The 2026 midterms delivered a mixed bag across Butler County, the state of Ohio, and the nation. Local officeholders who were on the ballot largely held or won, and I was never truly worried about my good friend Michael Ryan’s commissioner race once the early numbers started coming in. Republicans had reason for concern as the night progressed in other races, and the tighter margins reflect new voter groups, split-ticket voting, and a failure at higher levels to deliver the results people can feel in their wallets. What I said for years about Pauline, gerrymandering, jury-mandering, and the need to treat Democrats as the opponent they are proved true. Socialism was on the ballot. Democrats ran on free stuff and big government without clearly defining the costs, and a lot of insecure or younger voters bought it because Republicans did not smash-mouth them hard enough or show decisive victories on the things that matter most: gas prices, the cost of goods, and a quality of life people can actually live with.
Election Night at the Michael Ryan Watch Party and the Precinct Math
I was at Michael Ryan’s watch party with a table set up to break down precincts, the numbers behind the numbers, state races, and national races. Warren Davidson was there; he was fine locally but the early tightness everywhere put people on edge. We called Ryan’s race around 9:30 or so once enough precincts reported that his opponent could not catch him mathematically. Ryan ran a great campaign over a couple of years with strong endorsement support—this is exactly why voters need to believe in their party in Ohio instead of treating every race as an independent free-for-all. He defeated longtime incumbent Cindy Carpenter in the May primary by 72% to 28%, a historic margin according to local GOP leaders, then carried the general with roughly 57.2–57.3% (around 78,000–82,000 votes) over Democrat Mike Miller’s 42.7–42.8%. Miller, a Fairfield Township resident and first-time candidate, ran as a community volunteer focused on “bad news and controversies.” Ryan, a former Hamilton City Council member and vice mayor who works as a life insurance underwriter, emphasized economic development, lower taxes, and bringing technology and innovation to the county. Nancy Nix held the auditor’s seat with about 59% over Amy Hines. Turnout in Butler County sat near 60%. These were real wins for people who showed up and worked the ground game.
Butler County Still Leans Republican—But the Margins Tell a Story
Ramaswamy carried Butler County in the governor’s race by roughly 52.4% to Amy Acton’s 44.5%, and Warren Davidson held Ohio’s 8th District (which includes much of Butler) with about 52.1% to Vanessa Enoch’s 47.9%. That is far closer than Davidson’s previous margins of 25–38 points. Redistricting added more Democratic-leaning areas from Hamilton County, but the broader pattern is clear: even reliable Republican territory is seeing tighter races. Younger voters under 40 who have been taught that big government will give them free stuff, plus demographic shifts from people who recognize big-government tactics from places they left, are changing the math. I talked to plenty of folks beforehand who said they were not voting or would go for their guns if Democrats won big; some split tickets or stayed home because they had lost faith in the system after years of feeling the pocketbook smash. My own kids in their 30s are still conservative enough, but they did not feel passionate enough about the national tickets to put yard signs out. They blamed high gas prices on Trump and the administration. That is the real-world performance review.
Statewide Ohio: Affordability Wins the Night for Democrats
Amy Acton (D) defeated Vivek Ramaswamy (R) for governor, taking roughly 52% (about 2.4 million votes) to his 44% (about 2.04 million). She becomes the first Democrat elected governor of Ohio in 20 years and the first woman elected to the office. Sherrod Brown (D) beat incumbent Jon Husted (R) for the U.S. Senate by about 50% to 45%. Other statewide races were mixed and often close—Attorney General, Auditor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Supreme Court seats all saw competitive results with some Democratic gains or near-misses. Ramaswamy had Trump’s endorsement, strong name recognition from the 2024 primary and DOGE work, and a chance to look strong on the trail. Independents and some conservatives peeled off; he was painted as rich and out of touch, and a late attack ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother backfired hard with many Republicans. Acton, the former Ohio Department of Health director during the early COVID response, ran on affordability, ending corruption, and tax cuts for working families. Socialism’s populist platform—free stuff, nanny state, big taxes—won the argument where Republicans did not counter it decisively. I said all along that Vivek needed to come down to the trail and connect on results; the national and state numbers show why.
National Results: Democrats Seize the House and Senate
Got to talk to Willie today about many things, especially the elections. Have a listen!!https://t.co/s6oncS293h
Democrats took control of both the U.S. House and Senate in a historic blue wave. They flipped Senate seats in places like Kansas (first Democratic senator since 1932), Texas, Iowa, South Carolina, Ohio (Brown), and others, ending up with a clear majority (projections around 54 seats). In the House they flipped more than two dozen seats, many in Trump-won districts, and are projected well above the 218 needed. Mike Johnson was reelected in his Louisiana district but the majority is gone; his future as the top House Republican is uncertain as others position for minority leader. This is what happens when you do not protect the turf. Johnson and the leadership did not treat voter problems—especially gerrymandering fights and the need to fight hard on redistricting and election integrity—seriously enough. They played softball while Democrats played smash-mouth war-room politics. You cannot let the enemy stick around and then complain when they smash your mouth. People wanted action: Fauci still free, no real accountability on past COVID and election issues, and no decisive delivery on costs. Trump’s rallies and tough talk are not big-time wrestling. When you are in the White House, voters hold you to results. Gas prices stayed high years into the administration; people blamed the Iranian conflict (the U.S.-Israel actions beginning in late February 2026 that disrupted oil through the Strait of Hormuz and sent prices soaring), refinery capacity issues, and what looked like price-gouging. Promising money or blaming others does not substitute for lower costs of living. Democrats sabotaged where they could, then ran a campaign blaming Republicans—just as they once managed to pin slavery on the party created to end it. The midterms became a performance review, and Republicans did not get the grade they needed.
Gas Prices, the Iranian War, and Why Pocketbooks Overrode Everything Else
National average gas prices rose roughly 40% or more after the Iran conflict began, with Ohio seeing increases in the 35–48% range in key reporting. Average prices sat well above $4 a gallon in many places heading into Election Day; diesel spiked even harder in some periods. Inflation ran around 3.7% year-over-year in recent reports, with energy, groceries, and housing all elevated. Ohio households faced hundreds of dollars in extra gas costs alone from the war-related surge, on top of broader cost pressures. Trump’s administration had mechanisms—refinery capacity explanations, pressure on oil companies, clear defense of why the Iranian actions were necessary against a terrorist, Marxist, Muslim-fundamentalist regime that suppresses its own people—but they did not hammer those points hard enough or long enough for average voters. Bill Riley and others had been warning about this forever. People understand that Brent crude and gasoline are too high; complex geopolitics is harder. They ran on bringing prices down. Two years later the sabotaging by Democrats was coming to fruition, and Republicans cried foul instead of delivering smash-mouth victories people could point to. Victims look weak. Winners who lower the cost of filling the tank and putting food on the table keep their majorities.
Demographic Shifts, New Faces, and the Socialism Taught in Schools
Butler County still delivered for local Republicans, but the closer-than-usual margins at the start of the night were a scare for people used to double-digit wins. New faces less invested in long-time county politics, younger voters steeped in public-school socialism (“big government will give you stuff”), and people from places where they already lived under heavy government recognize the Democratic playbook and vote accordingly—even if their English is limited. Split-ticket voting was real. Many traditional Trump supporters showed up but without the enthusiasm of past cycles because they had not seen the results they were promised. Democrats ran a base campaign focused on affordability grievances without owning the sabotage that helped create them. Christianity and traditional measures are under pressure from a strategy that tries to hijack the language while embracing far worse ideologies; I have been covering the value of Christianity against this for a reason. We are told to abandon strong resolutions against evil while embracing something far more dangerous. That ridiculousness was on the ballot, and voters looking for a strong government that lowers costs chose the option that promised free stuff.
Party Unity, Smash-Mouth Politics, and the Path Forward
Republicans need to pull together, put differences aside, and build a party people invest in and feel good about. Do not primary your own candidates two or three days before an election. Get behind the people on the ballot for statewide races. Defend the turf on issues like FirstEnergy-style deals or redistricting instead of playing defense after the fact. Deliver real victories—low gas prices, controlled costs, accountability—that people can watch and believe. Crying foul and drawing offside penalties does not move the ball. When you lose the big seats, the punching comes too late. Locally we had wins worth being proud of: Michael Ryan’s campaign and victory, Nix’s hold, Davidson’s narrow retention. Statewide and nationally the lesson is clear—socialism’s populist platform (the one Bernie Sanders showed could work) is now mainstream Democratic strategy, and it advances when Republicans fail to give people something better to invest in. Elections are always interesting; they show you what your society has become. We have learned that the high costs in the background will hurt for a long time if Democrats now put the screws to everything. The people who wanted results and strength did not get enough of them from the national ticket. That is why the midterms of 2026 went the way they did.
Footnotes
1. Unofficial Butler County Board of Elections and Journal-News reporting: Michael Ryan 57.2% over Mike Miller 42.8%; primary win over Cindy Carpenter 72–28. Commissioner oversees ~$563 million budget and nearly 1,900 employees. Salary ~$112,502 in 2027.
2. Nancy Nix (R) ~59% over Amy Hines (D) ~41% for auditor.
3. Butler County turnout reported just under 60%.
4. Ohio Secretary of State / local results: Ramaswamy carried Butler County ~52.4% to Acton’s ~44.5%. Statewide Acton ~52% (≈2.4M) to Ramaswamy ~44% (≈2.04M); first Democratic governor in 20 years and first woman elected.
5. Warren Davidson (OH-8) ≈52.1% to Vanessa Enoch ≈47.9% (unofficial). Previous margins far larger; redistricting noted as a factor.
6. Sherrod Brown (D) ≈50% over Jon Husted (R) ≈45% for U.S. Senate.
7. National projections (AP, CNN, Axios, Politico, Ballotpedia summaries as of Nov. 4, 2026): Democrats control House (projections 220+ to well above 218) and Senate (≈54 seats after multiple flips including Kansas, Texas, Iowa, South Carolina, Ohio). Mike Johnson reelected in LA-4 but loses majority.
8. Gas price and inflation context: National averages rose ~40%+ post-late-February 2026 Iran-related conflict (Strait of Hormuz disruptions); Ohio increases in the 35–48% range reported; prices commonly above $4/gallon. CPI ~3.7% year-over-year in recent data. Multiple outlets (Fox, NBC, Reuters, Washington Post, Joint Economic Committee analyses) linked affordability/gas to midterm voter anger.
9. Acton background and campaign: Former Ohio Department of Health director; campaign focused on affordability and working-family relief. Controversial Ramaswamy ad featuring estranged mother widely reported as backfiring.
10. Local Butler County results page and Journal-News confirm Ryan, Nix, and related county outcomes. Statewide numbers consistent across WKRC, Dispatch, Ballotpedia, and Secretary of State feeds as of early Nov. 4.
Selected Bibliography / Further Reading
• Butler County Board of Elections unofficial results and Journal-News coverage of commissioner and auditor races (Nov. 3–4, 2026).
• Ohio Secretary of State election night results and county-level feeds.
• Economic context: AAA/EIA gas price data, CPI reports, and analyses from NBC News, Fox News, Reuters, and congressional Joint Economic Committee materials on Ohio household costs.
• Campaign and candidate background pieces from Journal-News (primary and general), Cincinnati Enquirer, and statewide outlets on Ramaswamy-Acton and Brown-Husted.
• Historical comparisons on Ohio gubernatorial and Senate control (last Democratic governor 2006; prior Senate patterns).
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly by email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I just returned from Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, Ohio, after Vivek Ramaswamy’s last campaign stop before the election. A number of Ohio officeholders came out to speak alongside him. The speech was long—longer than ideal for people already heading out to vote—so I will condense the essence of what I heard and what I discussed with people there and afterward.[1]
Lori’s Roadhouse continues to do great things for these kinds of events. The place was packed with signs and energy in a way Amy Acton could never have matched. You will not see that kind of coverage on the news or on Fox, but the basics are clear. The encouragement from the stage was simple: go vote, and call your friends and neighbors to do the same. That is the message I am giving my readers and viewers right now.
I have watched Vivek grow into this role over the years. He was right when he noted in his speech that the campaign launched just a few miles from Lori’s Roadhouse—at the business I ran. I was proud he chose that location, and it was bittersweet to see the campaign season come full circle there. The owners are good people, and every event held there has been excellent. The crowd was energetic, and Vivek appeared in a way many people had not seen before.
The Numbers Game and Republican Advantage in Ohio
This election is a numbers game. If Republicans show up even moderately, they far outnumber Democrats in Ohio. That is why Democrats know they have to stretch every process. Amy Acton is a disaster; I have said so from the beginning. She is the lockdown lady, a horrible candidate who simply does not have the goods down the stretch.[2]
In the numbers, Vivek is well ahead in the places that matter. Acton is not performing well in the counties she needs to overcome him, and those counties will not deliver the numbers required on Election Day. From conversations with people who know the internals the media does not report, the race is well in hand for Republicans if turnout materializes. That also means strength for other races on the ticket.
It is much scarier for Democrats heading into this election than for Republicans. There are simply more Republicans. But if people sit on their hands, representation can still be lost. Do not take anything for granted.
Conversations That Reveal a Dangerous Frustration
The part that concerns me most is what I heard today from people who are not deeply interested in politics—people who live between the cities, who do not know many Democrats, do not want to work with them, and have no desire to break bread with them. Their question to me was: why go vote?
Voting is the most peaceful way to maintain representative government. Their illusion is that nothing will improve until people grab guns, take violence into the streets, and reclaim the country from radicals. George Soros and others have funded efforts that damage Western civilization; evil is at work.[3] But on this election eve in 2026, I believe the best way to maintain self-government is still to vote—not to turn to violence.
Most of the people I spoke with, especially those between the cities, think it has to come to violence before they get their country back. If Democrats thought January 6 was terrible, that was mild compared with what some of these people are thinking. I try to tell them that violence can be avoided by voting. Their response is often that it will be cheated anyway, so who cares.
What’s at Stake: Civility Over Violence
What is at stake is civility itself. If you want a civil society, go vote before you feel you have to grab the guns and take it back with bloodshed the way the Revolution once required. It is yours to hold; you simply have to get up and go. You have to do it at presidential-level turnout.
