The United States once again is waging war in the Middle East. President Trump ordered the U.S. military to join Israel in a massive bombing campaign in Iran. It has killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, many other Iranian leaders, and hundreds of civilians.
Given that this is an Ohio politics podcast, we will focus on how Ohioans are reacting to this.
Ohio’s congressional delegation largely split along partisan lines in reacting to the attacks.
But the guy many were watching was Ohio’s JD Vance. The former senator and now vice president once strongly said the United States should not get involved in endless wars.
But soon after the attacks, Vance called Iran a major threat and defended President Trump’s starting a war in the Middle East.
Critics say the president and his administration have not laid out a clear justification or strategy going forward. The justification shifted to supporting Iranian protesters, to Iran’s nuclear threat, to ballistic weapons, to regime change. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said we had to protect American forces because Israel was going to attack.
Maybe it is one of those, all of those, or none of those.
Death Penalty
Governor Mike DeWine has less than a year left in his term. He has long expressed serious reservations about the state’s death penalty.
Ohio has not executed an inmate in his nearly eight years as governor. He has postponed every execution to come before his desk, citing the inability to get lethal injection drugs. The governor now hints he may ask lawmakers to permanently end the death penalty in the state.
To dig a little deeper on this, we turn to a panel of statehouse insiders: reporter Andrew Tobias of Signal Statewide, OSU political scientist Herb Asher, and Republican strategist Mike Gonidakis.
Snollygoster of the week
Time now for our Snollygoster of the Week segment, where we honor the shrewdest politician or political move of the week. This week we give it to Delaware County Board of Elections member Melanie Leneghan, who is also running for re‑election to the State Republican Central Committee.
Her opponent for the committee seat, Rebecca Norse, messed up. As first reported by The Columbus Dispatch, Norse put the wrong date on her filing paperwork. At first, the Delaware County Board of Elections said the rules are the rules, and they took Norse’s name off the ballot. Norse appealed, and the board reconsidered it at this meeting. The board split. The two Democrats voted to put her name on the ballot, the two Republicans said no, and one of the Republicans was Norse’s opponent, Melanie Leneghan.
So instead of recusing herself, Leneghan voted to take her opponent off the ballot. It is now up to Secretary of State Frank LaRose to break the tie.
For not recusing herself when there was an obvious conflict of interest, Melanie Leneghan gets our Snollygoster of the Week award.
And this story might not end there. Another Delaware County Republican has challenged Leneghan’s position on the central committee, saying Leneghan does not live in Ohio. Leneghan insists she is a resident of Delaware County.
I will say, for a relatively sleepy suburban‑rural county, Delaware has some interesting politics.