The Price of Principle: Ohio’s GOP at a Crossroads

The Tarnished Legacy of Bob Taft still haunts the Ohio GOP to this day. It is time for Representatives to do what is right instead of what is politically expedient!

Robert Sprague calling for unity when the Ohio Republican Establishment has never been for Unity unless it has benefitted them. We can learn a lot from the Bob Taft administration and those that pull the strings at the Ohio Republican Party.

At a recent State Central Committee meeting Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague warned that party unity is critical heading into 2026, reminding the committee of the devastating losses in 2006 when Republicans failed to unite behind a single gubernatorial candidate. His speech helped rally the Ohio Republican State Central Committee to do something it has never done before - unite behind a non-establishment gubernatorial candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy almost a full year before the primary election.

I am normally against endorsements before a primary - but if we are to take Vivek Ramaswamy at his word - we have a historic chance to change the double-dealing hypocritical Ohio Republican Party standard.

Not to specifically pick on Treasurer Sprague, but I find it queer how our history is remembered by the establishment. And I hope that Robert’s alignment with Vivek is genuine and not one of convenience only. We must remember that the established powers in charge of the Ohio Republican Party gave us the moronic hullabaloo candidate of Bob Taft and all of our winning centrist choices - by squeezing out better conservatives that had a better chance of winning by larger margins. For example - It was reported that a deal was made in 1990 that the state Republican Party would clear the field for Voinovich and in trade, they would clear it for Taft in 1998, but both men denied any deal taking place. But, nonetheless Taft ran unopposed in the primary of 1998.

The saga of former Ohio Governor Bob Taft stands as a cautionary tale of compromised principles and complacent corruption. Once riding high on a political dynasty, Taft’s tenure ended in disgrace – he became the first Ohio governor charged with crimes in office, pleading no contest in 2005 to four misdemeanor ethics violations for failing to report lavish gifts and illegal campaign contributions. Under his watch, the Coingate scandal erupted: a scheme in which the state’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation gambled $50 million of public funds on rare coin investments run by GOP donor Tom Noe – with disastrous results. Investigators discovered that at least $13 million vanished into Noe’s pockets; he was convicted of theft and racketeering after keeping secret books to hide his crimes. This pay-to-play culture thrived in Taft’s administration, as politically connected fund managers received hundreds of millions to invest simply because they greased the Republican machine. Taft’s name became synonymous with scandal and betrayal of the public trust. His approval ratings plunged into the teens, a historic low. The lesson is stark: when a leader trades integrity for expediency, the people’s faith dies – and the party’s fortunes die with it.

The Ohio GOP has picked some real winners that have stabbed Republicans in the back. Former Governor Bob Taft recently supported one of the most liberal Democrat Senators in the Senate (Sherrod Brown) over Bernie Moreno. We’ve also seen where Former Governor Kasich supported Democrats over Republican Donald Trump and even spoke at the Democrat National Convention.

Taft’s fall poisoned Ohio’s GOP, contributing to a political catastrophe in 2006. Voters, sickened by years of ethical rot, dealt the Republicans a resounding rebuke. That year, Taft slinked out of office with an abysmal 16% approval rating, and the GOP lost the governorship in a landslide. Stalwart conservative Ken Blackwell – who sought to replace Taft – was crushed by Democrat Ted Strickland by a staggering 24-point margin. It was a rout born not just of anti-Republican mood, but of a breach of faith between the party and its base. The grassroots watched in dismay as their supposed leaders mired themselves in scandal (Coingate) and forgot what they stood for. When Republicans abandon their principles and the public’s trust, they reap electoral disaster.

2006: A House Divided Against Itself

Beyond the stench of scandal, the 2006 debacle revealed a party divided against itself. Rather than rallying behind Blackwell – a staunch pro-life, small-government conservative – Ohio’s Republican establishment splintered. Many party insiders and big donors had preferred Attorney General Jim Petro, a moderate who only recently flipped from pro-choice to pro-life in what critics called a last-minute conversion aimed at wooing primary voters. Petro was the darling of “business moderates” and country-club Republicans, while Blackwell energized churchgoing conservatives and the grassroots base. The primary became a bitter duel of opposites: Blackwell, the “doctrinaire” conservative, versus Petro, the establishment-favored pragmatist whose newfound pro-life stance rang hollow. Blackwell ultimately won the nomination, but the damage was done – the party’s unity was shattered by the establishment. The so-called GOP mandarins had signaled their disdain for the grassroots choice, and most establishment figures wanting a more centrist party never fully embraced Blackwell’s candidacy.