After the event at Lori’s Roadhouse and the conversations I had, the picture looks strong for Republicans in Ohio if people show up. Republicans way outnumber Democrats, but if you stay home, the other side will represent you because they are the ones voting. Voting is easy. Maintaining self-government through legislative means is far better than the alternatives.
I talked to more than one person today who alluded to having a shell full of ammunition ready to “take care of” the Marxists and communists. That is not a good sign. Giving up on self-rule through the ballot is not a good thing. The other side wants people of Western civilization to abandon peaceful means. Do not give that to them.
A Personal Call to Action
I am telling everyone who watches me, reads me, or listens to me: to maintain civility and protect Western civilization, just get up and go vote. Vote for Republicans, not Democrats. Vote down tax increases. Vote for Vivek Ramaswamy. Things will be much better in Ohio with him as governor, and better in the wider world.
I remember when I first saw the campaign signs—very techie—when he was putting up the art at my business for the rally that opened his governor’s race. I am happy to see it come full circle, and I will be happy to see him as governor of Ohio.
A few months ago I saw Vivek walk into a little restaurant with almost no security. We had a nice personal conversation, and few people reacted. At Lori’s Roadhouse it was governor-level security, a Secret Service-style entourage, and a posse that made it hard to get close. It was strange, but it is exciting. I think he is going to win—but only if people show up.
Do not leave it to other people to decide for you. Vote like your life depends on it, because in a lot of ways it does. We do not want a society that turns to violence in order to maintain self-government. Go vote for the 2026 election.
Footnotes
[1] The event was held at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio. Local coverage and posts confirmed the rally timing on the final day of campaigning.
[2] Public polling averages in late October and early November 2026 generally showed Amy Acton with a narrow lead (roughly 2–7 points depending on the pollster), though some surveys were tighter or showed Ramaswamy ahead. Ohio does not have formal party registration; affiliation is determined by primary ballot choice. Early-voting data showed Democrats returning a higher share of ballots than Republicans through late October, with unaffiliated voters forming a large bloc. The author’s assessment relies on claimed internal numbers and county-level expectations not reflected in the public averages.
[3] References to funding of progressive causes and election-related efforts by George Soros and associated networks appear widely in conservative commentary and investigative reporting on philanthropy and political spending.
Bibliography for Further Reading
Ramaswamy, Vivek. Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. Center Street, 2021.
Ramaswamy, Vivek. Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence. Center Street, 2022.
Ramaswamy, Vivek. Capitalist Punishment: How Wall Street Is Using Your Money to Create a Country You Didn’t Vote For. HarperCollins, 2023.
Ramaswamy, Vivek. Truths: The Future of America First. Simon & Schuster, 2024.
Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. (Author’s work on leadership, individual responsibility, and practical strategy.)
Green, Donald P., and Alan S. Gerber. Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. 4th ed. Brookings Institution Press, 2019.
Hill, David. American Voter Turnout: An Institutional Perspective. Westview Press, 2006.
Rolfe, Meredith. Voter Turnout: A Social Theory of Political Participation. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Derber, Charles, et al. Turnout!: Mobilizing Voters in an Emergency. Routledge, 2020.
Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. Crown, 2018.
Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Doubleday, 2016.
Caplan, Bryan. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton University Press, 2007.
Achen, Christopher H., and Larry M. Bartels. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton University Press, 2016.
Brennan, Jason. Against Democracy. Princeton University Press, 2016.
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. (Multiple editions; foundational on American civic habits and self-government.)
Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. (Especially essays on factions, republican government, and the dangers of majority tyranny.)
Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. (On consent, property, and the right to alter or abolish government.)
Federalist Society publications and reports on election integrity and originalism, 2020–2026.
Heritage Foundation Election Integrity Project reports, 2024–2026.
Ohio Secretary of State voter registration and early-voting dashboards (2026 cycle data).
RealClearPolitics, Ballotpedia, and multi-state election trackers for the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial race (polling averages, candidate profiles, and historical context).
Local Ohio reporting from the Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, and Butler County sources on campaign events and county-level dynamics.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
For me, the standard is Jonathan Edwards on human government. The new Jonathan Edwards Study Bible arrived in August of 2026. I opened it on a hot afternoon after riding roller coasters at Kings Island with two of my grandchildren. That is not a cute detail. That is the point. Good government is supposed to protect ordinary life — grandchildren, county fairs, Sunday school, a sheriff who still thinks Butler County can look a little like Mayberry and a little like a serious modern county at the same time.
If Yale and Princeton were like they were during Jonathan Edwards’s time, I would likely have several PhDs by now, but over time, they have turned into globalist institutions, which I found repulsive when I was of college age. They have turned into anti-American insurgent places that ruin the minds of young people. But, Yale has preserved Edwards’s papers. The Study Bible puts his notes, essays, Resolutions, and miscellanies system next to the New King James text.[1][2] Everybody in this party who claims to care about order, virtue, and limited government should own a copy and actually read it. I am a small-government kind of person. I was Tea Party. I was Reform Party in the 1990s. I was talking about Donald Trump in 1999 when he was circling the Reform Party nomination against Pat Buchanan.[3] I have been in human communication and local politics for thirty years. I know what an intramural fight looks like. I also know what it costs voters.
What Jonathan Edwards Meant by Human Government
Good government as a moral order, not a branding exercise
Edwards believed that good government belongs to the highest moral order of a proper civilization.[4] I agree with him. That does not make me a big-government conservative. It makes me a person who thinks the point of the smaller government we do have is to be good — competent, restrained, honest, and aimed at the public good, not at the vanity of the people holding powerful positions.
You do not get into government to make a name for yourself. You get into government so that people have representatives. You want those representatives to be as good as possible. There is only one legitimate motivation: to make the thing good in the Edwards sense — an earthly office that still answers to a moral law it did not invent.
“The enjoyment of [God] is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.”
— Jonathan Edwards, as featured in The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible (Thomas Nelson, 2026)
That sentence is about God. It is also a warning about politics. If your happiness is a title on a sample ballot, a headline, or the humiliation of a rival, you are already in the wrong temple. The party slate card exists so voters can find good candidates. It does not exist so that somebody can settle a score.
Romans 13 is not a revenge verse
Edwards read civil authority inside God’s moral government of the world.[5] Magistrates exist. They are not priests. They are not avengers of private grudges. They are supposed to keep the peace, punish actual wrongdoing, and leave room for the rest of life — family, work, church, property — to go on.
That is why I keep saying the same sentence to people who want to turn the Butler County Republican Party into a revenge shop: you do not do politics for revenge. You do not look to even scores even if you were bullied. You do not use the power of government, or the machinery of a party, to bully everybody else. If you cannot serve voters, you are not in it for the right reasons.
Why This Bible Arrived on Time
Kings Island, two grandchildren, and page 1176
I had a rare day with two of my grandchildren at Kings Island, late in the summer season. We rode the big coasters. It got hot. We came home for lunch and a cool-down. The box had been dropped at the house. I knew what it was. I sat down with that Bible for an hour while the kids recovered, and then we went back to the park to swim.
People can laugh at a grown man getting quiet over a study Bible. Fine. I have spent decades looking for a single object that holds theology, philosophy, and a usable picture of public life in one binding. This one does. There is an essay on human government that I keep pointing people to — in my copy it sits around page 1176 — and just over the next page there is another piece on the means of grace. The book is full of that mixture: doctrine with a spine, and a vision of what a people owe each other when they try to govern.
Edwards was thrown out of his own church
Edwards served the Northampton church for twenty-three years. He is the man of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”[6] By 1750 a majority of the congregation voted him out. He preached a farewell sermon and left.[7][8] He went to Stockbridge to teach and minister among Native Americans, a smaller work, after a public humiliation. Later he was respected enough to become president of the College of New Jersey — Princeton — and then he died. Yale keeps the papers. Princeton had the office. The church that made him famous also removed him.
He was not removed because he had become a thief. He was removed because he was more exacting than the politics of the room would bear. That is a lesson with teeth. Sometimes the righteous thing is to stay and fight. Sometimes the righteous thing is to step out of an equation you can no longer serve well, because the people have decided they do not want you. The question is never “What feeds my name?” The question is “What actually produces good government for the people in front of us?”
I Have Zero Tolerance for Bullies
I can already hear it: then why do you support Sheriff Jones? People call him rough. Some people call him a bully.
I have had no tolerance for bullies my entire life. I have gotten into fights over people being picked on, often. I do not care if the target is a man or a woman, big or small. I do not care which party the bully belongs to. I have no patience for personality types who use an office to get revenge on rivals.
That standard cuts in every direction. It cuts against Democrats who treat government as a punishment engine. It cuts against Republicans who treat a county central committee like a private army. It cuts against anyone who thinks the point of winning is to make the other guy miserable.
Sheriff Jones and I have not always been the best of friends. I still want him in the party. Those two sentences can both be true if you believe, with Edwards, that the office is larger than the grudge.
Sheriff Richard Jones Is My Guy
A big tent means you keep the sheriff
I like Sheriff Richard K. Jones.[9] I want Sheriff Jones in the Butler County Republican Party. I have said, more than once, that he sometimes sounds like he still has a Democrat nerve in him on a public-sector question. Good. I want a Republican Party big enough to pull people who left the other side. I want a party that can stand on a stage with him and not flinch.
He has been sheriff across multiple terms. I want him around for as long as he wants the job and the voters still give it to him. When he goes on international outlets and talks about immigration and the jail, I want him able to say he is a member of this county Republican Party. I do not want him pushed into independent exile because a faction could not share a room with him.
Seven years of silence, one parking lot, two hats
In 2011 Ohio went to war with itself over Senate Bill 5 and public-sector unions.[10] I was on one side of that fight. Sheriff Jones was not with the Tea Party types who got burned when the referendum turned. We were both on WLW in those years.[11] He was friendly with Willie. I was friendly with Doc Thompson. Doc got pushed off, went elsewhere, and later died after being hit by a train under circumstances people still talk about. Willie is still on the air. Jones is still on the air with him.
After that bill, Sheriff Jones and I did not talk for six or seven years. We would be at the same events and walk past each other. Then I took my family to Charleston, South Carolina, for a week. Charleston is a fine city. People treat it like one of the best places in the world. My daughters and I love pirate history; you cannot stand in that harbor without thinking of Blackbeard and of the Civil War forts. I liked it. I came home happier to see Butler County.
That is not a cheap patriotic line. You do not know what you have until you have walked a “better” place and realized your own county is just as good if not better in many ways, working farms, and a party that has actually produced national figures.[12] JD Vance came out of this ground. Vivek Ramaswamy has been in our orbit. Warren Davidson’s office in Washington has been a good shop. Bernie Moreno has been a serious addition.[13] Interns and staff I met this year in those offices were the kind of young people who make you think the farm system still works.
Jones and I walked out of an event toward the cars. He broke the ice. He liked my hat. I liked his hat. I liked his boots. I like his Andy Griffith picture of what a sheriff’s office should feel like. We started talking again. It took almost eight years.
The grand jury and the jail tour
I am not young. I am in my senior stretch of life, around sixty as of 2026. One of the best civic jobs I have ever held was foreman of a Butler County grand jury. It was not the money. It was the view.
People called me during that season to whisper about “corruption” in the sheriff’s office and the prosecutor’s office. That is what people do when they do not get the outcome they wanted, humans try to create political pull to get rid of people they don’t want to work with. I like our prosecutor’s office. I like Mary Swain a great deal.[14][15] I like the people who actually carry files upstairs to the prosecutors’ offices, which I was able to tour and I consider to be one of the finest places on earth.
The grand-jury room sits on the same floor as the clerk’s world. You take indictments up. You meet the assistants. You meet the deputies who work child-exploitation cases and drug cases. You get answers to questions you have had. And because a grand jury should understand what it is doing when it votes a true bill, Sheriff Jones gave me a tour of the jail. We talked. When his book came out he told me about it. I read it and reviewed it. I recommend it very highly.
That is the other side of the man some people only meet in a fight. If you cannot work with that, you probably do not have the temperament for coalition politics.
Nancy Nix Is the Benchmark
If Sheriff Jones is the law-and-order pillar I want inside the big Republican tent, Nancy Nix is the governing temperament I want the rest of the party to study.[16] I have said it until people are tired of hearing it. She pours hours into this party. She is good government from top to bottom. When she walks into a room, the room still works. That is a rare skill.
I liked Roger Reynolds for a long time. I was on his side until he turned his fight against Nancy Nix.[17] Clearing your name after a legal disaster is one thing. Using the wreckage to tear down a sitting officeholder who actually runs the shop is another. Parties are supposed to put a slate card in front of voters. They are not supposed to become instruments for a man who cares more about his name than about the taxpayers in the file.
George Lang and Debbie can sit down with almost anybody and not get moved off their mark. That is a Trump skill too: talk to the person across the table, find the deal, do not surrender the spine. I have asked George more than once whether Kathy Wyenandt (the area Democrat) can be pulled toward the party instead of left as a permanent foreign object working the community against itself. I would rather recruit than exile. Same rule as Jones. A bigger tent is not a mushier platform. It is a refusal to donate our own people to the other side because we enjoyed a feud.
What a County Party Is Actually For
Volunteers, yard signs, and jobs that do not pay
Most of the jobs that make a county party run do not pay. People do them because they love the idea of a slate card voters can trust. They stand at the county fair. They work a fundraiser. They put a name on a yard-sign list. When those people are disparaged in the paper, of course they get hurt. That does not make them fragile. It makes them human.
The job of party leadership is to keep that machine pointed at voters. A unified party that serves voters will beat a pure party that serves a clique. Purity spirals are how you lose townships you used to win in your sleep.
Butler County is a Republican county that still has to earn it
Most people in Butler County gravitate Republican. That is a blessing and a trap. It is hard to keep an identity when you win so often that winning starts to feel like weather. It is hard to remember that the point is still to make government good. Todd Hall, as chairman, understood a lot of that. I try to stay out of internal knives as much as I can, because I want the system to work and I want people to feel engaged.
Thomas Hall and Sheriff Jones had their differences on policy. They got through it. They use radio well. Once they were fine with each other, Jones and I were fine with each other, once again. That is how adults do it. You do not have to marry your coalition partners. You have to stop treating them like enemy combatants.
Trump changed the party. The county still has to govern.
