This morning the
Toledo Blade is running a story that
Democrat Ben Konop is going to run for Lucas County Commissioner.
In 2004, Konop ran against Mike Oxley for the US House seat from OH-04 and ran an excellent campaign against an obscenely entrenched GOPer, Mike Oxley. Despite being outpsent by a margin of ten-to-one(!) Konop was able to make it a race and got the highest percentage vote of total of any challenger for the House in Ohio's gerrymandered congressional districts.
Konop plans to challenge Thurber for commissioner
Konop's new campaign site is online at benkonop.com
Ben received a lot of support from
Markos in 2004, even though he wasn't part of the official dKos Dozen. A few weeks ago, Oxley announced his retirement and many people had hoped that Konop would again run for that District.
Markos wrote that:
Ohio's Ben Konop has run one of the best campaigns in the country for a guy with little money and no help from any of the party organizations.
Lucas County is solidly Democratic, although the local Party is split into competing factions. Konop biggest challenge my very well be in the primary election.
The incumbent commissioner is up to her yacht club neck in the Coingate scandal. She was able to win election with funds she received from Tom Noe and she has been identified by the FBI as having been a "conduit" for Noe to violate Federal campaign finance laws by funneling illegal donations from Noe to the Bush campaign in Ohio.
Ben is exactly the bright, young, aggressive candidate that the Party in Ohio needs on the ballot in 2006.
The collary to the "Fifty State" strategy has to be "compete in every race." By supporting someone like Ben, the netroots can really help to make a lasting sea change in Ohio government.