Lang has done some extraordinary things as a senator that is making Ohio much better off than the federal government as a whole that is suffering significant hardships under Joe Biden and the other looters of the Beltway culture. 

You may have to turn up the volume, but this room paid great reverence to Senator Lang, which was well deserved.

A few things happened recently, I was in a meeting with a bunch of people from Columbus who expressed themselves with great respect to George Lang, and they wondered if the people of Southern Ohio knew how good he was behind the scenes when people weren’t looking. Of course, the answer is yes; most people do know. And I was also recently up in Columbus at the Statehouse talking to many people, and the running joke about “Georgie” is that he doesn’t want to talk about anything but a business-first agenda for Ohio. And it wasn’t a derogatory reference, but one of respect for being able to go to Columbus and, with all the pressure from various factions, to stay focused on the real measure of success for any state or federal government, and that is its financial health. Without financial health, society really can’t be moral. People can function morally independently. But society can’t function without revenue and healthy businesses to provide jobs for people; a society really can’t function without wealth. I’ve known George for many years, well before he was going to Columbus as a politician. I remember him well as a trustee in West Chester, Ohio, where the business first policies were well laid as a foundation for the greatness that is seen there today. George Lang has always had the idea of getting the government out of the way of the creative output that makes businesses happen, and that has translated to tremendous growth wherever his attention has been applied. And now, as a Senator for the 4th District, his influence has been rubbing off on other politicians very favorably, even into the Governor’s office. I have seen up close and personal that Governor DeWine and his Lt. Governor Jon Husted have significantly benefited from George Lang’s focus on business first and supporting infrastructure as an administration that has made business much more of a priority than it has been previously. 

Usually, when we talk about business, politics, and money, the first thing that pops into our minds is corruption. You can’t serve the two gods, God, and money, equally. That is the way that we have been taught incorrectly as a civilization. By doing good things, by having the means to work and be productive, the measure of morality is often in money. Good people tend to find that money is a direct measure of their personal morality. The many socialists who have been trying to infect American culture for more than a century now will apply that money is the root of all evil and that only collective wealth redistribution can establish morality. But actually, the opposite is true. Money directly measures moral conduct when it represents productivity, innovation, and strength of character. When money is corrupted, it comes from those most lazy who seek to align the power of government to get as much of it as possible without having to do work. So the government is used as a wealth extractor to redistribute wealth to the unearned. Behind most bad economic reports in state and federal governments all over the world, this is how corruption occurs. 

Yet, when government is applied to remove the barriers to morality toward the creation of businesses in which families can build lives around as job creators, then great things happen, and the morality of that good conduct directly translates into the health of a state government. I’ve seen George Lang perform in very good ways morally under tremendous pressure without ever compromising himself in the process, and that’s not easy to do in such a high political position. It would be very easy to stumble a toe under such pressure, but George Lang handles it always with great care and grace because he understands those basic Ayn Rand rules of money as a measure of morality. Rather than empowering those who would do anything to get it without the productivity that makes it, George empowers the kind of Adam Smith economic value that should be at the heart of every economic policy throughout the world. This is why the rest of the country is currently struggling and will continue to do so as long as Democrats continue to pervert the relationship between business and government. But Ohio is making a dramatic turnaround economically into something that is very respectful and is on its way to becoming one of the best states to live in America, which is saying something. George Lang has been in Columbus long enough to have rubbed off on the culture there, and they reflect his eternal optimism and industrious spirit. So, when people wonder why I love George Lang so much, it’s for all these reasons and more. He is the real deal, and he understands the morality of money and the need for the goodness that is represented by wealth creation. And for the very few who truly understand that unique ratio, the world is always a better place. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Darbi Boddy Playbook: Breaking free of the invisible fence that has always held back Republicans

