Cleveland Tea Party Patriots Candidate Forum; After-Action Report

We had an awesome turnout for the CTPP Candidates Forum with about 65 people attending. The questions posed to the participating candidates were far from the usual softball type questions and settings most typically seen.

The candidates that participated were given no "open book" type questions prior to the event and were told they would be coming into an unknown setting. Other than the most basic description of the format and that their opponents would be invited, the candidates were completely kept in the dark about what they would be facing.

The reasoning behind this was twofold -- one, the Tea Parties should not exist for the candidates & their campaign but for our members & our core values. The other being -- if a candidate must study or prepare for a Candidates Forum, they have no business running for office. They should already know what they stand for and why they are running for office. The candidates were informed that the days of softball type questions and cookie-cutter type formats are a thing of the past with the Tea Party Patriot groups in OH.

Here is a break down on the candidates that attended & those that didn't;

Secretary of State

Sandra O'Brien, who is running for Secretary of State was in attendance, her opponent, John Husted refused to attend.

After first giving a verbal commitment that they would attend the series of candidate forums being hosted by the Tea Party Patriot groups in OH, the Husted campaign played games and wanted to just come and talk to the groups alone. They were told we do not exist for candidates to bloviate pie in the sky promises -- after this the Husted campaign did not respond to several requests for confirmation of their attendance.

State Auditor

Seth Morgan, who is running for State Auditor was in attendance. His opponent, Dave "I was for being Attorney General before I was against it" Yost.... well we don't know what happened to Dave.

When Dave was going to be the Tea Party darling and run against Mike DeWine for Attorney General he was all gung-ho on coming to the events. After he decided to do the bidding for ORP Chairman Kevin DeWine ( and John "CAT Tax" Husted) by abandoning the AG race (and the Tea Parties & 9.12 Groups) for the State Auditor race, Yost refused to schlep in for any of the TPP candidate forums. This brings us to the conclusion Yost would much rather drink Ohio GOP kool-aid than "Tea" with you & me.

For the record, when Dave Yost, who can now be referred to as the AG candidate of yosterday, dropped out of the AG race, he claimed it was the grass roots organizations that asked him to do so. We don't want to say he is not telling the truth, but he has been unable to provide any proof of these requests.

10th Congressional District & OH House 98th District

Peter Corrigan & Ben Franklin running in the District 10 primary were in attendance and both performed very well.

Tim Grendell & Skip Claypool running for OH House 98th District were also in attendance and both of these candidates rose to the occasion also.

****************************

Overall, the candidates all performed very well and should be applauded for their willingness to wade into an unknown format, something rarely done by candidates. We wish them all the best of luck in the May primary races.

We want to thank Steve Christopher (former AG candidate) and Kat Palmer for moderating the event. We also want to thank the Cuyahoga for Liberty group for taping the event for us. The video will be up soon and you can judge the candidates performance for yourself.