Trump redefined what a Republican powerhouse looks like. The old country-club party cannot pretend he did not happen. He has also, over the years, become something closer to an evangelist of a certain American memory — Mount Rushmore more than permanent Washington. I have become a fan of Washington, D.C., in the years he has been back in the White House. The offices that represent this county have been worth visiting. The city is not the enemy. Drift is the enemy.
The next years will not be as easy as “were you for Trump after 2020.” Everybody had a simple test then. The tests now are messier: energy policy after the FirstEnergy mismanagement of the real message,[18] how statehouse fights land in a sheriff’s office, whether a township trustee race is a farm system or a grudge match, whether we run toward competent people or toward whoever promises to punish last year’s enemy.
A Personal Ledger I Had to Close
Latte Sipping Prostitutes, Lakota, and being left on the air
I am going to tell a story I almost left out, because good government requires that you put some things aside even when people wronged you.
Everybody around here remembers the meltdown on WLW when I called a class of Lakota levy politics what I thought it was. I said people were selling out children to a system that works like a taxpayer-funded babysitting service with a union attached. Democrats piled on. Some Republicans who had been with me went quiet or went woke on the spot. A donor-class press release landed on the Scott Sloan show while I was live. They confronted me on the air.
I got through the interview; it was very difficult. I did not fold. But a lot of people abandoned me when it would have cost them very little to stand there. Todd Hall was one of my people, and when it mattered most, he and many others left me hanging. It took years to get over that. I could have carried a grudge forever. I did not, because I wanted a Republican Party that could still win for the needs of the voters. I remember very well who stood with me and who didn’t, and when people wonder even now why I feel the way I do about certain people and not others, that memory usually gives an easy answer.
That is the whole method. You may feel one way in your chest. If the party is trying to build something voters can use, you park the personal file and work. You handle squabbles another way. You do not burn the machine to warm your pride.
I have a clean record on purpose
I sign my name to what I write. People have been looking me up for years trying to find dirt they could use against me. I have been married to the same person for a long time. I can say, as a man almost sixty, that there is not a woman who can step forward and say I bruised her or hurt her in some way that finds itself on a police report. If you don’t have a clean background, you can’t stand in front of a party and tell other people how to live. Even if you have your side of the story, just being in a story like that shows bad judgment, and it will cause people not to follow you as a leader. You have to be cleaner than clean if you want to hold big responsible seats.
If you want to be a Walmart greeter, you can often get a matter expunged and live a quiet life. If you want to be the head of a political party, or the person who starts busting heads and announcing that there is a new sheriff in town, you do not get that courtesy. Enemies come out. The past comes out. Paying someone to bury a file is not the same as righteousness. The internet keeps what the clerk seals.[19]
I am not interested in ruining people for sport. Plenty of men and women have made mistakes and then put out yard signs, joined a church, and tried to live a second chapter. Redemption is real. Leadership of a party is a different office. It has to be clean enough to survive daylight, because daylight will be applied.
Leadership, Todd Minniear, and the Problem of a Hidden Past
Todd Hall did a lot of unglamorous work in the background. Of course people complain about it, as they do everyone in a responsible seat, and they cling to the fantasy that they could do better if only they had more power. A lot of the people who have been running this thing are tired. They show up unpaid. They love the idea of good government even when the job does not love them back.
People have asked me about running for Liberty Township trustee and school board at Lakota; I get asked about it at least once a week for many years now. I like the trustees we have. I would not shove them aside for a title. People also asked Todd Minniear to step toward more leadership.[20] I have been a fan of that instinct. He has been a great trustee. He has the kind of energy a party uses when it needs a next chapter, and I was thinking of him as the Party Chairman once I knew that Todd Hall and others wanted a break. He and I had a good discussion not very long ago about Roger Reynolds; Todd was on one side of the discussion, and I was on the other. We didn’t argue about it, we instead put our focus on the things we shared in common.
If you are carrying material that political enemies can turn into a wrecking ball. I will not pretend that “nobody will notice” is a strategy. Democrats already collect this stuff and wait. Factional Republicans will use it too if the fight gets personal. That is not theory.
How to Have a Fight Without Becoming the Fight
A few rules:
1. Serve voters first. If a move does not make the ballot better, it is probably vanity.
2. Keep Sheriff Jones in the party. A Republican Party that exiles its own long-serving sheriff is not tough. It is insecure.
3. Treat Nancy Nix as a working model, not as a faction mascot. Rooms that light up when she enters are rooms that can still govern well, learn from her.
4. Recruit before you purge. Democrats who can live with limited government are more valuable than Republicans who only live to punish Republicans.
5. Do not use government, or party office, to even a private score. That is Edwards in one line.
6. If you want the chair, assume every sealed thing will be unsealed in public. Plan for that before you run, not after the first mailer.
7. Put grudges in a private drawer when the county needs a unified card. You can still be a man. You do not have to be a faction.
What Voters Actually Buy When They Buy a Party
Donors and church voters do not want the same conversation in the same hour. That is fine. The chairman’s job is to put them in enough of the same room that candidates can raise money without becoming a different species from the people who staff the polls. If you cannot do that, you do not have a party. You have a club.
I want GOP picnics that feel like a county still knows how to stand around a grill. I liked watching the energy when national operators came through Ross and people actually showed up. I want campfire competence. People do not have to agree on every shade of red. They can still agree that Sunday school is not a joke and that a sheriff’s office is not a think tank.
You can make a million dollars in a lot of businesses. You cannot easily build good government. It costs time, reputation, and the ability to absorb a newspaper hit without setting the headquarters on fire. People who pour themselves into this work deserve leaders who understand that cost.
Edwards lost Northampton and still did the next faithful job. That is available to anyone in this county who is about to lose a fight. It is also a warning to anyone who thinks winning a fight is the same thing as being right. We will all stand in a different dock than a central committee. That is the farewell sermon. It is a better political theory than most of what gets posted after a poorly run meeting.
The Need
Buy the Jonathan Edwards Study Bible. Read the government material. Read the farewell sermon. Then look at Butler County and ask a simple question: are we building a party voters can take pride in, or are we building a revenge path for people whose feelings got hurt?
I support Sheriff Richard Jones. I support a big-tent Republican Party that recruits instead of exiles. I support Nancy Nix as the working picture of countywide competence. I want new leadership that can stand daylight. I do not want scandals in the background of the people who hold the keys, and I do not want the keys used to punish rivals.
That is the Edwards form of Republican politics. It is also just adulthood. Butler County has given the country more than its share of serious people. We should act like it.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Jonathan Edwards and moral government
Edwards, Jonathan. A Farewell Sermon Preached at the First Precinct in Northampton. Boston: S. Kneeland, 1751. Reprinted in The Works of President Edwards and in modern sermon collections.
Edwards, Jonathan. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Enfield, Connecticut, July 8, 1741. In The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 22. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Edwards, Jonathan. The Nature of True Virtue. In The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 8, Ethical Writings. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Everhard, Matthew, ed. The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible: Experience Abiding Joy in Christ (NKJV). Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2026.
Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University. The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online. http://edwards.yale.edu.
Scripture
The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Romans 13; 1 Timothy 2:1–2; 1 Peter 2:13–17; 2 Corinthians 1:14.
[2] Yale University’s Jonathan Edwards Center hosts The Works of Jonathan Edwards Online at http://edwards.yale.edu. Edwards himself was not president of Yale. He served as the third president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1758 and died shortly after taking office.
[3] The Reform Party presidential contest of 2000 included Patrick J. Buchanan and a brief exploratory effort by Donald J. Trump in 1999–2000. Trump later ran as a Republican and won the presidency in 2016 and 2024.
[4] Edwards’s most sustained treatment of government is not a single short “essay on human government” in the modern magazine sense. It is woven through his moral theology: God’s moral government of the world, the duty of magistrates, and the obligation of citizens. See especially “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners”; sermons on Romans 13; and the dissertation The Nature of True Virtue. The Study Bible gathers related notes and essays beside the biblical text. Page references in this piece follow the author’s personal copy.
[5] Romans 13:1–7; 1 Timothy 2:1–2; 1 Peter 2:13–17. Edwards read civil authority as part of God’s moral government, not as a substitute for the church and not as a theater for private vengeance.
[6] Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at Enfield, Connecticut, July 8, 1741. Standard text in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 22, Sermons and Discourses, 1739–1742 (New Haven: Yale University Press).
[7] On June 22, 1750, after twenty-three years as pastor of the Northampton church, Edwards was dismissed following a congregational vote over qualifications for church membership (the “communion controversy”). He preached A Farewell Sermon on 2 Corinthians 1:14. He then served the Stockbridge mission among Native Americans before his Princeton appointment.
[8] Edwards, A Farewell Sermon (Boston: S. Kneeland, 1751). The sermon’s central claim is that pastor and people will meet again before Christ’s tribunal, where controversies and treatment of one another will be judged. That is the moral frame the author applies to party fights.
[9] Richard K. Jones, 45th Sheriff of Butler County, Ohio. Born Hamilton, Ohio, October 11, 1953. Elected sheriff in 2004; took office January 3, 2005; subsequently re-elected, including 2020 and 2024. Official biography: https://www.butlersheriff.org/sheriff.
[10] Ohio Senate Bill 5 (2011) restricted collective bargaining for public employees. It passed the General Assembly and was signed by Governor John Kasich, then repealed by statewide referendum (Issue 2) in November 2011. The fight split many Ohio Republicans from public-safety unions and local officials.
[11] WLW (700 AM), Cincinnati. Long-running talk hosts associated with this period include Doc Thompson and Willie. The Lakota schools controversy and on-air confrontations described here are from the author’s firsthand radio work, not from a single official transcript.
[12] Charleston Harbor, Fort Sumter, and the early-eighteenth-century pirate history of the Carolina coast (including Edward Teach, “Blackbeard”) are standard public history. The comparison to Butler County is the author’s travel observation.
[13] Vivek Ramaswamy (Ohio) and J.D. Vance (Middletown, Butler County) are the two most nationally visible political figures to come out of the modern Ohio / Butler County conservative pipeline. Vance is Vice President of the United States as of 2025. Rep. Warren Davidson represents Ohio’s 8th Congressional District. Bernie Moreno was elected U.S. Senator from Ohio in 2024.
[14] Mary L. Swain, Butler County Clerk of Courts. Michael T. Gmoser, Butler County Prosecuting Attorney. Both Republicans holding countywide office as of 2024–2026. See Ballotpedia, Butler County, Ohio, elections, 2024.
[15] Ohio grand juries are convened under the Ohio Revised Code and local court practice. Foreman service is a civic appointment. Descriptions of jail tours and floor layout are from the author’s service and are not a disclosure of secret grand-jury deliberations or votes.
[16] Nancy Nix, CPA, Butler County Auditor. Appointed February 2023 by the Butler County Republican Party Central Committee after the felony conviction and removal of Auditor Roger Reynolds; sworn in February 13, 2023; elected November 2024. Previously Butler County Treasurer for nearly sixteen years. Office: https://auditor.bcohio.gov.
[17] Roger Reynolds, former Butler County Auditor, was convicted in December 2022 of a felony count of unlawful interest in a public contract related to Lakota Local Schools and a golf-training facility. He was removed from office. In 2024 he unsuccessfully sought to oust Auditor Nancy Nix through Ohio Supreme Court action and a Board of Elections protest. See Journal-News coverage, 2023–2024.
[18] FirstEnergy / House Bill 6 is the shorthand for Ohio’s 2019 nuclear-and-coal subsidy scandal, which produced federal prosecutions and years of state-level fallout. Democrats and Republicans both own pieces of the policy environment that made Ohio’s generation politics toxic. The point in this essay is party discipline after a scandal, not a legal brief.
[19] On public records, expungement, and political research: Ohio sealing and expungement statutes do not erase every trace of a matter from news archives, court indexes, or opposition research files. Leadership of a county party is a public role. That is a practical warning, not a legal opinion.
[20] Todd Hall has served as Executive Chairman of the Butler County Republican Party. See butlercountygop.org. Todd Minniear ran for Liberty Township Trustee (at-large) in 2025. References here to party leadership conversations are the author’s personal political judgment, not an official party endorsement.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have watched this movie before. In 2015 and 2016, and again in 2024, the same class of people tried to tell America that Donald Trump’s wealth was a character defect. They said a rich man could not be trusted, that success itself was the indictment, that gold, planes, and golf were proof he was “not like you.” Voters put him in the White House twice anyway, because they understood something the professional scolds never will: independence is an asset. A man who does not need the job is harder to own. That is the lesson Ohio Democrats and a handful of leftover Republican wreckers are now trying to unlearn with Vivek Ramaswamy, and it is why Amy Acton spent Labor Day weekend screaming that you cannot buy Ohio.
She needed a chant. What she got was a gaffe.
The Speech That Sounded Like a Person Running Out of Road
Watch the clip. Acton is at a union picnic with Pete Buttigieg in tow, doing the ritual of the lockdown years: I am a doctor, not a politician, becoming one right in front of your eyes. Then she starts barking that Vivek cannot buy the state, cannot buy Ohio, cannot buy us, cannot buy us, cannot buy us in Ohio, that is the end of this. It is the sort of thing a campaign writes on a whiteboard when the internals look ugly and the only remaining argument is envy. The crowd does not catch fire. She looks like she is trying to start a wave at a funeral.
This is the same Amy Acton Ohio already knows. She ran public health under Mike DeWine when the state was locked down, businesses were smashed, kids were sent home, and “follow the science” became a political religion. She collected awards for it. A lot of Ohioans collected unemployment, missed funerals, and watched their Main Streets die. You can call that public service if you like. I call it the record she has to run on, and it is why the “I’m just like you” routine lands like a lead pipe. She is not just like you. She is the woman who told you to stay home while the people who write the rules kept their salaries.
The wealth attack is even thinner. Vivek flew to watch tennis. He likes tennis. He used to be a ranked junior. He has a court. He went to the U.S. Open and he has been to Paris. Wealthy people do that. Trump never ran from Mar-a-Lago or the golf course; he wore the gold clip and the silk tie and said, yes, I did well, and if you vote for me I will try to make it so you can do well too. That is a producer’s message. Acton’s message is the opposite: he has money, therefore he is illegitimate, therefore hand the keys to the people who want to tax the successful and redistribute the proceeds to the discontented. That is not a governing philosophy. That is a ransom note.
