After the election results within West Chester, Ohio, and Liberty Township for the 2021 school board races, the first thing my daughter said to me was, “well, that’s nice, but all public schools are still a dumpster fire. Thanks, but no thanks.” That’s not just because she’s my daughter, but she represents a significant number of moms who are in their thirties and have watched the lunacy of our government over the last decade where they have decided that they want nothing to do with it. Both she and my other daughter are homeschooling their kids. My other daughter pulled her other child out of Monroe schools to homeschool just a few days ago because of the mask mandates and threat of vaccine rules. Kids don’t need all that politics in their life, and my kids want nothing to do with any of it. They want their kids to be educated, do the math, read, and adjust to critical thinking. However, for me, to see Darbi Boddy and Isaac Adi win school board seats at the Lakota public schools was a fascinating thing to witness. Bad, liberal management of Lakota, in general, has been a problem for decades. Finally, some reasonable people could manage the district in the way many of the Republicans in the county of Butler have needed by representation. Adding these new names to the board with Lynda O’Conner is an excellent opportunity for sanity to come to Lakota for the first time in my lifetime, which at this point, is a long time.
Nobody can take anything away from Isaac and Darbi. They worked very hard and were completely sincere in their efforts. At no time in the process were they phony politicians. Even when it came to fundraising, shaking hands, and going to political events, they were completely authentic and invested in running for school board and doing good things when they arrived there. I will have to add a little name that many won’t know; Kristi Ertel worked behind the scenes very effectively and professionally to help make all this happen, as did other people who supported these candidates in unique ways. This election was very much a team effort extending into the Republican party of Butler County in very positive ways. None of us just woke up a few months ago and put our efforts into this achievement without a lot of work. It started many months ago, well before the presidential election of 2020, as a way to figure out how to turn off the insane spending at Lakota, which was going to demand a levy increase by 2022. It was names like Darbi and Isaac who stepped forward to become part of the solution. Others helped in other ways. And some of that group ran but wanted to be independent of a party nomination.
Looking at the results of this 2021 election, Vanessa Wells was one of the originals in these meetings. I was rooting for her, but I understood well everyone’s problem with her in the race. The LEA union had three candidates, and two of them were incumbents. The other represented an incumbent, so it would be hard to beat them on a good day. Starting this process, I reminded everyone that the union candidates would get at least 5000 votes if the turnout were around 20%. So there wouldn’t be much extra to divide among all the other candidates, Vanessa being one of them. With the union endorsing the school board, which they always do informally, it would take the Republican Party endorsement to compete. As it turned out, both Darbi and Isaac broke 8000 votes each which put them in first and second place comfortably over the other candidates. By the way, things looked to me, there were thousands of hits on my blog site in favor of all the conservative candidates, so I felt it was safe to support Vanessa Wells even though she had selected to run as an independent. I respect that kind of decision, so as it turned out, she gained a respectable 5000 votes all on her own, which is the magic number I pointed out at the start of the process. While it’s true, those 5000 votes took away from Darbi and Isaac among a conservative base, knowing the minds of Butler County, I wasn’t worried that it would keep them from winning. Of course, some races are coming, and Vanessa is an excellent talent to apply if she wants. The same with Karine Chausse, who is a wildly independent person whom I like quite a lot. She gained 1,400 votes with almost no resources to apply, which I thought was particularly strong. I wanted to see how they’d do, and I was impressed.
But it was scary for many people leading up to the election. They couldn’t see what I did, the analytics from my blog site showing an enormous interest in the conservative school board candidates. What I didn’t know was how would all that enthusiasm equate on election day. As it turned out, everything came out exactly as we had war-gamed the election 18 months earlier in one of our earliest meetings. Fear of the unknown taken into account, the people of Liberty Township and West Chester, won on election night. Our job was to give them options, and they showed up and voted for them. And it came out exactly like we thought it would. Not a blowout margin, but voters would do the rest of the work with the suitable candidates, Isaac and Darbi, good sincere people who were in the race for all the right reasons. The union always gets their base who want easy union contracts to negotiate against. But their base runs out quickly. When Isaac and Darbi went over the 7000 voter mark, I knew they were going to win. Especially in an off-year election. They exceeded that number more than that, which is a stunning blow to the previous status quo.
Overall, all my endorsed candidates for the various races came out on top, which shouldn’t be a surprise. The media does not give coverage to conservative options the way they should, so the blog site at least lets voters know who the good guys are. It certainly helped in the school board race. But it also helped in several trustee races. Mark Welch, of course, held his seat in West Chester, but Todd Minniear won as the top vote-getter in Liberty Township. He was surprised to learn how quickly links to my site died on Facebook. I explained to him that I was heavily shadowbanned on all internet providers and platforms. So viral marketing is not possible when it comes to my site. But, specific searches do work, so my blog site and name recognition, such as signs voters see on the side of the road, will add up to thousands and thousands of views, which is better media coverage than the local papers and tv market provide. In races like these, it adds up quickly and can make a big difference. But just as in the case of Darbi and Isaac, Todd worked his ass off on this race, and ultimately people saw that and voted for him. If anything helped with the blog, people saw Todd campaigning, saw his signs, and looked him up to learn more. Then they could read more about him, which earned a vote. So I feel good about my role in helping out. But that takes nothing away from all those who won. They did a fantastic job, and I am proud to see each one of those victories manifest into something meaningful and hopeful. The future is a little bit brighter today because of election night 2021.
Rich Hoffman
The Gunfighter's Guide: 