Congrats to OH-15’s Least Partisan Candidates: Kunze, Betts, Tarazi

It’s all too easy for candidates to take cheap shots at the other party, like “Democrats are all lazy!” or “Republicans are all racists!”, instead of focusing on what the candidate will do for their constituents if elected. Negative hyper-partisanship threatens the unity and security of our nation, but it’s much harder to get media attention based on a positive, reasonable policy agenda. That’s why I’m recognizing the least partisan candidates for Ohio’s special primary for Congressional district 15, to shine a spotlight on the humble public servants who try to take the higher road.

As a benchmark of hyper-partisanship, search for “democrat” in Rep. Jim Jordan’s Twitter feed and you’ll find 50 negative tweets in just the last 3 months. This correlates with his partisan and unconstitutional efforts to discard 23 million legal votes from 5 states. We need candidates who will respect our democracy, which includes working with representatives from both parties. I scoured the Twitter feeds and websites of OH-15 candidates to figure out who attacks the other party the most, and who rises above the fray.

The Least Partisan

Stephanie Kunze, State Senator – 8 years as Ohio legislator, a decade on Twitter and over 2,800 tweets, and not a single tweet, Facebook comment or website post mentioning “democrats”, “the left”, Biden nor Obama. She has criticized “Democrat overreach” to the press in regard to HR1, but it was a targeted policy position rather than a sweeping insult toward the party in general. One recent news post on her website mentions division since the last election and blames Biden and Pelosi for making it worse “by advancing an extreme progressive agenda”, which is a board criticism, but this is the exception for her. Her recent focus has been an anti-hazing law, consistent with some of her top priorities of protecting children and education. She serves on several Senate Committees, and is also an advocate for women and small businesses. 6 out of 7 bills she sponsored this session had bipartisan support.

Update: In 2021, Kunze achieved the second highest bipartisan rating of any State Senator, and the highest in her party, with an excellent score of 1.57!

Greg Betts, Army Colonel – His website highlights the importance of working with “disparate groups” and his 30 years of experience being “politically neutral”, “nonpartisan and apolitical” while in the military. He does not mention “republicans” in any tweets but does criticize Trump just once for downplaying criminal allegations; although he’s only been on Twitter for 1 month with 60 tweets. His top priorities are economic recovery and protecting voting rights.

Omar Tarazi, City Councilor – He’s running on cutting through the partisan divide. His campaign video says “the best outcomes occur when political opponents cooperate” and his website reads “we must resist being sucked into the same unproductive disputes and adapt our approach to bring the best out of each other. We can only secure our future prosperity when we work together.” He’s only tweeted 3 times, but on Facebook he posted a complaint that “it’s a shame what Democrats have done to our Nations Capital” alongside pictures of homeless tents and fences around the Capitol, a somewhat sweeping criticism, but the only one I found.

Update: In 2022, Tarazi ran for State Representative to District 11. His new website continues to push a unifying message, saying “we cannot afford divisive politics”, speaking of “a collaborative approach” and touting his “experience in mediation and dispute resolution to help make sure that balanced, well-thought-out laws are passed for Ohio.”

Moderately Partisan

Jeff LaRe, State Rep. – Criticized “democrats” once and Biden 4 times on Twitter out of 258 tweets, regarding gun rights, oil pipelines and police funding. He tweeted “Liberal Biden policies are calling to defund the police”, even though Biden does not support defunding the police. On immigration he tweets “Joe Biden has failed Americans.” His website does a good job of stating his priorities on the economy, immigration without attacking the other party, although he does criticize “DC radicals”. 2 out of 6 bills he sponsored were bipartisan or unanimous in the House, while the other 4 were mostly partisan except for 1 or 2 cross-party votes.

Update: In 2021, LaRe earned a middling bipartisan rating of -0.25.

Bob Peterson, State Senator – His campaign ad vows to “Stop Pelosi”, and his latest news post vows to “fight the radical Biden agenda”. In 160 tweets, he’s criticized “democrats” just twice about specific issues. He’s called HR1 a “Democrat power-grab” and said “Democrat leaders are totally silent” about crime in Columbus, even though Mayor Ginther has spoken many times about anti-crime initiatives. He touts his vote against a “Democrat plan to raise taxes” but otherwise his website sticks to his priorities. 1 of the 4 bills he sponsored this session had bipartisan, unanimous State Senate support; SB 128, while the other 3 he introduced lack bipartisan cosponsorship.

Update: In 2021, Peterson earned a poor bipartisan rating of -0.80, the second worst score in the chamber.

Allison Russo, State Rep. – She has tweeted about “republicans” or “gop” 24 times in the last couple years, just a fraction of her 2,300 tweets. She accuses the party of “attacking voting rights” in specific states, “obstruction and inaction” over Ohio corruption charges, “dysfunction” for party in-fighting, and has said “Ohio’s Republican supermajority is toxic.”
She’s critically tweeted, “Public safety and good governing no longer prevail in the GOP super-majority OH House.”, “GOP leadership who rarely values the importance of a well-functioning Medicaid program”, “GOP’s continued obsession with extreme abortion and pro-gun legislation”, “Ohio GOP became the anti-science party”, and “Never underestimate the tactics the Ohio GOP will use to tip the scales in their favor and silence the voice of voters”.
Many of her critical tweets were focused on specific State bills or specific issues rather than open-ended attacks, though some statements were fairly sweeping. However, in some cases she defended our Republican Governor from false allegations from other Republicans, or just asked her Statehouse colleagues to meet her in the middle on proposals.
She tweeted about Trump 4 times, once to wish him a speedy recovery from COVID but also to criticize him for uninsured children and for allegedly calling veterans “losers” and “suckers”. She has some partisan criticisms, but they are the minority of her posts and tend to be specific. Her website is light on content but skips the mud slinging and sticks to her priorities.
Out of 11 bills she primarily sponsored, 3 had bipartisan primary cosponsorship, while the other 8 had only party-line cosponsors.