Why Attacking Wealth Is a Loser’s Tell
I have been thinking lately about the Apostle Paul. He was effective in part because he had standing and independence. He was not a ward of the movement. He could travel, argue, and endure because he was not begging the crowd for his next meal. Politics is not the church, but the principle is the same. A candidate who has already won in the private economy does not need Columbus the way a career public-health administrator needs Columbus. Vivek does not need a government job. That is supposed to be a feature. The people yelling “you can’t buy Ohio” are announcing that they cannot raise comparable money and cannot compete on growth, so they will compete on resentment.
David Pepper and the rest of the chorus have been working this line for months: billionaire, private jet, not one of us. Fine. Then explain why Trump’s jets and clubs did not stop two national victories, and why Ohioans who want plants, capital, and jobs might prefer a man who has already built companies to a woman whose signature achievement was closing the state. You can dislike Vivek’s style. You can argue policy. What you cannot do, with a straight face, is pretend that enjoying a tennis match is a civic crime while the alternative is more of the administrative state that already had its turn.
The other half of this farce is intra-Republican sabotage. After a primary, Democrats lock arms around whoever they nominated, even when she sounds like a chalkboard dragged down a stairwell. A slice of the right still wants to pick the scab. Nick Fuentes types, leftover primary rivals, the professional “I told you so” circuit—anyone who would rather be right about a Republican’s flaws than win the state—keep feeding the same clip. They did it to Trump in 2016 and 2024. He won anyway because voters vote their interest when the noise dies down. A good economy and job creators in your state beat a sermon about how the other guy’s plane is too nice.
Then Came the Fair, and the Overnight Conversion of a Shove Into an Assassination Plot
The timing is the tell. After the Labor Day chant made her look unhinged, the campaign needed a new story. Sunday at the Canfield Fair, a 38-year-old local named Patrick Havas pushed through a tent crowd toward Acton with a phone up, as if he were recording or trying to get close enough to be seen. He knocked over older people. Security took him down. After the fact, deputies found two pistols and a Taser-style device on him. He did not draw the guns. He did not fire. He did not brandish. Ohio is a constitutional-carry state. Carrying is not the same thing as attempting murder. The charges reported were disorderly conduct and misdemeanor assault for the people he knocked down. Acton was unhurt. The people who fell were assessed and, according to the sheriff, did not seek further treatment.
That is a bad scene at a fair. It is not a martyrdom. Campaign statements still said an “armed individual lunged” and injured multiple people. National copy followed the verb. By Saturday night into Sunday the lead was written as if Ohio had just watched a political assassination attempt. If there were clean video of a man trying to kill her, it would have been on every screen before supper. What we got instead was language inflation: lunge, attack, armed, threat—while the actual police story is a large man barreling for a better look or a confrontation, knocking seniors like bowling pins, and getting piled on by Highway Patrol.
This attack story is just another Democrat Jussie Smollett story, trying to gain sympathy and voter support through fake news talking points. This is the fullness of the Acton operation: when the speech is a disaster, change the subject to danger. When you cannot raise on growth, raise on fear. When you cannot debate or raise money, accuse the other side of buying the state. Look how many sucker politicians jumped on the bandwagon without knowing all the facts, which again came out looking like Amy Acton is a loser candidate.
What Ohio Actually Chooses When the Cameras Leave
Acton will keep the unions, the people who want the next transfer payment, and the media that still thinks 2020 was her finest hour. She will keep Pepper on the ticket as proof that the old Democratic machinery is still in the room. She will keep calling Vivek rich, which he is, and hoping Ohio has forgotten that successful people are allowed to like tennis, football Saturdays, and a life that is not a permanent campaign stop.
I want a state that recruits producers instead of lecturing them. If a man with a billion dollars in assets spends a few thousand to fly to a match, that is not the scandal. The scandal is a political class that treats his success as the crime and her lockdown résumé as the credential. Trump never apologized for winning. Vivek should not apologize for a court, a jet, or a seat at the Open. The people who need him to grovel are the same people who needed Trump to grovel. They lost that argument twice.
Vote like you want the factories and the payrolls. When things got tough for Amy Acton in 2026 she turned to fake news. Which only made everything worse. She is the lockdown lady and is horrible in every way a politician can be, which we all had a front-row seat to in 2020 when she destroyed Ohio’s economy and told everyone they could be superheroes if only they wore a mask in public. That is the person running for governor in Ohio as a Democrat. A disaster on a good day. On a bad day, she is a fake news agent of destruction and drunkenness.
Notes
1. Acton’s Labor Day-weekend remarks with Buttigieg at the Cincinnati AFL-CIO picnic, including the “you cannot buy this state / you can’t buy us” repetition, circulated widely on September 5–6, 2026. See WLWT coverage of the Hamilton picnic and contemporaneous rally video.
2. Acton served as Ohio Department of Health director under Gov. Mike DeWine beginning in 2019 and became the public face of the state’s COVID restrictions.
3. Criticism of Ramaswamy’s travel and tennis included Acton’s own Labor Day-weekend post attacking a U.S. Open appearance and earlier opinion pieces on a July 4 Paris trip.
4. Ramaswamy’s tennis background (junior player, Cincinnati Open ball boy, regular Open attendee) is part of his public biography and prior campaign videos.
5. Canfield Fair incident, September 6, 2026: Patrick Havas, 38, of Canfield, pushed through the Mahoning County Democratic Party tent, knocked down older attendees, was detained by Ohio State Highway Patrol executive protection; weapons recovered after detention; no brandishing reported; charges reported as disorderly conduct and two counts of misdemeanor assault. Acton uninjured.
6. Constitutional carry in Ohio means possession of a concealed firearm, without more, is not itself an assassination attempt.
7. Public polling through late summer 2026 generally showed a toss-up to slight-Ramaswamy edge depending on the house, which is consistent with a campaign hunting for a reset narrative.
8. Intra-GOP sniping after contested primaries is a recurring feature of the Trump era; Democrats have typically consolidated faster around flawed nominees.
Bibliography
Acton for Governor. Campaign statements and Labor Day / Canfield Fair remarks, September 2026.
Ballotpedia. “Amy Acton.” Candidate biography and office history.
CNN. “Armed man arrested after pushing through crowd toward Ohio Democratic gubernatorial nominee.” September 6, 2026.
Columbus Dispatch. “Armed man arrested after lunging at Amy Acton at Canfield Fair.” September 6, 2026.
Cincinnati Enquirer. Nick Anderson, “Ramaswamy’s Paris trip an example of his disconnect with Ohioans.” July 8, 2026.
HuffPost. “Vivek Ramaswamy Slammed For Leaving Ohio And Attending The U.S. Open.” September 6, 2026.
Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office / Ohio State Highway Patrol statements on the Canfield Fair detention of Patrick Havas, September 6, 2026.
New York Times. “Armed Man Arrested After Charging Toward Democratic Candidate for Ohio Governor.” September 6, 2026.
The Nerd Stash. “‘You Can’t Buy Us’: Ohio Dem Amy Acton Sparks Backlash After Awkward Rally Chant Aimed at Vivek Ramaswamy.” September 6, 2026.
Washington Post. “Armed individual ‘lunged’ at Democrat nominee for Ohio governor, campaign says.” September 6, 2026.
Wikipedia. “2026 Ohio gubernatorial election.” Polling averages and race ratings as of early September 2026.
WLWT. “Pete Buttigieg campaigns for Amy Acton, Greg Landsman at Cincinnati AFL-CIO picnic.” September 6, 2026.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
It is hard to be in a leadership position. I know that. I wanted to wish the new chair of the Butler County Republican Party well. Art Sauerwein stepped into a job that is mostly thankless, always public, and never as simple as it sounds when you are talking to yourself in the bathroom mirror.¹ I have worked with people in this orbit. We have agreed on more than we have fought about. I was not looking to pick a fight with a brand-new chairman. Bloodsport politics is already crowded with people who think volume is a substitute for skill.
But people are already getting sour on his wine. This is not the pleasant kind. This is the vintage you spit out when you realize the bottle lacks what it takes. Sauerwein literally means sour wine.² I did not invent the metaphor. The paper did him the courtesy of putting the raw vintage on the table.
I want the Republican Party in this county to succeed. I do not want the political disease that has been cultivated in parts of West Chester to migrate township by township until the rest of Butler County starts talking like a faculty lounge. I want more unification, not less. I want a bigger tent, not a Sunday-school classroom with a padlock on the door. That is why I am saying something now, at the start of September 2026, while the article is still warm and the Democrats are still salivating.
What Sounded Fine in the Shower Did Not Survive the Newspaper
Some lines sound terrific when you are singing in the shower. They still sound pretty good at a Sunday meeting among people who already agree with you. They do not survive contact with newsprint. Once they are in the Journal-News, they belong to every Democrat, every fence-sitter, every officeholder you still need next cycle, and every volunteer who is privately deciding whether this job is worth the abuse.
The chairman’s public message, as it landed, ran something like this: take back the schools and make them more conservative; put more Christian values in the community; and, most of all, the Republicans already in office need to learn to cut spending and cut taxes, eliminate waste and fraud, and get in alignment with conservative values. Then the kicker: he has not been seeing that happen, and it displeases him.
I agree with a large percentage of the substance. Cutting spending, cutting taxes, reducing waste, and stopping fraud are not radical demands in a Republican county. I have been in the tax fight in this county for a long time, going back through names people still remember and some they would rather forget. I want conservative schools. I am not embarrassed by Christian values in a community that was built on them. That is not the argument.
The argument is tone, timing, venue, and target. You do not build a governing party by taking out the people you just spent years getting elected. You especially do not do it two months before a midterm when Democrats are hunting local gains and the only story they need is “Republicans are already eating their own.”
The Fast-Food Manager Problem in Bloodsport Politics
I have heard this voice before. It usually comes from people who have a hard time making a legitimate argument that requires sitting down, listening, and converting someone who does not already attend their Bible study to their way of thinking. Instead of doing that work, they reach for the lecture. I have seen it in entry-level managers at places that sell fast food. They get handed a shift. They have run something with five employees. They discover that barking feels like leadership.
You can talk that way to teenagers folding boxes. You cannot talk that way to people you are asking to put their name on a ballot, raise money, take votes, absorb the hate mail, and then run again in two years. Public office is already a faithless job. If word gets out that the chairman treats officeholders like children who missed curfew, the short list of people willing to do the work gets shorter. Then you will complain that nobody good will run, and you will be right, and you will have helped cause it.
The grandfather tone does not work on people who already moved out of their father’s house. Younger Republicans, the ones you claim you want to recruit so the party is not a retirement home, can smell a lecture from across the parking lot. Trump did not build a coalition by scolding his own team in the local paper. He built one by pointing the fire outward.
Good Old Boys, Street Vendors, and the Nicodemus Problem
I have heard the comments on Facebook. People send me this stuff all day. “Good old boys club.” It is always the boys club when you are not in it. When you are outside, you throw a rock and call it prophecy. You say you are Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers. You say you are honest and pure. Meanwhile the people you need are quietly updating their résumés for a private-sector job that pays better and does not include a chairman who inspects their homework in the newspaper.
You have to remember Nicodemus. He loved Jesus. He wanted the message to advance. He also had to remain a functioning member of the priesthood. He walked a fine line on purpose.³ That is the nature of serious politics. It should not be a purity cult. I have heard the purity speech for years: we should be clean, we should be absolute, we should never sit at a table with anyone who is only 80 percent of the way home. Meanwhile you bleed support. You try to build a big party and then you shove people toward the door with absolutism and call the ones who leave compromised.
Cheerleaders are useful. Rock throwers are useful too, in the right hour. Leadership is deciding which tool you are holding before you swing it at your own team.
David Kern Knew How to Throw a Rock and Still Keep the Township
I have known the Kern family since I was very little. I was friends with his son. I knew Katy. I remember David Kern as a man who could throw a rock with the best of them and still serve as a respected Liberty Township trustee for decades. He chaired this county party. He also discovered, the hard way, that herding quarreling Republicans is a different sport than fighting Democrats.⁴ He said as much when he walked away from the chairmanship. That history is sitting right there for anyone who wants to read it instead of repeating it.
You need people who will volunteer for the ugly jobs. The short list of adults willing to be lectured in public like children is very short. You do not want your officeholders saying, “I will take the private job. It pays. I do not have to run every two years. I do not have to take a sermon from a chairman who just discovered the budget.” Once they leave, you do not get them back by posting harder.
West Chester Is Not a Metaphor. It Is a Beachhead.
I know Kathy Wyenandt. I have watched her work. She is out there trying to hitch a truck and a horse to the same socialist push that is running through school boards, township halls, and every other local institution that used to be too boring for ideology. Call it progressivism if the word socialism makes the room cough. The destination is the same: more government, more cultural renovation, more migration of West Chester habits into townships that did not ask for them.⁵
She does not need a majority tomorrow. She needs Republicans to do her turnout work for her. A county party that announces, in the paper, that its own officeholders have disappointed the chairman is a gift. Democrats do not have to beat Republicans if Republicans will brand their own people as failures eight weeks before Election Day. I do not want a bunch of Democrats in offices that took a generation to flip. That is not a purity position. That is arithmetic.
The people pushing the chairman to talk like this represent a slice of the party, not the whole vineyard. I would put that slice well under 40 percent of Republicans in this county, with the rest on the fence, tired, transactional, or capable of being seduced by a smiling Democrat who promises to be less exhausting. If you lecture the 60 percent as if they were the problem, you will meet them later on the other side of the aisle, or at home on the couch.
You Cannot Shut Off a County Budget Like a Spigot
“The Republicans that are in office need to learn to cut spending and cut taxes, and I have not been seeing that happen, and it displeases me.” That sentence is the whole problem in one pour. You cannot just turn the spigot off on a dime. I have been in these tax fights my whole adult life. There were plenty of pizzas eaten over tables with Mike Fox and the old Liberty Township crowd. There were plenty of arguments. You still had to build a team.⁶
County government is not a lemonade stand. It is labor contracts, state mandates, jails, boards of developmental disabilities, roads, courts, and a sales-tax stream that moves with the economy. Butler County has rolled back millage, sat on windfalls, and still gets accused of betrayal because the cut was not theatrical enough for people who do their budgeting in comment threads. Results matter. Theater is cheaper. Voters, after two years of Republicans in power, vote results. If the chairman’s public line is “our people have not done a very good job,” do not be shocked when the other team puts that quote on a mailer.