I’ve always watched dogs confined behind an invisible fence and thought of them as Republicans. Why don’t the dogs just run through the zapper when they get near the parameter of the fence? There is no physical barrier to hold them back, just an emotional one set off by a little physical pain that they learn occurs by a wire buried under the ground that gives off a bit of pain when they get near it. When you first set up an invisible fence, you put little flags in the ground so the dogs know where the limits are. Then once they learn the limits, the flags can be removed, the dogs will stay behind their “invisible fence,” and the yard can look like an open space when really there are barriers only the dog knows about. In a liberal society, that is what Democrats call bipartisan relationships. That’s how it looks to the outside world. But really, the deal is that only Democrats get to run free across an open yard. Republicans get zapped if they get too close to the edge and dare cross a line. My advice to Republicans for over three decades is to ignore the silly zappers liberals have set up to contain Republicans. Put up with a bit of pain, ignore the signal of woke limits they have politically imposed on everyone, and just go beyond those barriers because they have nothing else in the playbook. Either the dog stops with the invisible fence, or they have nothing else. And when we say stop, we mean the little fears of pain and social castigation that Democrats apply with name-calling to keep Republicans behind their own version of an invisible fence. And after three decades of watching this ridiculous behavior, I am very proud to say that the first conservative politician I have ever seen prove this point is Darbi Boddy, the first-year school board member at Lakota schools. She has broken through their barrier and is loose, and all the liberals are lost as to what to do. 

Ultimately, that forced Matt Miller’s resignation, the very controversial superintendent of Lakota schools. Liberals expect to live a life of no accountability for their social life, and conservatives hope for accountability for everything. Those relationships just don’t go together. For many years, conservatives have been stuck behind an invisible fence of social parameters that Democrats controlled, and the relationship of free expression was clearly one-sided. It remained that way in national politics until President Trump came along and showed politicians that they could just step through that stupid invisible fence and there wasn’t anything that Democrats could do to convince everyone to stay within the barriers they created through social rules they controlled, the kinds of things you can say, the topics you could cover, the way things were communicated to the public. But with Trump, it was experience from show business that he brought with him into politics. With Darbi Boddy, a local school board member for Lakota schools, she has brought that same kind of effort to ground up politics, and the results are obvious. On Monday, the 23rd of January, 2023, I saw one of the best school board meetings I’ve ever seen; there were plenty of community members and supporters of Darbi Boddy who voiced their opinions and did some really good, articulate work that showed the liberals of that progressive government school that the dogs had broken free of the liberal invisible fence, and were now just as free to roam around in society as Democrats always have been. Pay particular attention to the public comments around the 55-minute mark included on this article.

For those who want to know, or need to know, this is where the future of education is going. Darbi represents that effort at Lakota. But this is a national movement that is not going away. It was caused by years of abuse by teacher unions, and taxpayers have had it. Public schools cost too much, they teach all the wrong things, and they bring liberal politics to our homes and we don’t want them around.

I would call what happened at Lakota schools the Darbi Boddy playbook. At the start of her term as a school board member, essentially the moment she was sworn in by my good friend, Senator George Lang, the radical progressives of Lakota schools, the kind of people who are always causing all the trouble, and making everything too expensive, tried to get rid of her.   In just four months on the job, the alignment of the school board, Matt Miller’s radicalism, and their media partners, the Michael Clarks and the Karin Johnsons, turned up the heat on that invisible fence to keep Darbi contained from investigating CRT in Lakota. And they pushed her hard to force a resignation. But Darbi kept plowing forward; she did not resign, she did not play by the liberal woke rules, and she stayed tough in the pocket under a lot of pressure. More pressure than most people could ever hope to handle. And the result has been a complete collapse of that liberal invisible fence network. And now that one Republican has survived it, others are seeing how to do it themselves, which led to a parade of protestors speaking in support of Darbi at the school board in front of a very messy crowd that isn’t used to people beating them with their liberal playbook. There were radicals there with t-shirts trying to inspire people to sign a petition online to remove Darbi from the board, and they were pretty vicious at the meeting away from the microphones. But essentially, they were like those owners of the dogs who yelled and screamed at the escaped animals hoping to terrify them into submission. Meanwhile, the freed dogs are just jumping around and playing like nothing in the world matters because now that they know they can escape the invisible fence, nothing in the world does. They are just as free to communicate as the radical Democrats who run all government schools. 