The result was predictable and devastating. With a divided base and demoralized conservatives, Blackwell’s campaign floundered. He faced not only a confident Democratic opponent, but also the shadow of his own party’s half-hearted support. Republican infighting and elitist condescension alienated the very voters who should have been the army behind the nominee. The Ohio GOP had been overtly hijacked by “second-handers” – power-brokers more concerned with playing it safe and preserving their status than with standing by fundamental principles. By backing Petro (and even another moderate, Treasurer Jennette Bradley, early on) over Blackwell, the establishment signaled that conservative values were absolutely negotiable and considered a hurdle to winning. That betrayal dampened grassroots enthusiasm at the decisive moment. The landslide loss to Strickland was not an aberration; it was retribution. The party that refused to unite behind its principles paid the price in full.

In any compromise between truth and falsehood, between principle and power lust, it is only falsehood and corruption that profit. Ohio’s GOP learned that the hard way in 2006. Bob Taft’s misdeeds had morally bankrupted the party, and the establishment’s political calculation, favoring a “moderate” image over a united conservative front, bankrupted it further. The party of Taft reaped a whirlwind of voter disgust. The warning from that era rings clear today: a house divided against itself, devoid of principle, cannot stand. And make no mistake, the Ohio Republican Central Committee has a litany of members that are devoid of principle and are only preoccupied with winning, even if that winning sacrifices every principle the party is supposed to stand for.

A New Call for Uncompromising Unity

True unity does not mean papering over differences with empty slogans while continuing business-as-usual. It means rallying, unequivocally, around bold conservative causes – the very causes that establishment politicians have too often treated as bargaining chips instead of bedrock beliefs. Now is the time for the Ohio GOP to stand firm, together, and uncompromising on a platform of principled conservatism. That includes:

• Purging Radical Indoctrination from Schools: Government schools should educate, not indoctrinate. The party must unite to ban corrosive programs like Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), Critical Race Theory (CRT), and the cult of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) from Ohio’s classrooms. These fashionable edu-fads are nothing more than ideological manipulation masquerading as pedagogy. SEL and PBIS, under innocent labels, often intrude into family values and psyche, effectively making children “vulnerable to psychological manipulation” by unqualified social engineers. CRT and DEI regimes, for their part, inject toxic racialist ideology into education – promoting division and perpetual grievance in the name of “equity.” Even one of the architects of the anti-CRT movement has exposed DEI bureaucracies as “divisive ideological commissariats” enforcing CRT and related orthodoxies as official policy. We agree that CRT is “state-sanctioned racism” that teaches children to hate each other and their country. Ohio must not tolerate this poison. No more taxpayer-funded brainwashing of our youth – be it under the banner of “social-emotional learning” or “anti-racism” or any other guise. Our children’s minds are not laboratories for woke experiments. The GOP must boldly declare that indoctrination has no place in Ohio schools, and back it up with laws banning these programs outright.
  

• Protecting Children and Defending Parental Rights: Republicans must present a united front in opposing the medical transition of minors and the broader gender ideology being pushed on kids. Last year, Ohio’s legislature passed House Bill 68 to ban gender-transition hormones, puberty blockers, and surgeries for minors – a vital step to protect children from irreversible harm. Yet activists and some in the medical establishment fight to overturn it. The GOP must stand immovably for the principle that children cannot consent to life-altering sterilization and mutilation. We must not only ban these procedures, but ensure there is legal accountability for any adult – doctor, counselor, or parent – who would facilitate such irreversible interventions on a minor. Those who prey on the confusion of kids for ideological or financial gain must face the full force of the law. Likewise, the party should unite to safeguard children from pornography and sexualization, treating obscene content with the same vigilance we apply to cigarettes or alcohol. If Louisiana can require ID verification to view online pornography, Ohio can too, and we can take steps to ensure that free pornography is taxed. We should classify porn as the public health crisis it is – as Ohio lawmakers have already begun to do in resolutions – and demand that obscene material be kept out of reach of minors through strict age checks and enforcement. But we cannot compromise on not taxing pornography - it places a harmful addiction in society no different than cigarettes, gambling, and alcohol. No compromises, no apologies – the innocence of our children is not up for negotiation.
  