This is the midterm problem in miniature. The buzzwords that pulled people to the polls the first time do not work the same way once you own the desks. Insurgents always arrive to take advantage of disappointment. Some of them only know how to throw rocks. They want Jesus in the temple every Tuesday. If you are not flipping tables, you are not holy enough. That energy can win a primary. It does not automatically win a county, and it does not automatically govern one.
Todd Hall, Thomas Hall, and the Unfashionable Work of Building a Team
Todd Hall was good at building a team. Thomas Hall has done the unglamorous work in the Statehouse. I have had disagreements with people in that circle. There were disputes. We worked them out over time. Nobody has to be attached at the hip. Leadership is the art of bringing people to your way of thinking without setting their chairs on fire.⁷
People who lack that skill often lecture because lecture is what you do when you cannot close. They talk themselves into a lather in the bathroom. It sounds like Churchill. Then they get into a meeting with actual officeholders, actual budgets, and actual voters, and the words come out like a substitute teacher on the last day of school. “It displeases me” is not a governing strategy. It is a report card written by someone who is not taking the test.
Sometimes a chairman will sound like the star quarterback at a pep rally. In the bleachers you will have a row of people who never liked football and came for the argument. The quarterback will look like a cardboard cutout of the good old boys club. Fine. People still like winning the game. They like being around a team that wins. They will tolerate a certain amount of jock energy if the scoreboard gives them what they want. They will not tolerate a coach who spends the pregame interview explaining that his own starters are a disappointment.
Unity Is Not Compromise. Isolation Is Not Courage.
I do not want a compromised party. I also do not want a minority party that congratulates itself for being pure while Kathy’s people take another township seat. Those are not the only two options, no matter how many Facebook theologians insist they are. Learning to communicate with people who are not as conservative as a Sunday-morning Sunday-school teacher is not the same thing as becoming one of them. It means you can share a sandbox without eating the sand.
People who cannot do that work are often insecure about their ability to win a conversation. So they push the other person away. Then they never have to experience the small death of losing the argument. They say, “We did our best. We stood on principle. We were outnumbered.” Being outnumbered is not a sacrament. I do not want the minority party in Butler County. I want the party that keeps winning and then governs like it intended to keep the job.
Compromise has a cost. Losing has a cost. Leadership is weighing those two costs in public without pretending one of them is free. Thanksgiving dinner is the annual clinic: you do not have to agree on the football game to keep the same people at the table. A smart network puts more than one game on. That is not cowardice. That is how you still have a family next year.
A Friendly Note to the New Chairman
I want Art Sauerwein to be a successful chairman. I want people to support him. I want the party to grow. I agree with him on most of the policy nouns in that article. Cut spending. Cut taxes. Watch the schools. Say the quiet part about values out loud. Do it in a room with the officeholders first. Bring the concerns to a meeting. Make the case. Count votes. Help them find the money, the language, and the coalition. Then go to the paper together.
If you push them away in August, you will not have them in November, and you will not have them when you need a candidate in 2028. Chairmen who listen only to the people who want them to tear the party down do not last. The job looks important from the outside. From the inside it is volunteer hours, bruised egos, and a phone that rings with problems nobody else wanted. You will not keep good people if the public posture is “Father Knows Best and the children have disappointed the table.”
Help them get elected. Help them get money. Help them get on the slate card. Show up for them when the Journal-News calls. Save the lecture for the closed session, and even then, make it a conversation. The people who are whispering that the only moral posture is table-flipping are not the ones who will still be in the room when the chairs are empty.
Tomorrow Can Still Be a Better Day
It is hard to be in leadership in all phases. It is hard when people will not come over to your way of seeing the field. You still have to try. You have to bring together people who would never choose the same dinner table if football were not on. You have to give people latitude without becoming a wet rag. That is the whole craft.
So here is the friendly advice, based on what I am seeing in the first weeks of this chairmanship: do not sour the wine. Do not sour the voters. Do not sour the big tent. Do not push away the people who are not as conservative as you wish they were on a Sunday morning. Sit down. Work it out. Inspect the team in private. Cheer the team in public. I want this chairman to prosper. I want this party to keep the county. Lecturing your own officeholders in the newspaper is how you do the Democrats’ work for them.
Notes
1. Art Sauerwein quoted in late-August 2026 Journal-News coverage of Butler County politics heading into the November 2026 midterms. The phrasing matches public circulation of the piece under titles such as “Republicans defend Butler County Ohio stronghold as Democrats seek local gains this fall.”
2. Sauerwein is a German occupational/descriptive surname meaning “sour wine,” historically attached to makers or sellers of tart wine. The pun writes itself; I did not invent the vintage.
3. John 3:1–21. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, came to Jesus by night. He later spoke for due process (John 7:50–51) and helped bury Jesus (John 19:39–40). He never became a street-corner prophet. That is the point.
4. David Kern served 32 years as a Liberty Township trustee, briefly chaired the Butler County Republican Party, and died in 2021. See Journal-News obituary coverage and the Congressional Record tribute by Rep. Warren Davidson, April 22, 2021.
5. Kathy D. Wyenandt of Liberty/Fairfield Township has been central committee chair and a visible public face of the Butler County Democratic Party, a Board of Elections member, and a candidate for Ohio House and Senate. She has written openly urging voters to consider Democrats in local cycles.
6. Butler County commissioners have repeatedly used inside-millage rollbacks and related tools in recent budget cycles; sales-tax receipts have also risen. Whether that pace satisfies every activist is a separate question from whether the county is “not cutting.” See Journal-News budget coverage 2024–2026.
7. Todd Hall served as Butler County GOP executive chairman through the 2024–2026 cycle and was frequently quoted on endorsements, including the 2026 commissioner primary. State Rep. Thomas Hall represents Ohio House District 46.
8. Richard K. Jones, Butler County sheriff, published They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (2026). The book is a leadership memoir, not a novel about cartels; the shower version of the pitch always sounds punchier than the jacket copy.
Bibliography for Further Reading
A working shelf, not a complete library. I have included the books that actually change how you think about parties, persuasion, local government, and the temptation to confuse purity with power.
Local and Ohio Politics
Butler County Republican Party. Candidate and leadership materials, butlercountygop.org, 2024–2026.
Callahan, Denise G., and Journal-News staff. Budget, millage, sales-tax, and commissioner coverage, Hamilton Journal-News, 2018–2026.
Clark, Michael D. “Beloved Butler County icon, political leader David Kern dies after illness.” Journal-News, April 16, 2021.
Davidson, Warren. “Honoring the Life and Memory of David Kern.” Congressional Record, April 22, 2021.
Ohio Republican Party. County chair directory and State Central Committee materials, ohiogop.org.
Wyenandt, Kathy. “You may want to vote Democrat this election cycle.” Cincinnati Enquirer, June 15, 2022.
Journal-News. “Republicans defend Butler County Ohio stronghold as Democrats seek local gains this fall.” Late August 2026. (Article circulating with the Sauerwein quotations discussed here.)
Parties, Coalitions, and the Big Tent
Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France. 1790. Still the best warning against people who love principles more than the society those principles have to live in.
Downs, Anthony. An Economic Theory of Democracy. Harper, 1957.
Fiorina, Morris P. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. Yale University Press, 1981.
Galston, William A., and Elaine C. Kamarck. “The Politics of Polarization.” Third Way / Brookings essays, various years.
Hazlitt, Henry. Economics in One Lesson. Harper, 1946.
Kirk, Russell. The Conservative Mind. Regnery, 1953.
Laver, Michael, and Norman Schofield. Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe. Oxford University Press, 1990. Useful even for a two-party county: coalition is a skill.
Riker, William H. The Theory of Political Coalitions. Yale University Press, 1962.
Skocpol, Theda, and Vanessa Williamson. The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Truman, David B. The Governmental Process. Knopf, 1951.
Leadership, Management, and Why Lectures Fail
Carnegie, Dale. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Simon & Schuster, 1936. Mock it after you can do it.
Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. 1832. Politics is the continuation of coalition by other means.
Collins, Jim. Good to Great. HarperBusiness, 2001.
Drucker, Peter F. The Effective Executive. Harper & Row, 1967.
Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business: A Skeleton Key to Western Civilization. Liberty Hill Publishing, 2021.
Hoffman, Rich. The Symposium of Justice. Overman Warrior Publications.
Jones, Richard K. They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America. 2026.
Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Jossey-Bass, 2002.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. 1532. Read it as a warning about what happens when your own captains stop trusting you.
Musashi, Miyamoto. The Book of Five Rings. c. 1645.
Ohno, Taiichi. Toyota Production System. Productivity Press, 1988. You cannot lecture a production system into existence.
Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Do not announce your disappointment with your own left flank.
Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. The leader who needs to be seen lecturing is already losing.
Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Horizon, 1946.
Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. Viking, 1985.
Weaver, Richard M. The Ethics of Rhetoric. Henry Regnery, 1953.
Scripture and the Fine Line
The Gospel of John, chapters 3, 7, and 19. Nicodemus.
Matthew 21:12–13 and parallels. The temple tables. Note the target: a corrupt marketplace inside the holy precinct, not your own disciples on the night before a fight.
Augustine. City of God. The two cities argument is older than any county central committee.
Niebuhr, Reinhold. Moral Man and Immoral Society. Scribner, 1932.
Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. 1942. Especially the parts about factions inside the church.
American Party History and Populism
Gerring, John. Party Ideologies in America, 1828–1996. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform. Knopf, 1955.
Hofstadter, Richard. The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Knopf, 1965.
Phillips, Kevin. The Emerging Republican Majority. Arlington House, 1969.
Rauch, Jonathan. Political Realism. Brookings, 2015. Parties exist to tame factions. When the faction tames the party, you get what you are watching.
Schattschneider, E. E. The Semisovereign People. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.
Sundquist, James L. Dynamics of the Party System. Brookings, 1983.
Local Government, Taxes, and the Spigot That Will Not Shut
Fisher, Ronald C. State and Local Public Finance. Various editions.
Oates, Wallace E. Fiscal Federalism. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.
Tiebout, Charles M. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 64 (1956).
Ohio Auditor of State and Butler County Auditor annual financial reports, 2022–2026.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have been writing almost every day since about 2009.[1] That is nearly twenty years of putting the same argument on the table while people told me I was not supposed to say it out loud. The argument is simple. America works when people who make jobs are allowed to make them. America fails when the political class uses the power of government to confiscate what those people built and hand it out as a permanent constituency. In Ohio, a few weeks out from the November 3, 2026 election, that argument has a name on each side of the ballot.[2]
Vivek Ramaswamy is the unapologetic capitalist. Amy Acton is the candidate of the administrative state that shut down the economy in 2020 and never fully admitted what that was. I do not care how many sidebars the campaigns invent between now and Election Day. Skin color, private jets, drinking rumors, data-center talking points, Lake Ontario, the Gulf of America — they all collapse into one question: do you want a job creator in the governor’s office, or do you want a manager of other people’s money?
The Horse Race as of Late August 2026
I will give the numbers first, because the people who live on polls will not read anything else. The race is a dead heat inside the margin of error. Aggregators in mid-August had the two candidates essentially tied near 47 percent each. A Fox News poll taken August 6–10 among registered voters had Ramaswamy 50 to Acton’s 48. A Wedgewood survey of likely voters a few days later had Acton 47 to 46. Prediction markets on Polymarket and Kalshi flipped toward Acton late in the week of August 24 after sitting near a coin flip. Markets are not votes. They are bets. I treat them as weather, not gospel.[3]. In this governor’s race, you’d rather be Vivek Ramaswamy than Amy Acton.
Ohio is still a state Donald Trump won by more than ten points in 2024. That does not make the governor’s race automatic. Midterms punish the party in the White House. Democrats are trying to turn Acton’s bedside manner into a permission structure for the same governing philosophy that produced the lockdowns. Republicans are trying to turn Ramaswamy’s wealth into a character supplement. Both tactics tell you what each side fears.
Money, Jets, and the “Why Is He Even Running?” Attack
David Pepper, Acton’s running mate and the former Ohio Democratic Party chair, has been out on the circuit asking why a billionaire would want the governor’s mansion. He has made a meal of campaign reports showing roughly $700,000 in private-jet leasing. Ramaswamy has self-funded at a scale no normal Ohio candidate can touch and has outspent Acton several times over in 2026 filings.[4]
I find the question revealing in the exact way Pepper does not intend. Why would a man who already cashed out of companies he built take a pay cut, live in a government house, and spend two years being screamed at by people who think profit is a sin? I asked a version of that question years ago, when he was still a CEO who had not yet written the book that Fox News later discovered. The answer he gave me then is the answer his campaign is still giving now: he made money. He wants to spend the next chapter creating the conditions for other people to make money. That is not a job hunt. That is a mission.
A communist-minded person looks at a private jet and sees stolen bread. A capitalist looks at the same jet and asks whether the man inside it is flying toward a plant, a donor meeting, or a vacation after creating tremendous market value. Intent matters. Output matters more.
I will never apologize for preferring self-funded candidates. The moment a politician’s paycheck depends on a machine, the machine owns the mind. I have watched it up close. I know a patriotic couple who together make a few hundred thousand a year, keep the flags in the garage, and stay quiet at the corporate job because they do not want the HR department to discover they vote like Americans. Control the check, and you control the speech. That is not a conspiracy theory. That is how large organizations work in 2026.
Amy Acton and the Lockdown State
Acton was Ohio’s health director when the state closed schools and businesses in 2020. Critics call her Ohio’s Dr. Fauci. Democrats treat that as a slur. I treat it as a job description. She was the face of orders that treated the economy as a switch a bureaucrat could flip. I lived through it here. So did every shop owner who found out a signature in Columbus could erase a year’s work overnight.[5]
The Amy Acton Covid response was authoritarian in method and Marxist in assumption: the productive life of a free people could be suspended by experts, who would decide when life was allowed to resume. That is not public health as a limited tool. That is government as the owner of time.