If this were indeed a debate over what’s good for kids or not, we might call all this effort “childish.” For instance, many who spoke against Darbi Boddy at that school board meeting want to convince themselves that the people who support Darbi are only 30% of the community. They want to believe that they are the ones in control and that there are more of them than Republicans who care about these matters. They keep saying to the escaped dogs, “let’s just get back to teaching the kids. Let’s get back to meetings where nobody shows up, and we just give out awards and happy stuff that makes education fun.” They really intend to get the dogs back behind the invisible fence with a treat or a dog toy; then they plan to turn up the zapper to keep anything like this from ever happening again, where they lose control. But the truth of the matter, and I’ve told this to Lynda O’Conner, the school board president at Lakota, many times, most people in the community support Darbi. They don’t like liberalism and are upset that Democrats have been running the public schools for years and are looking for something to rally their minds to the problem. And for them, Darbi is that person, that rally point they can believe in. They have watched her escape from the clutches of the invisible fence that Democrats have always controlled, and they now have someone to cheer on. And now more people are joining Darbi, which was on full display at the Lakota school board meeting. The best one I have seen yet after all these years. And now that Republicans can see from the Darbi Boddy playbook how to fight back against those invisible fences they are always confined to, maybe they can do some good work in the world as well.  And remember the most important thing, it’s not that we just say we are teaching kids that matters.  But it’s what we teach them.  If what we intend to teach is liberal behavior, then that’s a no go on all fronts. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Lakota School Board is Not in Charge: Lawyers and public relations officials are, elected representatives are just a mask

The school board meeting for Lakota on December 12th, 2022 was unique for several reasons, most of which was the obvious realization that our elected members are not in charge; the lawyers are. As I listened to comments about the new Senate Bill 178, which will take away much of the power of the Ohio Department of Education and give it to a director reporting to the governor for direct accountability, it was quite clear that even with all our work in Lakota of electing a conservative board, that no matter what we did, the system hid itself behind a veil of lawyers and public relations personalities. The school board itself was just a ruse, and you could hear it in Isaac Adi’s voice in that meeting in the way he spoke to Darbi Boddy. I had spoken to both of those personalities extensively before the election of 2021, and to hear Isaac talk, it was like a completely different person, shaped by the system itself, to fit the mold of corruption that resides behind all of public education. It caused me to reflect on the ten previous years that Lynda O’Conner worked hard to prove to me directly that she was one of the good school board members. And after all the many hours of conversation, the moment we delivered a conservative majority to her, she became obsessed with controlling Darbi Boddy, which was never my intention, and the power of the seat obviously went to her head. Ultimately, the truth is that the only value of the school board was ceremonial, not in real management decisions, and these people understood that which is why the titles of their positions were so crucial to them. Because the lawyers were really in charge and always residing behind a veil that the school board showed the public, and behind that veil, so much bad action occurred, which conceals the reality of public education today in America. 

And part of the veil was what we saw from Matt Miller himself, the current Lakota superintendent who got himself in trouble with a messy divorce, then sought to harass witnesses in the community with legal threats to keep his actions from being discussed in public. As an example of the legal firewall they utilize, included here is a copy of the investigation into Matt Miller by the school board. Notice how much of it is redacted? So much for the transparency that Lynda O’Conner talks about. For some who received those intimidation letters, it was a scary experience. But I am proud of those who continued on unafraid of the obvious intimidation tactic and proceeded to make a national story out of the content that was learned about the sexual lifestyles of Lakota administrators and the various mechanisms that had been exposed during the process. Over the last few weeks, the Libs of Tik Tok picked up the story and several radio stations. Charlie Kirk has carried it, as did Louder with Crowder, who works for Glenn Beck’s Blaze news network. I thought most effective was Kristi Ertel’s interview with Brian Thomas on 55 KRC. Because Kristi is a very conscientious Christian woman, a rock-solid character, she represents what’s best about the Lakota community. When people like her can’t accept the nonsense that the Lakota school system was trying to feed the public, you know something is really wrong. I have a long history of opposition. So when I say something, people tend to refer to it in the context of a long-standing opponent. But when nice people like Kristi Ertel are on a big radio station in Cincinnati talking about how she can’t accept the moral dilemma that Lakota employees have imposed on our community, then it becomes clear that this is a different kind of time we are living in, where the veil of the lawyers isn’t working any longer. The school doesn’t know what to do about it, because the school board isn’t in charge, and they never were. 

