Going into a key election, Bennett tries to mend Ohio GOP

Name: Robert T. Bennett

Position: Ohio Republican Party Chairman

Age: 73

Hometown: Cleveland

Political Experience: Ohio GOP Chairman 1988 to 2009 and 2012-current; Republican National Committee member 2008-current; RNC Midwestern State Chairmen’s Association chair 1991-2009; Campaign Director for U.S. Sen. Robert A. Taft 1970; Campaign Manager for Cleveland Mayor Ralph Perk 1971; Cuyahoga County Republican Party Vice Chairman 1974-1988.

Education: Ohio State University business degree; Cleveland Marshall Law School law degree. Certified public accountant and attorney.

Family: Married to Ruth Ann; two adult children.

Back in 1964, Republican Barry Goldwater grabbed his party’s presidential nomination, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty, The Beatles topped the charts and the U.S. surgeon general suggested that smoking is bad for your health. And Bob Bennett attended his first Republican National Convention.

Now, 48 years later, Bennett is heading to Tampa Bay this week to attend his 13th Republican National Convention – his seventh as chairman of the Ohio Republican Party.

Bennett, 73, is in a select club of state party chairman with that sort of longevity and experience. The Republican National Committee says he is the fourth longest-serving delegate at this year’s convention.

Just a few short months ago, the Ohio GOP faithful were worried that an ugly intra-family fight could be a catastrophic distraction during the crucial election season. Gov. John Kasich and his allies ran a campaign to take over the party’s central committee and force out then Ohio Republican Party Chairman Kevin DeWine.

In April, DeWine, a former lawmaker from Fairborn, stepped aside and Bennett returned to a role as familiar to him as a well-worn pair of work boots.

“It appears they have sort of landed on their feet after this squabble,” said Ohio State University Political Science Professor Paul Beck.

Maybe so, but Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern said the Ohio GOP has moved to the right and Bennett is out of step with his own people.

“I think Bob Bennett was a tremendous chairman 20 years ago but today’s Republican party looks nothing like the Republican party of George Voinovich,” Redfern said. “This is no longer the Ohio Republican Party. It’s the Ohio Republican Tea Party. It’s not his party anymore.”

Montgomery County Republican Party Chairman Rob Scott, who headed the Dayton Tea Party, said Bennett is a Tea Party member who believes in fiscal conservatism. Scott praised Bennett as the perfect man to step in and pull the state party back together.

“To see what he has done in a short amount of time, it’s an absolute miracle. It shows he was the right pick and he knows what he is doing,” Scott said. Bennett has rebuilt relationships with county parties and is supporting local candidates, he said.

“This is a major, major election in a critical swing state. All eyes are on Ohio. Bob stood up and took the reins,” Scott said.

While the intra-party fight put the Ohio GOP in the position of playing catch-up earlier this year, Bennett said the animosity has faded.

“I don’t hear anything out there anymore. Are there some hurt feelings out there? Probably, but it doesn’t show up in the work ethic. So, I think all of that is really gone,” Bennett said. “I think we’re back. I think we’re going to have a good year, I really do.”

Once called the ‘King of State Party Chairmen’ by Republican strategist Karl Rove, Bennett has the skills and experience to quickly refocus the party on the tasks at hand: elect Republican Mitt Romney as president, put Republican state Treasurer Josh Mandel in the U.S. Senate, help U.S. House Speaker John Boehner maintain a firm grip on the House and win an array of state legislative, county and local government races.

Bennett is back at his old job raising money, spinning reporters, and revving up the GOP base for Ohio’s quadrennial role as the swing state trophy in the presidential campaign cup race.

The Ohio delegation will be front and center at the Republican National Convention. Literally. Ohio’s 18 electoral votes are so important that the state’s 129 delegates and alternates usually score front row floor seating at the convention hall.

The convention is a carefully choreographed pep rally, designed to grab the media spotlight, formally nominate Romney and fire up the party’s base going into the fall election, Beck said. “Gone are the days of gavel-to-gavel coverage, unless you watch C-SPAN and that’s for the real political junkies,” he said. Nonetheless, the convention will get enormous play on cable TV, nightly broadcast news shows and on front pages across the country.

Bennett said, “It is a big pep rally but it is a time when you firm up the message with the American electorate. It’s all going to be about the economy.”

Bennett and the party will be contacting Republicans right after Labor Day as millions of applications for absentee ballots hit Ohio mailboxes. “We will be right back in campaign mode. We want our Republicans to get their absentee ballot applications back in quickly,” he said. The state party will also press harder to recruit volunteers, push into smaller communities, and refine the list of Republican-leaning voters they want to target.

Democratic political consultant Greg Haas said the Ohio GOP picked a capable leader in the wake of the internal fight.

“He won’t be able to mend all of that but certainly he is going to build a strong party. He has done it before, he’ll do it again,” Haas said.