• Election Integrity and Transparent Government: Free citizens cannot trust a system they cannot verify. The Republican establishment must finally align with the grassroots in pursuing real election integrity reforms. That starts by ending conflicts of interest in election oversight – the fox cannot guard the henhouse. It’s time to separate the auditing and verification of election results from the direct control of the Secretary of State’s office. Under current law, the Secretary oversees both running elections and auditing them, an arrangement that breeds distrust. Let’s allow the Ohio State Auditor and County Auditors to audit the elections and establish truly independent audits and empower external watchdogs so that no Ohioan, Republican or Democrat, has reason to doubt the legitimacy of our elections. At the same time, we demand greater transparency in campaign finance and party operations. The era of secretive slush funds and backroom dealings must end. Recent history provides a searing example: former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder was convicted for masterminding a $60 million bribery scheme – funneling utility company money through dark PACs to buy political power and policy. Such corruption festered in the shadows of opaque finances. Sunshine is the antidote. The GOP should lead by reforming itself – opening up party budgets, disclosing how donor money is spent, and enabling audits of party committees. Likewise, we should strengthen disclosure laws so that influence-peddlers and big donors cannot hide in the dark while they pull the strings. Honest government is a foundational conservative value. Republicans must be the party of the sunlight, proving to voters that we have nothing to hide and everything to be proud of.
  

• Empowering Prosperity for the People, Not the Powerful: It’s time to abandon the establishment’s corporate welfare and pursue a pro-freedom, pro-growth economic vision that puts small businesses and families first. For years, politicians of both parties have shoveled tax breaks and subsidies to giant corporations in the name of “job creation,” while Ohio’s working families shoulder heavy taxes. Enough. True conservatives know that a free market is not a feast for cronies – it is a level playing field for all. How can we justify, for example, Ohio’s largest-ever incentive package – nearly $1.94 billion in state subsidies (plus a 30-year local property tax abatement) – handed to Intel for a new chip factory? That deal, celebrated by the political class, forces Ohio taxpayers to pay an astonishing $1.94 million per job created. And yet, it is likely, that the facility may never come to fruition or will be a shadow of what was envisioned. This is socialism for the rich, not capitalism. We demand an end to such sweetheart deals. No more bailouts, no more “onshoring grants,” no more special tax carve-outs for multinational conglomerates while mom-and-pop enterprises drown in regulations and property taxes. Instead, let’s cut taxes across the board and make Ohio truly competitive. Can we unite behind a bold proposal: eliminate Ohio’s income tax entirely and replace it with a low, flat sales tax (around 2%), and abolish punitive property taxes that threaten homeowners and small farmers. Other states have prospered with no income tax; Ohio can too. By taxing consumption modestly and freeing income and property from the government’s yoke, we unleash individual productivity and attract jobs without needing to bribe companies to come. It’s the principled path to growth – trusting free people over central planners.
  

• Putting Ohioans First in Immigration and Welfare: A government’s first duty is to its own citizens. While charity and compassion have their place, the Ohio GOP must unite in the conviction that taxpayer-funded resources should go to Ohio’s people, not to those who violate our laws to enter this country. At a time when illegal immigration imposes an enormous financial burden – nearly $151 billion nationally in welfare, education, and health costs for illegal aliens each year – it is moral lunacy to divert funds from our veterans, elderly, and struggling families to subsidize the breaking of our laws. Ohio’s Governors have even been extremely generous with Ohio’s tax dollars to legal immigrants and refugees. “Ohioans first” should be our unambiguous stance. That means ensuring that benefits like state-funded healthcare, housing assistance, or college tuition discounts go to U.S. citizens and legal residents only. It means opposing any sanctuary policies that would force local taxpayers to pick up the tab for federal failures at the border. It also means reforming our social programs to encourage work and self-reliance, rather than dependency – a rising tide for Ohio families of every background. We cannot continue to open up the Ohio Worker’s Pocketbook when we cannot put our own backyard in order. We welcome legal immigrants who follow the rules and contribute, but we utterly reject the idea that those who come illegally should be rewarded with public support and that a person should just be rewarded simply because they are an immigrant or refugee. Justice and reason demand no less. Ohio’s resources are finite; they must be guarded for those who built this state, not freely dispensed as prizes for law-breaking.
  