The tactics used to derail the public from public opinions into the ostentatious liberal lifestyle of the Lakota superintendent and the general administrative culture have only exacerbated the suspicions that were always there. I remember the many meetings we had early in 2021 to identify possible school board candidates, which were organized by Lynda, who obviously always wanted a conservative majority so they would nominate her as the school board president. It was always odd to me how once Lynda knew she had the vote of Issac and Darbi to appoint her as the new president, then Isaac as the VP, Lynda quickly turned on Darbi to see her removed from the board, which essentially started all this trouble. That is how the information about Matt Miller got out to the public. Otherwise, people wouldn’t have been very interested in the superintendent’s sex life. For the sake of context, it looks like things worked out for the best because now people have seen the teeth of Lakota and the actual quality of the employees, not the garbage that the public relations firms present through tricks and nonsense. At those early meetings, Darbi was there, organized by Lynda. So were Vanessa Wells, Kristi Ertel, and many of the kinds of people who have come out very upset about the Matt Miller behavioral problems. And it’s clear what Lynda was after during those meetings in hindsight. In all her conversations with me, she knew the school board wasn’t really in charge. It’s the lawyers who run the school. The school board has no value at all other than to provide a mask for all the garbage that was going on behind the scenes. So when there are protests about S.B. 178 removing our vote from a Board of Education, the truth is, that vote is worthless because our elected representatives aren’t in charge of doing anything anyway. The lawyers do everything, and all these school boards constantly punt all the hard decisions to them along with a hefty legal bill, which then provides cover for the multitudes of bad behavior that the employees of public schools engage in.

I’ve told everyone concerned about legal action from this experience with Lakota that frivolous lawsuits are often viewed by the courts harshly, and this one is a clear case of frivolity. Most First Amendment cases are. As many who have nationally picked up on the story know from experience, reporting on a story isn’t a violation of slanderous behavior. Once a story is a story, it’s a story. And the police report in which Matt Miller was interviewed in a public context made this a story.   From my perspective, the divorce records didn’t make it a story. It became a story once the Lakota superintendent admitted to the contents of the police interview, which then turned all this into a crisis instead of a messy divorce from poor decisions on his part and became a community problem. Whether or not Matt Miller is one of Sheriff Jones’ “boys” protected by the sheriff’s department is irrelevant. The criminal element is just another consideration. The moral representation of what is expected from public employees in a school full of children is essential. And it has been good to see that people like Kristi Ertel and many others have not allowed themselves to be intimidated into shutting up when voices are needed to undo the many wrongs of this case. It’s obvious the school board won’t do it, and they never had the power to. And knowing that it’s up to the community to do the work that we had trusted the media, the police, and our elected officeholders to do. What we have learned is that we’re on our own.    

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Why I Support S.B. 178: Education needs reform, and the Department of Education is in the way

To answer the reasons I support the Ohio Senate Bill 178, the logic of supporting bigger government to get to smaller government has to be understood. What S.B. 178 proposed by the Ohio Senate will do is essentially remove many of the current Ohio Department of Education Board’s existing powers and put them in the hands of a new director-level cabinet position appointed directly by the governor. The point of the matter is that the current Ohio Board of Education is a worthless body of government that spends most of its time debating diversity and transexual issues and does not have a track record in providing proper education to the future kids of Ohio. And there is no prospect of solving that problem soon, or ever. By design, the Board of Education is a flawed concept that should never have been implemented in 1953. In my view, all the Departments of Education, from the state to the federal level, should be eradicated. Education needs leadership to reflect performance, and the most obvious way to do that is to attach the responsibility directly to governors, who are then better controlled by state legislatures. I see this Bill as a step toward removing power from bureaucratic Boards of Education and replacing them with leadership opportunities. What the Senate in Ohio wants to do is a great thing. I know some of the people involved and understand their intent. Granted, the path to Hell is paved with good intentions, and to many critics, this S.B. 178 can look like just another path to get to Hell. But I would say that public education is already in Hell, and at this point, any path made can only take it out or fail altogether. But an attempt at reform is better than not trying at all. And suppose Ohio is prosperous in this endeavor. In that case, it could pave the way for real education reform and the complete removal of all Departments of Education and replace it with more leadership-directed accountability. 