Why I Call the Lockdowns Marxist
Marxism is not only red flags and five-year plans. It is the belief that the state is the rightful allocator of work, risk, and reward. When you shut the places where people create value and keep the administrative offices open, you have already chosen a side. You have decided that the badge-wearing clerk outranks the owner who makes payroll. Ohio Democrats gambled that voters would remember Acton’s tone of voice and forget the empty Main Streets. I did not forget.
DeWine appointed her. DeWine has now endorsed Ramaswamy. That fact alone should end the fairy tale that Acton was a nonpolitical healer floating above faction. She was a cabinet officer who used emergency power. Emergency power is the most addictive drug in American government. People who taste it rarely volunteer to put the bottle down.
Unions, Paychecks, and the Long March Through the Shop Floor
I have said for years that the modern political union is a child of the Marxist analysis of class, even when the guy in the union hall flies a flag, hunts on weekends, and would punch you for calling him a communist. The original theory was never a mystery. Labor was organized as a counter-power to private ownership. In practice, union leadership in this country has spent decades steering members toward the party that grows government, because government is the only force large enough to take ownership away from the people who built the plant.[6]
That is why so many red-white-and-blue households still vote for the party that talks about them as a class to be managed. The leadership is not confused. The membership is loyal to the paycheck and the hall. I do not hate the welder. I hate the theory that says the welder’s children should live under a political class that treats the owner as a villain and the agency as a parent.
The FirstEnergy Lesson I Have Deep Sympathy For
I have been around Ohio politics long enough to watch a struggling energy company buy itself a statute. House Bill 6 and the FirstEnergy dark-money case are the exhibit. Ratepayers paid. Executives and a speaker went to court. The regulatory environment became a marketplace for influence. I will not bless a “deal” in which a company that cannot survive honest rules writes a check to a campaign so the rules change.[7]
That is the fine line I have learned to walk. Politicians have to keep the confiscators out of the regulatory shop so builders can build. That is not an unholy alliance. That is the only way a mixed economy does not slide into a managed one. A President Trump saying to industry, “I want a regulatory environment in which you can hire,” is the opposite of a health director saying, “I want an environment in which you may not open.” One expands the field. The other sits on it.
Why a Billionaire Wants a Crummy Mansion
I hosted a gathering in 2019. Vivek was there. So was J.D. Vance. It was neither a bundling operation nor a corporate ask. It was capitalists in a room talking about whether the country still believed in itself. Later, I sat in the front row at a Middletown-area event and talked to Vivek before and after the event. He told me the earlier room had mattered. He had built companies, sold, and was deciding whether the next chapter was a quieter rich life or a public fight.[8]
He chose the fight. I understand the psychology because my own life is simpler than it used to be, and I still cannot leave the argument alone. You spend years making something. You cash out. Then you look at the country that made the cash-out possible and watch a political movement try to call the making itself immoral. At that point, money is not the point. Example is the point. He has young children. So do a lot of the people I know who are still trying to start shops in Butler County, Warren County, and along the I-75 corridor. They need a governor who thinks a payroll is a moral achievement.
What “Public Servant” Actually Means
Acton’s campaign asks why he needs a job. That sentence is the whole Democratic theory of government in eight words. They think office is a job you take because you need income and status. I think office is a temporary grant of power you take because you already know how to create value and you want the rules to stop punishing the next person who tries. She needs the apparatus. He does not. That difference is not a smear. It is the reason self-reliant candidates are harder to own.
Naming Lakes, Inventing Guilt, and the Attack on the Founding
I have been talking about early Bronze Age copper, Florida’s long human timeline, and the political use of the word “indigenous.” I am not an “indigenous peoples” activist because a university committee decided the founding of the United States was a crime scene. Lake Ontario had Iroquoian names before English maps. That is history. It is not a veto of Ohio’s existence. The campaign to treat every European place-name as an apology is a campaign to treat American creation as illegitimate. If the country was born in sin, then the wealth it produced is stolen, and the state may seize it with a clean conscience.[9]
That is why I do not roll my eyes when President Trump puts a new name on a body of water. Marketing people understand pressure points. Force the argument into the open. Mexico is not a capitalist peer. Canada is a softer social democracy with better manners. China runs a party-state that Western finance keeps trying to copy while calling itself “stakeholder capitalism.” If you import the constraint structure of a manifesto into a corporation, do not act shocked when the sales numbers coming out the door shrink.
China has more than a billion people and still does not outrun American output on the terms that matter most. People are not GDP. Property, energy, and permission to try are the components of GDP.[10]
Free Speech, Treason Talk, and Where I Draw the Line
I use a hard word on purpose. I view a political project that intends to undo the capitalist republic from inside its own universities, HR offices, and public schools as hostile to the country that protects the speech. That is my moral line, not a statute I am asking a prosecutor to file tomorrow. The left has been brilliant at wrapping the project in the First Amendment. They want the protection of the system they are trying to hollow out. I will not pretend those things are neutral.
Republicans have often been cowards about this. They recite “free speech” as if the phrase were a substitute for a spine. Speech is the method. The aim is still the aim. If the aim is to teach children that job creation is exploitation and that America should not have been founded, you are not hosting a seminar. You are running a treasonous succession operation.
What I Want from a Governor of Ohio
I want a political class that keeps the confiscators out of the permit office. I want data centers and plants and the power to run them, not a lecture about why the grid should be smaller. I want elections that are elections, then an executive who tells builders: the rules will be stable enough that you can risk a decade of your life. I want fewer people who take jobs from the tax base and more people who create jobs that build the tax base.
You can steal only so much before you run out of victims. Every society that tries to live on confiscation discovers that the makers leave, hide, or stop. Then the speeches about “the people” get louder and the shelves get emptier. That is not a metaphor from a paperback. That is the twentieth century.
The Quiet Majority in the Garage
I do not think Ohio has reached the saturation point at which the paycheck controllers can order a blue state into existence. The man with the flags in the garage is still voting. He will not wear the pin at work. Democrats had to come all the way out into open socialism because they could not out-Trump Trump on prosperity. Bernie always beat Hillary in the heart of the Democrat Party. The party followed the energy. Now they have Acton as the respectable face of that energy in Ohio.
How I Measure Morality
Money is a human construct. I do not worship it. I measure it the way I measure any tool: by what it lets a free person do for other free people. A 12- or 16-hour day that produces a payroll is a moral act. A political career that lives off the payroll someone else produced is, at best, a borrowed life. I am sympathetic to imperfect Republicans who still know which side of that line they live on. I am not sympathetic to a politics that calls the maker greedy and the taker compassionate.
My people, the ones who have stayed with this blog for years, tend to be biblical in the old sense. They think a man should work, keep promises, raise children, and not covet his neighbor’s possessions. I am with them. The copper trade of the early Bronze Age, the mound builders, the later Iroquois, the English, the Americans — all of that is a long argument about who gets to take risk and keep the result. I come down on the side that built the country I actually live in.
The Vote
Vote for the job creator. That is the whole essay. Vivek Ramaswamy wants to be governor, so more people like him can exist. Amy Acton wants to be governor so the power that closed Ohio can be normalized as kindness. I was in the room when he was still deciding whether to step down from the CEO role. I have watched the last two years of his campaign confirm the pitch. I have watched her coalition confirm mine.
Ignore the sidebars if you can. The race is not about a jet. It is not about a lake. It is not about whether a rich man “needs a job.” It is about whether Ohio still believes that making something is better than administering something. I do. I have believed it since before this blog had a name. I will believe it after the returns come in.
Go vote. Keep the line. Make a job if you can. If you cannot, stand with the person who will.
Selected Sources for Readers Who Want the Record
Polling and market snapshots: RealClearPolitics; Decision Desk HQ; Fox News / Beacon Research / Shaw & Company (August 6–10, 2026); Wedgewood Polls (August 11–13, 2026); Newsweek reporting on Polymarket and Kalshi, August 28, 2026.
Campaign finance and travel: Ohio Capital Journal, August 21, 2026; NBC4 Columbus, August 26, 2026; Ohio Secretary of State campaign-finance database.
Candidate backgrounds: Ballotpedia and Wikipedia entries for the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial election and for Amy Acton; Politico Magazine profile, June 28, 2025; Cincinnati Enquirer coverage of COVID-era advertising, August 28, 2026.
HB 6 / FirstEnergy: U.S. Department of Justice deferred-prosecution materials; contemporaneous Ohio reporting summarized in footnote 6.
Personal context: author’s contemporaneous posts at overmanwarrior.wordpress.com; NBC News, October 4, 2023, on Ramaswamy’s 2019 Ohio political beginnings; C-SPAN, August 21, 2026, Middletown campaign event.
[1] Rich Hoffman, The Overmanwarrior (blog), published since approximately 2009–2010 at overmanwarrior.wordpress.com. Author of The Symposium of Justice (2004), Tail of the Dragon (2012), and The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. Forthcoming: The Politics of Heaven (targeted 2027).
[2] Ohio gubernatorial election set for November 3, 2026. Incumbent Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is term-limited. Republican nominee: Vivek Ramaswamy (running mate: Ohio Senate President Rob McColley). Democratic nominee: Dr. Amy Acton (running mate: former Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper). Libertarian: Don Kissick. See Ballotpedia, “Ohio gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial election, 2026.”
[3] RealClearPolitics aggregate through August 10, 2026: Acton 47.0%, Ramaswamy 46.8% (Acton +0.2). Decision Desk HQ through August 13: Acton 47.2%, Ramaswamy 46.8%. Fox News / Beacon / Shaw poll, August 6–10, 2026 (1,008 registered voters, ±3%): Ramaswamy 50%, Acton 48%. Wedgewood Polls, August 11–13, 2026 (800 likely voters, ±4%): Acton 47%, Ramaswamy 46%. Newsweek, August 28, 2026, reported Polymarket 54% Acton / 47% Ramaswamy and Kalshi 55% / 45% after a late-August shift.
[4] Ohio Capital Journal, August 21, 2026: Ramaswamy campaign spent nearly $690,000 leasing aircraft, including payments to V Leasing LLC (address tied to a Ramaswamy-owned property) and TVPX Aircraft Solutions. NBC4, August 26, 2026: Ramaswamy spent about $21.2 million in 2026 campaign funds through early August filings; Acton spent over $5.5 million. Wikipedia / Ohio Secretary of State filings, summarized in mid-August 2026, show Ramaswamy with substantially higher receipts and cash on hand, including substantial self-funding.
[5] Amy Acton served as director of the Ohio Department of Health from 2019 into 2020 under Gov. Mike DeWine and was the public face of Ohio’s early COVID-19 orders, including school closures and stay-at-home rules. She resigned as director in June 2020 amid protests and lawsuits, remaining briefly as an adviser. See Wikipedia, “Amy Acton”; Politico Magazine, June 28, 2025, “Can ‘Ohio’s Anthony Fauci’ Beat Vivek Ramaswamy?”
[6] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848), treat trade unions as instruments of class struggle within industrial capitalism. American labor history is more mixed: many U.S. unions were anti-communist during the Cold War. The author’s claim is interpretive—that union political machines often align with larger government and redistribution—not a claim that every rank-and-file member is a Marxist.
[7] House Bill 6 (2019) provided subsidies tied to FirstEnergy’s nuclear plants and other generation sources. Federal prosecutors described a roughly $60 million dark-money scheme around the bill. FirstEnergy entered a deferred prosecution agreement and paid a $230 million criminal penalty, admitting relevant facts. Former House Speaker Larry Householder was convicted. Related civil and regulatory costs to ratepayers have been widely reported. The author cites this episode as an example of captured regulation, not as a charge against any 2026 nominee.
[8] Author’s personal account of a 2019 gathering in the Cincinnati/Middletown area that included Vivek Ramaswamy and J.D. Vance, and of later attendance at a Ramaswamy event at a Middletown-area headquarters. NBC News, October 4, 2023, documented Ramaswamy’s 2019 return to Ohio and early political relationships, including with Vance and then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. C-SPAN recorded an August 21, 2026 Middletown campaign event featuring Ramaswamy.
[9] President Trump’s 2025 executive action renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and related debates over naming (including Great Lakes/Iroquois toponyms such as Ontario) became a cultural flashpoint. The author argues that renaming fights are proxies for whether the United States is a legitimate capitalist republic or a moral error to be undone. Geographic names have layered indigenous, colonial, and American histories; Ontario is an Iroquoian-derived name adopted into English cartography.
[10] World Bank and IMF national accounts: the United States remains the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP; China is second with a much larger population. Productivity, capital formation, property rights, and energy abundance—not headcount—drive output. Figures fluctuate yearly; the comparative point is structural, not a single-year snapshot.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
Traveling, Independent Media, and Coming Home to Butler County Politics
I’ve been traveling most of the summer, so I’ve been doing a lot of catching up. You can’t help but notice the difference when you step away and then come back. I’ve been a little behind on the local politics, and I want to refer to some changes in the Butler County Republican Party at the chair level.[1] When you’re in a leadership position, there’s always somebody who thinks they could do it better than you. There’s always a critic. I tell people that’s part of leadership. You’re always going to have armchair quarterbacks. They’re going to criticize and say stuff. Sitting down and talking to people who don’t agree with you is hard. Winning them over to your side is hard.
In Butler County we’ve had strong Republican support for a long time. When you’re the weak party—as Democrats are in Ohio and in Butler County—the only realistic path to power is splitting the majority party. Some Republicans, once they lose the eye of the tiger, start looking for ways to lose so they can feel relevant again. That’s Rocky III territory. The champion takes the top for granted and gets knocked down by someone hungrier. Strong leadership holds the party together so the majority stays a majority.
Todd Hall, Armchair Quarterbacks, and the Reality of Party Leadership
I always liked Todd Hall. I remember when people would complain about him. When you’re the chairman, you’re the lightning rod. Todd managed to keep things moving by focusing on something everybody could rally behind: electing Republicans and keeping the county on a conservative track.[2] You need a big tent to win. Pure factions feel righteous and then lose. I’ve said it for years—I’ll take people who will come to the table, grab a pizza, and argue philosophy all day long. We have more in common than not. The alternative is handing Democrats the only hope they have: a fractured Republican Party.
