The Sad State of Frank LaRose
Ohio’s Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, is having a bit of an identity crisis. This often happens when you’re a grifter that also cosplays as an elected official. You see it time and time again in politics which is why when anyone ever asks me for political advice, this is what I tell them: authenticity is the most successful thing in politics. If you are unable to be yourself, it will eventually catch up to you. The most influential politicians aren’t afraid to be themselves.
LaRose was a State Senator beginning in 2010 which means he was gifted a political office via gerrymandering. When you run in a non-competitive district, you don’t really have to campaign and the bright lights aren’t on you. After serving just four years as a State Senator, he ran for Secretary of State and beat Kathleen Clyde by 3% in 2018. He easily won reelection in 2022 by 20% and now he’s already declared he’s running against Sherrod Brown in 2024 to be Ohio’s junior US Senator.
Source: Chris Wetterich, Journalist for Cincinnati Business Courier
Like many politicians, he’s an ambitious ladder climber which means his beliefs shift depending on the election he’s running in. In 2016, LaRose campaigned heavily for John Kasich in his presidential run. LaRose appeared in out-of-state Kasich campaign rallies and publicly called out Donald Trump as a racist. LaRose even went as far as declaring he would never endorse Trump and described himself as a “Never Trumper.”
Source: A since deleted tweet from Frank LaRose’s Twitter page
Prior to 2023, LaRose has often presented himself as a moderate; he’s advocated for protecting Ohioans with pre-existing conditions, he rejected the idea that the 2020 election was stolen and publicly described Trump as “disgusting, appalling and not a role model of children.” After the 2020 election, LaRose stated the following regarding his role as Secretary of State, the position that oversees all elections in Ohio’s 88 counties:
October 9, 2020: “When we take the oath of office we aren’t wearing a red jersey or a blue jersey. We effectively put on the referee stripes. You can elect a principled Republican or a principled Democrat to do this job and do it well.”
Source: Darrel Rowland, Journalist located in Columbus, OH
But just three years later, LaRose is singing quite a different tune. You are probably stunned to learn that self-described “Never Trumper” Frank LaRose actually endorsed Donald Trump’s 2024 Presidential bid. He’s also leading the effort on Issue 1, the ballot measure that would essentially make it impossible for anyone to amend Ohio’s constitution by initiative measures. If you want to actually run with the sports analogy like LaRose proposed, the election would essentially be the “game” and Democrats and Republicans would be the two teams. Now I watch a lot of sports, and I typically don’t see referees advocating for one “team” over the other during a game. This has caused the Libertarian Party of Ohio to file a complaint with the US Office of Special Counsel, claiming that LaRose has violated the Hatch Act. Essentially, LaRose is using his official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the results of an election. Why would LaRose put his political ambitions at risk going all-in on a ballot issue that will certainly fail on August 8th?
The answer is because LaRose needs to actually win a hard-fought primary for the first time in his life. In 2018, he presented himself as a reasonable moderate because it was the “Blue Wave” year that terrified Republicans and he scraped by with a 3% statewide victory. In 2022, he didn’t really campaign at all and it was an extremely uneventful campaign where he was given the benefit of incumbency. In order to win a US Senate seat, he will have to face off against other weirdo MAGA Republicans like Matt Dolan and Bernie Moreno, so LaRose has embraced the full MAGA agenda. This strategy will only be successful for the primary and he certainly will not be as successful in the general election. Issue 1 is extremely unpopular among moderate and independent voters, the people LaRose needs to actually win a general election. LaRose’s shift to MAGA Republican is a risky gamble because there are very loud rumors circulating in political circles that former President Donald Trump will eventually be endorsing Bernie Moreno. JD Vance, Ohio’s junior Senator, already endorsed Moreno which does not bode well for LaRose. This is why we see LaRose doing damage control by groveling at the feet of Donald Trump, a person who he said he would never endorse. It’s a short-term strategy and LaRose is certainly not playing the long game. If he wins the primary, he would quickly shift back to being the moderate that he once presented himself as. And in terms of strategy, anyone with any sense of foresight knows Trump will get trounced again by Biden in 2024 and that will be the final nail in the coffin for the Republican party’s cult of personality with Donald J. Trump. I predict in ten years, history will be looking back in disgust at the ideologies that have come out of the MAGA wing of the Republican party.
In conclusion, I’m the type of guy who places heavy emphasis on a person’s word. If you say you’re going to do something, and then immediately backtrack when it becomes inconvenient, you’ve lost me. If we can’t trust the promises of Frank LaRose, what else is there? Ultimately, I think it’s safe to say LaRose won’t ever be our US Senator because he’s now viewed as a meek flip flopper who changes his views based on what direction the wind is blowing. I respect plenty of Republicans that stand on principals and don’t shift their views on a whim, but LaRose is not one of those Republicans. But alas, he’s a career politician, so what will happen to our dear friend Frank? He’ll scurry away after his Senate loss and eventually turn back up either in our state’s legislature or he’ll run for Congress in a gerrymandered district, crafted specifically for him by the corrupt legislature where he got his start. Pretty sweet gig for a person that stands for nothing except career advancement at the expense of the Ohio taxpayer.