As many are aware, I am weary of giving the governor of Ohio any more power. The Director position of Health run by Amy Acton directly for Governor DeWine was an unmitigated disaster during the Covid nonsense. So putting that same level of attention into the field of education might look insane. But the way these Department of Education Boards run is far worse. Even during Covid, if I needed to get a hold of someone in the governor’s office, I could. I made my voice known and knew what doors to knock on. And that’s what I’m looking for with this S.B. 178 Bill; I want accountability and a door that I can knock on and get results. I don’t expect the door knocks to be friendly, actually quite contentious. A dispute-free world is not what I think S.B. 178 will do. But with the current Department of Education in Ohio, we have zero accountability. If you talk to one person, they will blame someone else. And when you speak to someone else, they will blame the original person you were talking to. Dealing with the Ohio Department of Education is an insane level of progressive nonsense in which I see no value. It certainly doesn’t help children; it has taken education and made an advanced mess of it. And there are so many problems with education; with the way the teacher unions ultimately control the Departments of Education all over the country, there is no desire for reform from their point of view because they have things set up the way they want them. 

I see S.B. 178 as an opportunity to give a strong governor a chance to make significant reforms in education. I wouldn’t say that Mike DeWine is a strong governor, but the example provided by Ohio could give great governors like DeSantis in Florida, or Noem in South Dakota, and other strong states a blueprint that would eventually pave the way for a new way of dealing with education needs in each state, and provide a competitive atmosphere that is desperately needed. For anything to improve in education, competition and high expectations have to be a priority, as the ability to survive the radical labor elements which will be against anything, and everything must be part of the plan. I come from a business background and understand that good leadership does not come from group consensus building. It comes from solitary leadership that is accountable for success and failure. Otherwise, failure, such as what we have seen in my home district of Lakota, will be absorbed into a culture of complacency. I have tried to reform the group consensus model in my home district by helping to get conservatives elected to the school board there, but the results have been that no matter what is done, the system itself protects itself from any reform, and failure is guaranteed from the outset. Nothing can save Boards of Education anywhere because they are designed to fail by the premise of their existence. I have been saying for a long time that the concept of public education has to be scrapped completely. But many aren’t ready for that conversation. So scrapping the way that decisions are made for education would be an obvious next best step. Many of the names who have spoken out for S.B. 178, which I have put here for the convenience of understanding, I like and think are sincere in their efforts.   I also am very supportive of the several names who have sponsored the 2000-page Bill, which at this point, I have read. It took me a while, there is a lot there, but the gist of it is an opportunity to replace a Department of Education with a door I can knock on and get results. And I’m all for that.

So for the small government critic who says that this S.B. 178 is just another big government solution that takes away voting accountability from the Department of Education, I would say that for many people, the reality is that most people don’t just jump into a swimming pool. They will dip their toes in the water and get in ever so slowly, getting mad at those who do jump in and splash them with water. S.B. 178 is like a handrail that those types of people can hang on to while they ease themselves into the water, the water being education reform. I would like to jump in and pull the plug draining the whole thing at once. Then, fill the pool with fresh water in which everyone hasn’t used the restroom in. Because from my point of view, there is no way to clear that water now that years of corruption and progressive intention have dirtied it up to the point of no return. But to pull the plug, you have to get in the water, and S.B. 178 provides those who still believe in a government solution to education something to hang on to. In this case, leadership is directly attached to the state governor.  Ohio looks to have opportunities beyond the next four years of DeWine to have strong, conservative governors, so I think there are better opportunities for S.B. 178, knowing some of these legislators personally, to have success than in just continuing to do what we have now, which is just a liberal extension of the Biden administration and their further destruction of children’s minds. I think we need action faster than later and more profound and bold rather than timid and safe because the clock is ticking. And at this point, I am willing to give a bold option a chance, not for the adults who are thriving off a corrupt system, but for the kids who need real leadership and an opportunity for a better tomorrow. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Making The Butler County Republican Party Great Again: People don’t want to think of Boss Hogg when they think of politics

At first, I thought of the complaints as leftovers from contentious issues that have divided the party, such as the Thomas Hall battle with Matt King and the obvious rift with Sheriff Jones and Roger Reynolds. I tend to view those kinds of things as family squabbles within a household. Usually, people get over things and move on, which was happening with that nice event for Thomas Hall. But when people who don’t usually deal with the Butler County Republican Party are complaining, they don’t know about the details, only their experience with it. And that experience has not lived up to the reputation of the past, where Butler County had a lot of volunteers, high engagement, and the kind of national reputation that made President Trump want to come and campaign in the area. But the reputation that was developing, because of all the rifts from leadership that was flowing out into state and federal politics, was not a good one. For a community of over 400,000 people, small-town politics was back in fashion where a few party leaders had turned the wonderful Butler County Republican Party into something that would make Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard blush. And that was embarrassing to hear. I had been hoping that after the 2022 election, many of those trends would level out and that much of the problem had been not having the unifying factor of Trump to rally behind. Without Trump, the party has reverted back to the differences that it had during the early 2000s. But now that Trump was running again, my hope was that the party would unite again behind him. However, this time there appeared to be a different kind of problem. Many older people in leadership now are in the way of younger and hungrier personalities, and those elements feel restricted in their ambitions, which is not a good thing for future growth.