Big Tent Republicans vs. Purity Factions: Why Winning Requires Team Building
Trump himself was not a lifelong Republican in the traditional sense. Elon Musk came into the MAGA orbit from a different background. I take people who show up and want to win. The opposite impulse—the desire to purge and purify until only the purest remain—is how majorities become minorities. Democrats understand this. Their only realistic path in Butler County is to encourage Republicans to fight each other, thereby opening up the general-election map.[3]
I’ve watched it. People who could not win through the front door start working the back door—undermining officeholders who did win their primaries, feeding narratives to the Journal-News, and treating every establishment Republican as the enemy. That is not strategy. That is revenge dressed up as principle. And it is exactly what hands seats to Democrats.
Nancy Nix: Fiscal Discipline, Quiet Influence, and Why I Stand Behind Her
I love Nancy Nix, and I mean that genuinely. I can tell you that in their household, back when the Trump question was still unsettled for some people, her husband and I were already on the same page. Nancy came around eventually because she is logical and watches results; not everyone always agrees with everything all the time. As a fiscally responsible officeholder, she reduced staff sizes when she was Treasurer and again when she was Auditor. She has run things in the black for a long time. That is top-level conservative performance.[4]
A lot of the people you see in the White House and in state-level Republican success came through networks that include Nancy Nix. I know some of the behind-the-scenes. Nancy has been part of important scaffolding on all levels. When I was last at the White House, her fingerprints are on so many important things. She won’t claim credit, but I will give it. If Vivek is a few points up in the averages, a meaningful share of the organizational credit in this region runs through people like her.[5]
George Lang: Friendship, Door-Knocking, and the Night He Took Down a Protester
I’ve always been affiliated with George Lang. We’ve developed a real friendship. I’ve seen him, Debbie, and the girls work events, knock doors, and hold the party together behind the scenes for decades. I like his family. I like the way he carries himself under pressure.[6]
Here’s a story for context. At the Savannah Center Trump event in the primary season, I had a VIP pass. Todd Hall did not want to be seen sitting in the front row with Trump at that stage—he was still in the John Kasich lane as the Ohio guy. Fair enough. George was there as a state representative. A protester started coming down the aisle toward Trump. George had told me earlier he would handle it if it came to that. When the moment arrived, George grabbed the guy, put him on the ground, and bought the security detail the second and a half they needed. That is not armchair commentary. That is a man who showed up when it was not yet popular and did the physical work.[7]
I was with George during the difficult period around John Boehner. We did not always agree on every personnel fight, but I have seen him under real pressure, and I trust the man. When purity voices treat George as the problem, they are discarding decades of actual organizational labor.
Michael Ryan, Don Dixon, and the Commissioners Who Actually Govern
I really like Michael Ryan. I spoke with him just this morning about something positive on the Republican side. He is a good conservative and a good man. The party endorsement and the primary result were decisive.[8] Don Dixon and I go back a long way—I used to race soapbox with his son Brent. Don has been a solid commissioner. These are not theoretical conservatives. These are people who show up, manage budgets, and keep the county functioning.
Sheriff Richard Jones and the Mayberry Standard
I like Sheriff Jones. I want the Butler County Sheriff’s Office to carry a bit of Mayberry and a bit of Walnut Grove—competent, present, and rooted in the community. His book is worth reading. It makes me proud of the department. When personal and political conflicts involving Roger Reynolds spilled into court and public narrative, it became another example of how intra-party score-settling distracts from the actual work of public safety.[9][10]
Revenge Politics, Back-Door Insurrection, and the Journal-News Narrative
Here is the pattern I keep seeing. People who could not win their primaries, or who lost influence, start working to tear down those who did win. They feed stories. They call solid conservatives RINOs. They treat every successful officeholder as the establishment enemy. The recent Journal-News framing of the November races and the tone around party leadership fits the pattern: soft language toward Democratic opportunities, little enthusiasm for defending the Republican incumbents and nominees who actually earned their spots.[11]
That is not leadership. Leadership is hard. Leadership is sitting across the table from people you do not fully agree with and still building a winning team. Leadership is defending the people the voters already chose in the primary so the general election is about Republicans versus Democrats, not Republicans versus Republicans. When party leadership sounds happier to give Democrats a seat at the table than to fight for the Republican majority, the voters notice.
The West Chester Lesson and What Happens When You Play Nice with the Wrong Strategy
We already lived through a version of this in the West Chester trustee and school board fights. People who thought the pure strategy would deliver instead watched Democrats and soft candidates benefit from Republican disarray. Mark Welch and others paid the price of a fractured effort. The same dynamic is available at the county level if the new posture continues.[12]
A Longer View: From Ross Perot to Trump to the Present
I’ve been doing this a long time. Election night 1992, I was at Ross Perot’s place with his daughters after helping with the big Dallas rally. We drove hard back to Ohio so I could vote. I learned then what happens when the majority party fractures or when outsiders and insiders refuse to build anything durable.[13] Through the Tea Party years and the early Trump years, I watched the same purity-versus-majority argument play out. The people who told me Trump was going nowhere were often the same voices now calling Nancy Nix, Michael Ryan, or George Lang the problem. They were wrong then. They are wrong now.
What Butler County Actually Needs from Republican Leadership
Butler County is still a Republican stronghold if the party acts like one.[14] That requires leadership that understands the difference between primary competition and general-election self-sabotage. It requires people who will defend Nancy Nix, Michael Ryan, George Lang, Sheriff Jones, and the other officeholders who have earned their places. It requires the discipline to sit down with people you do not fully agree with and still leave the room as a team.
I have stood by people when it was unpopular—Darbi Boddy when others told me to stay away, Roger Reynolds in earlier seasons, and the current slate of solid conservatives even when the purity voices are loud. I will continue to do so. The alternative is a party that defines itself only by what it is against, hands Democrats open seats, and then wonders why the majority slipped.
I love Nancy Nix. I respect George Lang, Michael Ryan, and Sheriff Jones. I want a big-tent Republican Party that wins. The people trying to burn it down to feel important again are not helping Butler County. They are helping the only people who benefit from Republican disunity: Democrats.
If you are mad at me over this, check back in a decade. I’ll still be right, and I won’t let you forget it. Have a good day.
Footnotes
[1] Journal-News (Butler County / Cox First Media), “Republicans defend Butler County stronghold as Democrats seek local gains this fall,” late August 2026. The piece surveys November 2026 county and judicial races and the competitive posture of both parties.
[2] Butler County Republican Party materials and contemporaneous reporting identify Todd Hall as long-serving Executive Chairman through at least the May 2026 primary cycle.
[3] The “big tent” versus purity debate is a long-standing tension within the Republican Party, both nationally and locally.
[4] Nancy Nix has served Butler County in fiscal offices (Treasurer and Auditor) with a consistent record of staff reductions, budget discipline, and low-tax philosophy.
[5] Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2026 Ohio gubernatorial campaign has drawn significant support from Butler County and statewide Republicans; local organizers, including Nancy Nix, have been credited with early and sustained organizational assistance.
[6] George Lang, Ohio State Senator, has been a consistent conservative voice and organizational workhorse in Butler County Republican politics for decades.
[7] The 2015 Trump campaign event at the Savannah Center took place during the Republican presidential primary, when many establishment figures remained cautious or opposed.
[8] Michael Ryan won the May 2026 Republican primary for Butler County Commissioner with approximately 72 percent of the vote over long-time incumbent Cindy Carpenter after receiving a strong party endorsement.
[9] Richard K. Jones has served as Butler County Sheriff for multiple terms and has published a memoir detailing the department’s culture and operational philosophy.
[10] Roger Reynolds previously served as Butler County Auditor. His later political and legal conflicts became a public episode in local Republican politics.
[11] Journal-News, “Republicans defend Butler County stronghold as Democrats seek local gains this fall,” late August 2026.
[12] West Chester Township trustee and school-board contests in recent cycles illustrated the cost of intra-party warfare.
[13] Ross Perot’s 1992 independent presidential campaign and the subsequent Reform Party activity formed an early training ground for many later organizers.
[14] Butler County has maintained a structural Republican registration and performance advantage for decades, making internal cohesion the primary variable between comfortable majorities and avoidable losses.
Bibliography (full version is in the Word document and text files)
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Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have been traveling a lot this summer of 2026. My portable office goes with me. It is a rolling command post with a good chair, a refrigerator stocked with my favorite drinks, and windows that change the view almost every day. One day, the Tetons. Another day, the high country in Colorado or the open stretches of Utah and New Mexico. Just before recording some thoughts, I watched the ferry reverse into its slip, filming through the glass as the water churned. That is the life right now. I can work, read for hours, and still stay connected to home while the scenery shifts.
From that distance, the picture in Butler County comes into sharper focus. Politics is a bloodsport. Transitions happen. I checked in with some of my closest people back home and learned that Todd Hall is no longer chairman of the Butler County Republican Party. Art Sauerwein has taken the role. I always liked Todd. The job is genuinely thankless. It wears people out. Running a business on top of it, managing personalities, herding volunteers, and keeping the central committee pointed in one direction takes a small army and constant energy. I hope Art has a good run at it. The party needs steady hands.
Perspective from Distance Makes the Stakes Clearer
When you are removed from the daily handshakes and the same faces at every event, the larger pattern stands out. We have minor philosophical differences among ourselves. That is normal. What is not normal is letting those differences become the main event while outright socialists and radical Democrats keep pushing into local offices. I have watched it happen in places like West Chester. It is the same impulse you see nationally with the more extreme progressive candidates. It does not matter if the fight is on Main Street or in the national headlines. The goal of those forces is the same: expand government, raise the cost of living through policy, and treat constitutional limits as optional.
I have said for years that we need a big tent. I mean it. That includes people who may lean a little softer on some issues as long as they will stand with us against tax increases, against socialist experiments in the schools, and for basic fiscal order. Sheriff Richard Jones has always struck me as a Gunsmoke Republican. That is the personality I want in the top law enforcement job. Even if he occasionally frustrates pure ideologues, I want him successful. The same goes for others I have known for decades.
Local Fiscal Reality Versus the Socialist Alternative
Butler County and much of Ohio under Republican stewardship have largely kept the books balanced. Surpluses have been more common than structural deficits. There has been resistance to the constant pressure to raise taxes. That is good government. It is the opposite of the model that turns every problem into a reason for bigger bureaucracy and higher burdens on working families. When I talk to people at campgrounds across the country, the pattern repeats. Many of them are Trump voters. They fly the flags. They are getting away from out-of-control local governments elsewhere. They recognize solid management when they see it. We have had a good run of it here. The job now is to protect it and expand it.
Personal Notes on the Players
I think highly of George Lang. I always have. Nancy Nix is often painted as a mainstreamer these days. I do not see her that way. I see her as a person who has done great work in the auditor’s office. Roger Reynolds has sympathizers, and I was one of them for a long time. I never understood the decision to go after Nancy Nix the way it happened. That kind of personal fight does not help the larger cause. When you are trying to win elections and keep socialists from taking seats, internal score-settling becomes a luxury we cannot afford.
The chairman’s role is not glamorous. Todd Hall held it for a long stretch after David Kern. He came in young and stayed through periods of real discord. Some people felt he did not have enough hours in the day. That is a fair observation about the demands of the job. Leadership at that level requires heavy delegation and constant recruitment of capable people. I hope Art Sauerwein understands that and builds the team accordingly. I wish him well. I will miss Todd in the role, but the work continues.
The Real Task Ahead
Trump observed years ago that people get so used to winning that they start losing to experience the thrill of winning again. That is a real danger. We cannot afford boredom or internal exhaustion. The fall elections and the offices that matter most require Republicans to lock arms. The goal is straightforward: more Republicans in office than Democrats, constitutional values protected, fiscal discipline maintained, and the Trump agenda advanced at the county level the same way it is being advanced nationally.
I will spend more time on the road this year and then settle in for the fourth quarter closer to home. The portable office has proven its value. I can read, think, write, and still stay plugged into Butler County. When I talk to people at those campgrounds, I get a clearer read on the national mood than I sometimes get in the middle of local factional fights. Most of them want government that works without constantly reaching into their pockets or experimenting with radical social theories on their children.
I hope everyone finds a way to shake hands at the picnics and fundraisers. Support the new chairman. Remember what we have in common is larger than what divides us. Keep the focus on winning. Do not get tired of it. The alternative is watching more socialists and their enablers take ground, one township and one school board at a time.
Footnotes
1. Conversations with longtime Butler County Republican contacts, summer 2026, regarding the transition from Todd Hall to Dan Ferguson as party chairman.
2. Public record of Todd Hall’s long tenure as Butler County Republican Party executive chairman, beginning in the mid-2010s following David Kern.
3. Local election results and coverage of West Chester Township trustee races and related contests showing shifts in local control.
4. Butler County and Ohio fiscal performance under Republican majorities: consistent emphasis on balanced budgets and resistance to routine tax increases, as reflected in county and state budget outcomes over recent cycles.
5. Public statements and reporting on Roger Reynolds’ legal history, his attempt to reclaim the auditor’s office from Nancy Nix, and his later involvement in the county commissioner primary before withdrawing.
6. Sheriff Richard K. Jones’ long record and public positioning as a traditional law-and-order Republican.
7. Observations from campground conversations across multiple western and mountain states during summer 2026 travel regarding voter sentiment and local government dissatisfaction.
8. C-SPAN and local reporting on 2026 Butler County Republican events, including candidate and leadership appearances.
Selected Bibliography for Further Reading
• Journal-News (Hamilton/Butler County) coverage of Butler County Republican Party leadership, endorsements, and primary contests, 2024–2026.
• Butler County Republican Party official materials and candidate endorsement lists.
• Ohio Republican Party statements and State Central Committee updates, 2026.
• Ballotpedia and Butler County Board of Elections records on local races, including West Chester Township trustees and county offices.
• Reporting on Roger Reynolds’ conviction, appellate reversal, and subsequent legal efforts regarding the auditor’s office.
• Public financial and budget summaries from Butler County and the State of Ohio illustrating fiscal trends under Republican control.
• Contemporary accounts of Sheriff Richard Jones’ tenure and local political positioning.