Update: In 2021, Russo earned a middling bipartisan rating of 0.13. She now serves on the Ohio Redistricting Commission.

Sweeping Party Blaming

Thomas Hwang, businessman – His top campaign video says “Spending dollar bills like sheets of toilet paper is what Democrats do best.” His website blames Biden by name for “unleashed chaos on our borders” and a “bloated social program”, but otherwise is relatively focused on his priorities. He’s tweeted very few times, but promotes the “Swat the Democrats!” fly swatters at a county fair. His lack of social media activity doesn’t make up for the prominence of the party blaming in his campaign videos.

Mike Carey, coal lobbyist – In 2 months on Twitter and just 200 tweets, he’s criticized “democrats” 4 times and Biden another 10 times, plus another 8 and 10 critical mentions on the front page of his website, blaming economic issues on the President and Democrats in general, even though the pandemic has been a major factor, and the impact of a President on the economy is often greatly exaggerated especially just 6-months into his term. He says “Democrats are holding America back”. He alleges “Democrats lied” because he disagrees with items included in funding bills which are publicly available to read.

Ruth Edmonds, former Church director – She tweeted criticism of “democrats” 8 times in just the last month, out of only 110 tweets total. She blames increased crime on calls to defund the police and on Biden and Democrats in general, even though Biden opposes defunding the police and crime is influenced by many factors, most especially the pandemic and economic issues. Her website uses some alarmist rhetoric like “the Left’s attempts to hijack our nation” and “END THE LEFT’s LIE that all white people are villains”, even though most reasonable left-leaning people know that being white doesn’t make you a bad person. She’s also retweeted the racially inflammatory generalization “#BlackLivesMatter is simply Communist!” There are non-partisan ways to address dangerous racial rhetoric, or police funding and morale, as other candidates in this race have done, but she chose misleading and divisive messaging instead.

The Worst

Ron Hood, former State Rep. – His website uses phrases like “Hate-America leftists” and “left-wing Radicals who are hellbent on turning America into a Socialist hellhole”. His front page says, “never back down to the Democrats or the Fake News Media” and uses the word “fight” 7 times, signaling both an extreme unwillingness to be bipartisan and also a post-truth attack on the press. His website endorses hyper-partisans Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Most importantly, Hood joined partisan efforts to overturn the 2020 election in 4 states.

In 2020, Hood was primary sponsor of 11 bills, with almost entirely single-party backers. Just 1 of his bills had a single cross-party cosponsor. None of his bills passed the house.

Update: Hood started his legislative career with middling bipartisan ratings, and even a high score in 2005-06, but when he returned to the House from 2013 to 2020, he dropped to become one of the most partisan Representatives with a very poor score of -1.7:

97-98	99-00	05-06	13-14	15-16	17-18	19-20
0.02652	-0.00913	0.98744	-0.55757	-1.40362	-0.80384	-1.69542

In 2022, he ran for Ohio Governor as a self-identified “Forever Trumper”. His running mate was Candace Keller, another former State Rep whose bipartisan ratings were also quite bad, just -0.83 and -0.90 for 2017-2020. Keller also cosigned the letter to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory. They lost the primary to Mike DeWine, earning only 2.1% of the vote.

Other Candidates

Thad Cooperrider, former County Commissioner – His Facebook page mostly shows his dedication to farming. He’s posted some partisan comments like “looking forward to stand up to the likes of President Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer” and “liberals are overrunning our government, our schools and our institutions”, which are oppositional but short of party-blaming. He has too little information about his agenda or campaign style to evaluate his level of partisanship.

John Adams and Eric M. Clark have limited online presence to review.

Let’s focus on priorities instead of attacks

In an ideal representative democracy, well-qualified candidates would spend more time focusing on what they stand for and let the voters decide which policies they want, rather than insulting the whole party they’re running against. Partisans may defend their side’s criticism of the other party, and some specific criticism is justified, but the point of this post is to shout out those who are trying to pull out of the hyper-partisan downward spiral, to avoid sweeping generalizations, and instead foster an environment of mutual respect and rational debate.

Congratulations to State Rep. Stephanie Kunze, Colonel Greg Betts and Councilor Omar Tarazi for your good faith efforts to keep our country united and achieving the status of least partisan in District 15’s special primary elections!

8/3 Primary Results

Mike Carey won the Republican primary with 37% of the vote, over 18,000 votes. Allison Russo won the Democratic primary with 84% of the vote, over 13,000 votes. They faced each other on November 2, when Carey won the Congressional seat with 58% of the vote.

References and notes

District 15 candidate questionaries – Columbus Dispatch

Primary Election Results – Washington Post

Congressional district 15 includes parts of West Columbus and areas south of the city, spanning 12 counties including Franklin, Madison, Pickaway, Fairfield, Perry, Morgan, Athens, Vinton, Hocking, Ross, Fayette and Highland. The primary election is August 3, but early voting has already begun!

In this review, negative partisanship was examined while positive party-association was not. Aligning with one’s own party and its leaders and values was tolerated. Candidates with experience in public service or larger online presence were given greater weight compared to candidates whose campaign promises have not yet been demonstrated.

I’ve reached out to the least partisan candidates for comment.