Choose Principle – Or Perish

These are the fundamental battles of our time, and on each one the choice for Ohio’s Republican Party is the same: stand firm with the grassroots, or slink back to the failed strategies of appeasement. The memory of Bob Taft’s legacy – his multiple convictions and the festering scandals of his administration – should serve as a blazing warning sign. Under Taft, the GOP in Ohio lost its way, embracing a “go along to get along” mentality and tolerating ethical lapses in pursuit of power. It culminated in humiliation and eight years of Democratic rule. Today, the stakes are just as high. The issues have shifted – from Coingate to CRT, from golf outings to gender ideology – but the core question endures: Will we defend our principles without flinching, or sell them for momentary comfort?

To Robert Sprague and every Ohio GOP official who fancies themselves a leader: the time for equivocation is over. Will you unite with the conservative base and boldly champion these truths? Will you work to ban the indoctrination programs that warp our children’s minds, to shield kids from unethical medical and sexual exploitation, to make elections clean and transparent, to end corporate handouts, to lighten the tax burden, and to put Ohio’s citizens first? Yes or no? The grassroots is watching and waiting for a straight answer. Unity cannot be demanded on the campaign trail and then discarded in the halls of power – it must be earned through action and fidelity to principle.

The path forward requires moral courage. It demands embracing the spirit of individual rights, personal responsibility, and unyielding truth. That means telling the education bureaucrats “No” when they peddle new social experiments on our kids. It means telling the lobbyists “No” when they seek special favors at the expense of the public. It means telling the media and the left-wing chorus “No” when they insist we soften our stance to appease fashionable opinion. No more betrayal. No more half-measures. The Ohio GOP must become, once again, a party of conviction – a party that actually believes in the conservative platform it professes and fights for it with the fire of a crusade.

Bold, unapologetic leadership can revive this party and this state. We have seen what happens when Republicans shrug and play along with the very forces undermining our values: corruption blossoms, the base withers, and the Democrats sweep in to exploit the chaos. But imagine, for a moment, what could happen if the GOP actually united in purpose. Picture an Ohio where Republican officials march in lockstep to pass a strong Parents’ Bill of Rights in education, to enforce a blanket ban on gender experiments on kids, to require a state issued ID for both voting and adult websites, to tax free pornography, to transparently audit every election, to slash taxes and lure entrepreneurs, and to preference the needs of Middletown, Mansfield, and Marietta over the whims of Washington, D.C. or non-citizens. The energy of such clarity would be infectious. The voters – long disillusioned by double-talk – would respond to genuine principle. That is how movements are born and majorities are won.

In the spirit of those who refuse to let the “sanction of the victim” enable their destroyers, grassroots conservatives refuse to sanction the betrayal of our cause by those who ask for our votes. We withdraw our sanction from any leader who will not proudly hoist the banner of our values. Unity does not mean unanimity with the establishment’s latest compromise; it means unanimity with the truth. The truth is that conservative principles work – they build strong families, safe communities, and thriving economies – but only if we have the guts to implement them. We will settle for nothing less. Our legislators have forgotten that.

Ohio stands at a precipice. Down one path lies a repetition of the Taft-era folly – ethical erosion, lukewarm leadership, phony unity and impending defeat. Down the other lies a renaissance of integrity and strength – if the GOP will align itself with the very people it claims to represent. The choice is clear. For the sake of Ohio’s future, for the soul of the Republican Party, it is time to draw a line in the sand. No more compromise with corruption. No more unity around empty slogans. We seek unity around principle, around liberty, around the enduring values that made this nation and state great.

Robert Sprague and the Ohio Republican leadership, and Repulican Representatives and Senators must answer now: Will you stand with us – unequivocally, unreservedly, and uncompromisingly – for these conservative principles? Or will you side with the failed establishment habits of the past? There is no middle ground. As we learned in 2006, a party that talks about unity while forsaking its core beliefs deserves neither power nor unity and will get annihilation instead. But a party that stands by its principles – boldly, defiantly, like a – can ignite a wildfire of support.

We choose the latter path. We choose principle. And we call on our leaders to do the same, or step aside. The era of appeasement is over. The era of proud conservatism – of true Republican unity forged in the fire of shared values – begins anew. This is our rallying cry: No victory without virtue, and no unity without unwavering commitment to the cause. Let the establishment hear it, let our friends and adversaries alike hear it: **Ohio will be saved by individual courage and moral clarity, or not at all. And we will accept nothing less than victory on the uncompromised terms of truth.

Principle or perish – the choice is yours.