• Travel notes and personal observations compiled during summer 2026 from portable office locations across the western United States.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I saw the U.S. News & World Report rankings circulating on X this week, and they put Ohio at 42nd overall for 2026, which puts us in the bottom ten and marks a drop from 38th last year and 36th the year before.¹ The categories they measure are education, healthcare, economy, infrastructure, opportunity, fiscal stability, natural environment, and crime and corrections. Ohio’s weakest spots were natural environment at 43rd and economy at 38th, with healthcare at 36th, crime and corrections at 37th, infrastructure at 31st, and education at 29th. The brighter spots were opportunity at 18th and fiscal stability at 28th.² Utah sat at number one for the fourth straight year.
The timing is not lost on me. We are months out from a midterm cycle and a gubernatorial race, with Democrats trying to claw back ground in a state they have not controlled for a long time. Amy Acton is the Democratic nominee, and the narrative machine is looking for any data point that can be spun into evidence that Republican stewardship has failed. Ohio has had Republican governors and legislative majorities for the better part of two decades. When the ledgers are in the black, and the business climate is competitive, the opposition looks for rankings that penalize issues Republicans tend not to prioritize as much as progressive outlets do.
That is exactly what this ranking does. Education and healthcare carry the heaviest weights in the U.S. News methodology—roughly 15.8 percent and 15.5 percent, respectively—while natural environment and crime and corrections carry less weight.³ The metrics lean toward things like pre-K enrollment rates, higher-education access, college debt levels, and certain public-health indicators. States that invest more in expanding the existing system and in measuring inputs rather than outcomes tend to score higher on those axes. Ohio spends in the mid-to-high teens of thousands per pupil, right around or slightly below the national average depending on the data set, and we are not pretending that simply increasing the size of the bureaucracy automatically produces better results.⁴ The ranking rewards the model that has produced years of mediocre performance and cultural experimentation in many places, and it docked Ohio for not matching that model closely enough.
Meanwhile, two months earlier, CNBC released its America’s Top States for Business ranking and put Ohio at number one for the first time.⁵ That study uses a different set of 138 metrics weighted toward infrastructure, cost of doing business, workforce, economy, and access to capital—the things companies actually look at when they decide where to put plants, headquarters, and capital. Ohio ranked first in infrastructure and first in cost of doing business. We have no corporate income tax, a competitive commercial activity tax structure, shovel-ready sites, abundant power capacity, and more than 140 million people within a day’s drive. Governor DeWine correctly called that ranking proof that Ohio is a strong place for jobs and opportunity. The contrast is instructive. One ranking measures outcomes that matter to employers and taxpayers who have to meet payroll. The other measures a set of progressive priorities and then acts surprised when a state that has refused to adopt the full progressive playbook scores lower.
I prefer the CNBC approach. Rankings are never gospel, and methodology is everything. Mortimer Zuckerman owns U.S. News and has long reflected the worldview of coastal media institutions that view Republican governance as inherently suspect.⁶ When a ranking heavily weights healthcare access metrics and education-system expansion while Ohio is running consistent budget surpluses—nearly $1.8 billion above projections in fiscal year 2026—and is actively working on property-tax relief, the political incentive is obvious.⁷ Democrats cannot move the ball in Ohio the way they want, so the media environment supplies stories about how the state is “falling behind.” Ohio is operating in the black. We dug out of the deficits of earlier Democratic administrations and have maintained strong credit ratings and a healthy rainy-day fund. That is not failure. That is competence.
Amy Acton’s record is part of the same conversation. As Ohio’s health director in early 2020, she became the public face of some of the strictest early lockdowns in the country. Ohio was the first to close schools statewide and to impose broad business and gathering restrictions when case numbers were still low.⁸ The economic and educational damage from those months is still visible in workforce participation, learning loss, and small-business attrition. DeWine has said the ultimate responsibility was his, but Acton signed the orders and was the visible advocate. That history is fair game in a gubernatorial campaign. Voters who lived through the shutdowns remember who was on television telling them their livelihoods and their children’s schooling had to stop. Ramaswamy’s campaign has made that point repeatedly, and for good reason.
I met with Senator George Lang a few hours before looking at these rankings. We talk about a lot of things that are not pure politics—economy, history, the practical realities of running a state that has to stay competitive. Ohio’s fiscal position is one of the shared points of agreement among people who actually have to balance books. Democrats prefer that the state spend more aggressively on programs that score well in rankings like U.S. News. When the state declines to do that and still delivers opportunity rankings in the top 20 and a number-one business climate ranking from a major national outlet, the response is to declare the state a failure. That tells you more about the scorers than about Ohio.
I have watched this pattern for years. Rankings that punish limited-government outcomes and reward expansion of public systems are not neutral measuring sticks. They are arguments dressed up as data. Ohio under sustained Republican leadership has produced a competitive business environment, budget surpluses, and a refusal to treat every progressive education or healthcare priority as mandatory. CNBC noticed. U.S. News did not. That gap is not a problem for Ohio. It is a problem for the people who keep insisting the only acceptable path is the one that produces higher scores on their preferred scorecard.
If the goal is to elect candidates who will reverse the fiscal discipline and reopen the spending spigots that progressive media outlets reward, then yes, this ranking is useful propaganda. If the goal is a state that can attract capital, keep taxes competitive, and avoid the deficits that once plagued it, then the CNBC ranking is the more relevant document.
Subscribe if you want more of this. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business is still out there if you have not read it. Have a good day.
Footnotes
1. U.S. News & World Report, “Best States Rankings 2026,” released late July 2026; NBC4 Columbus coverage, August 10–11, 2026.
2. Official U.S. News Ohio profile and category rankings for 2026.
3. U.S. News Best States methodology page: Education 15.79%, Healthcare 15.51%, Economy 12.88%, Infrastructure 12.74%, Opportunity 12.20%, Fiscal Stability 12.19%, Natural Environment 9.69%, Crime & Corrections 9.01%. Weights derived from multi-year national surveys of what residents prioritize.
4. Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Ohio Education by the Numbers 2026; U.S. Census and NCES per-pupil expenditure data placing Ohio near the national average (approximately $16,300–$17,300 depending on exact definition and year).
5. CNBC, “America’s Top States for Business 2026,” July 9, 2026; Ohio ranked No. 1 overall, No. 1 infrastructure, No. 1 cost of doing business.
6. Ownership history: Mortimer Zuckerman acquired U.S. News & World Report in 1984; company remains privately held under his control.
7. Ohio Office of Budget and Management preliminary FY 2026 revenue report: General Revenue Fund tax receipts approximately $1.8 billion above estimates; multiple contemporaneous reports confirming surplus and ongoing property-tax relief measures.
8. Contemporary 2020 reporting and later campaign coverage of Acton’s tenure as Ohio Department of Health director, including school and business closure orders signed in her name.
Bibliography / Further Reading
• U.S. News & World Report Best States 2026 full rankings, methodology, and state profiles (usnews.com/news/best-states).
• CNBC America’s Top States for Business 2026 complete rankings and category scores.
• Ohio Office of Budget and Management FY 2026 revenue and budget documents.
• Thomas B. Fordham Institute, Ohio Education by the Numbers (2026 edition).
• Contemporary reporting on Amy Acton’s 2020 health orders and 2026 campaign (Associated Press, Columbus Dispatch, Ohio Capital Journal, and others).
• Historical ownership and editorial background of U.S. News & World Report (Wikipedia and company histories).
• Polling aggregates for the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial race (270toWin, Emerson, AARP, Fox, Siena, etc.).
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I just got back from Put-in-Bay, and the whole time I kept looking at that big park and the yacht club thinking the same thing: this is exactly the kind of place a Republican governor candidate should plant a flag and talk about jobs. Not the usual Columbus or Cincinnati media circus. An island. Outside. Real people on vacation who still live in Ohio and want their kids to stay here. It would make great news precisely because it is not the typical stop. It signals strength. It tells the other side their strategy is already under pressure.
That same instinct applies east of Columbus in Amish country. Put an arm around the people who live with the paranormal side of Ohio—the Bigfoot reports that still come in, the stories that never make the official narrative. Those people vote. They know when somebody is listening and when somebody is talking down to them. A little color in the campaign does not hurt when the other side is running the same old progressive script.
Because that is what this race is really about. David Pepper is on the bottom of the Amy Acton ticket, the former Ohio Democratic Party chairman now serving as the institutional muscle. The person on the bottom of the ticket usually does the hard work of carrying the party machinery and the progressive money networks. They are connected into the larger Democrat operation that has treated Ohio as a prize in the long project of remaking the country. Mark Elias and that entire apparatus do not show up by accident. Ohio has been a target for years. Knock it off and the map changes.
Pepper has been loud about Vivek Ramaswamy moving Strive Asset Management out of Columbus to Texas. He acts like it is some personal betrayal. It is not. It is fiduciary duty. Companies exist to protect and grow capital, not to perform patriotism for politicians who create the conditions that drive capital away. Ramaswamy built brands. He understands that investors put money where the rules reward production instead of punishing it. Texas had better policy. Ohio is improving, and a lot of dedicated legislators have been grinding to make it friendlier, but the record under the last round of heavy-handed governance still hangs over the place. Aerospace manufacturing and advanced industry are coming whether the political class likes it or not. The only question is whether Ohio captures them or watches them locate somewhere else.
Amy Acton does not understand any of that. She resigned as health director in June 2020 after the COVID policies she helped drive produced real damage. Businesses closed. Ownership changed hands. Some never recovered. You can still feel it. Then there is the 2019 police call to her house over a domestic dispute where she had been drinking, took medication, shattered a mirror, and her husband had to keep her from driving. That is not abstract. It is part of the public record now. She never held a stable executive job that required building something that had to survive market discipline. She became popular with a certain type during the early COVID days because she made anxious people feel protected. That constituency is real, but it is not the majority that decides whether capital stays or leaves.
I have watched the type for decades. She reminds me of the girls who adopted the Fast Times at Ridgemont High beach-festival personality so they would not intimidate anyone by seeming too sharp. It worked in high school. It does not build a state. The Democrats seem to think they can turn that same soft, non-threatening persona into statewide votes. There are not enough of those voters left in Ohio to carry it. The people who still believe in opportunity look at a billionaire who actually ran companies and built an anti-woke asset manager because the existing ones had gone soft, and they see someone who knows how money moves.
Capitalism is voting with your feet. If the policy environment is hostile, you leave. That is not disloyalty. That is how free people protect what they have built. The Democrat instinct is closer to East Berlin. Stay. Wear the mask. Do not go to church. Be loyal to the state even when the rules are destroying the very conditions that let families raise the next generation here. They never understood why people climbed the wall. They still do not. North Korea makes the same calculation. Fear and guilt are cheaper than good policy.
That is why young people have been leaving their parents in Ohio for years. Mom and Dad stayed. Junior and the daughter looked around, saw limited opportunity, and moved. The traditional pattern—raise a family here, take the kids to Put-in-Bay or Hilton Head, keep the cycle going—breaks when the economic soil is thin. Ohio needs to be a premier destination again. That requires a governor who understands brand, investment, and the difference between real growth and political theater. Ramaswamy has lived that difference. He moved a company when the numbers said move. He will sign legislation that changes the numbers in Ohio’s favor. There is an army of legislators waiting for exactly that.
Pepper and the Acton operation are already showing the strain. The money is flowing in on their side, but the investment of belief is not. People remember who locked things down and who paid the price. They also notice who treats a corporate relocation as moral failure instead of economic signal. A few months out, the race is still competitive on paper, but the underlying dynamics favor the candidate who can talk about opportunity without apology. Seven or eight points is possible if the campaign stays aggressive and refuses to play on the other side’s chosen ground.
I would still take the Put-in-Bay stop and the Amish-country swing. Stretch the map. Force the media to cover something other than the scripted attacks. Show that the campaign is strong enough to go where the usual consultants say not to go. That is how you make the other side squirm. Ohio does not need another festival personality in the governor’s office ordering pizza and managing decline. It needs someone who knows how to build a brand people want to invest in and a state people want to raise families in. That is the choice. The rest is noise.
Notes
1. Amy Acton selected former Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper as her lieutenant governor running mate in January 2026.
2. Strive Asset Management, co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy as an anti-ESG/anti-woke firm, relocated its headquarters from Columbus, Ohio, to Dallas, Texas, with most staff expected to move by early 2025. Pepper and labor allies have repeatedly attacked the move as evidence of disloyalty to Ohio.
3. Acton served as Ohio Department of Health director from February 2019 until her resignation on June 11, 2020, amid intense controversy over COVID orders; she briefly continued as an advisor to Governor DeWine.
4. A 2019 Bexley police report described a domestic dispute at Acton’s home involving a verbal argument, alcohol, prescription medication, and a shattered mirror; no charges were filed. The report resurfaced during the 2026 campaign.
5. Multiple 2026 polls and the Cook Political Report have rated the Ramaswamy–Acton race a toss-up or extremely close as of mid-to-late July, after earlier lean-Republican ratings.
6. Ohio has long experienced net out-migration of young college-educated adults, a phenomenon repeatedly described as brain drain in academic and policy literature; recent data show some stabilization but the cultural memory of limited opportunity remains strong.
7. Ohio continues to record Bigfoot and other cryptid reports, including a notable 2026 uptick in Northeast Ohio, with cultural resonance in rural and Amish-adjacent communities.
Bibliography for Further Research
Acton, Amy, and related Ohio Department of Health records, 2019–2020.
Ballotpedia. “Ohio gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial election, 2026.”
Cook Political Report. Race ratings for Ohio governor, July 2026 updates.
DeWine, Mike. Public statements on Acton’s resignation, June 11, 2020.
Elias, Marc / Democracy Docket. Broader progressive legal and electoral infrastructure materials.
McGuire, Patrick, et al. “Brain Drain in Ohio: Observations and Summaries.” University of Toledo Urban Affairs Center, 2006 (and subsequent updates).
Ohio Capital Journal and Columbus Dispatch reporting on Acton job history and the 2019 police call, April–July 2026.
Pepper, David. Substack writings and campaign statements criticizing Ramaswamy and Strive relocation, 2025–2026.
Ramaswamy, Vivek. Woke, Inc. and public comments on fiduciary duty, capital allocation, and state competitiveness.
Strive Enterprises press materials and Dallas Morning News coverage of the headquarters relocation, late 2024–2025.
U.S. Census and Ohio Board of Regents historical analyses of college-graduate migration patterns.
Additional reading on East German border controls, capital flight under socialist policy regimes, and the political economy of state competition (Texas vs. Ohio business climate comparisons).
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