This problem reminded me of the Cincinnati Bengals and how the Brown family just can’t get out of their own way for success. Sure, they have had some good players over the years, but they just have not been able to put together a successful string of seasons to show fabulous organizational presence. They went to the Super Bowl last year and had a pretty good season. They had the whole off-season to get better and improve on the previous year with essentially the same players. The Bengals invested in a new offensive line, but the results were not good. The quarterback, Joe Burrow, has been sacked more than any other NFL quarterback. So the Bengals didn’t get better because the problems with the Bengals were in their coaching and front office. Not the players on the field. So if leadership was always the problem, the Bengals didn’t help themselves by investing in an offensive line; if they didn’t have the kind of coaches who could take advantage of those improvements, then, of course, the problem would still present itself as a problem. Obviously, the Butler County Republican Party was having the same issues. Many new talents are coming into the party who can network and connect with the world. There are lots of MAGA Republicans across the state who are newly engaged in politics and are looking for jobs to do. But then, when they interact with Butler County, we have this Boss Hogg image that people have of our elderly leadership, and it turns them off, and it’s starting to show to the outside world. 

It was good to see a nice GOP event in Butler County dedicated to a victory celebration for Thomas Hall at the Majors Barn. It was a tough election season, and some hard feelings emerged during that race, which clearly split the Butler County Republican Party in half. But several people supported Matt King, who ran against Thomas for the 46th Representative Ohio seat. They were there to congratulate Thomas and to show leadership in coming together as a party now that the election was over. There were people there that I could speak with where things got pretty heated, and we had some nice conversations, and everyone made up. I know everyone couldn’t come, people were busy, but you could tell a lot about Republican Party leadership by who was there and who wasn’t. I can tell you someone, who was there, Roger Reynolds, was, and we had a nice conversation about the horrendous problem that was happening to him. I asked him if Sheriff Jones was going to pay for all his massive legal bills for the phony trial coming up for him in December of 2022, which to me looks like a complete political hit job. That is not the kind of thing that makes the Republican Party better, but something that has made it worse. Roger kind of smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders. He’s one of the good guys, and his only focus was on getting that mess behind him so he could live his life again. And Thomas and I spoke about the new Speaker of the House and what an excellent relationship those two had together, which was encouraging. Good things were happening. But I also received reports from some of the state people and the federal people who deal with Republican parties all over the country. Their impression of the Butler County Republican Party was not a good one. There were a lot of complaints about engagement, phone calls, appreciation letters, and just basic organization, and while I kept up a happy face inside, I was pretty mad. I am proud of the Butler County Republican Party and don’t like hearing people say bad things about it. 

Hey, I get it; we all get older. You look in the mirror and what looks back is a person falling apart. Age can be cruel. And when the dog doesn’t respect you, and your wife is complaining about you leaving your socks in the corner by the bathroom, and nobody thinks you’re all that special, it can feel great to go to a Party meeting and have everyone worship you for all the things you have done in your life. It’s hard to be big enough to get out of the way and let younger people step in and show their ambitions.   That has always been the Bengals problem; the Brown family has always gotten in the way of its own success. And that is what is happening with the Butler County Republican Party. It’s not just from the direction of the police, but there are commissioners, trustees, and many others who are holding positions as placeholders, then getting mad at the youth for nipping at their heels. And my advice to them, the elders, is if you really love the Republican Party, you would want to do the right thing, and that is to get out of the way and let those with the most ambition and freshest eyes step into leadership positions. Sometimes being a great leader is in getting out of the way. And hanging on to the past and living off a reputation to hide the aging process from your own eyes isn’t love. It’s selfish, and the only result is that you become the latest Boss Hogg in the world and become known not for good deeds but for corruption and ill-advised political fights that ruin everything a lifetime took to build.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business