GOP

Ohio Republican Party chair Kevin DeWine is calling on Ohio treasurer Richard Cordray (D-Grove City) to return "scandal-tainted" campaign contributions totaling "more than $20,000" from Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo and Commissioner Jimmy Dimora.

The Cordray campaign says that Cordray never received the contributions in question.

Russo and Dimora were both prime targets in a federal public corruption probe that culminated in around 200 FBI and IRS agents executing search warrants at the Cuyahoga County administration building, data center, engineer's office and the homes of Russo and Dimora.

No charges have yet been filed against Russo or Dimora.

Cordray is running for Ohio Attorney General against former U.S. Attorney Michael Crites (R-Powell).

DeWine also called on Cordray to call for the resignation of Russo and Dimora.

How long until Gordon Smith officially changes parties? After all, he's been running away from the Republican Party since May.

On Tuesday, we discussed the conventional wisdom that U.S. Sen. John McCain's longtime relationship with New Hampshire voters would aid him in carrying the state in the November general election for the White House. We also noted that New Hampshire Republicans might be especially reliant on the McCain brand, given their declining fortunes during the past six years. 

If the "McCain mystique" is having real effects among New Hampshire voters, then we would expect McCain's performance in New Hampshire polling to be stronger (relative to nationwide performance), compared to a generic Republican. 

The most recent Elway Poll, done June 18-22, followed up on its gubernatorial preference question by asking would-be voters what they thought "GOP" meant. Three fourths of the 405 registered voters knew that Grand Old Party stood for the Republican Party, but the other twenty-five percent of them got it wrong.

Fifteen percent of the respondents did not know what the acronym stood for while seven percent believed it represented the Democratic Party, and three percent thought something else entirely. Even more significant is that the sample of people who answered incorrectly fell relatively evenly across the political spectrum.

Gubernatorial challenger Rossi, while not a member of the mob, is back to being a member of the Republican Party. At least according to his fundraising email.

This just in - Dino Rossi might be Italian. But not in the swarthy, cosa nostra, mafioso way. Which isn't what people should think of when they think of Italians anyway because that would be racist. Think of gelato instead.

Today the Rocky introduced us to the delegates selected to attend the GOP convention in Minneapolis.  Many of the answers on who they'd like to see on a "Dream Ticket" alternated between McCain-Romney and McCain-Huckabee. But they really saved the best for last.

Obama makes official what we've known all along: he breaks his pledge to use only public money to finance his campaign. And the Inside Edge gets GOP's Chairman Dick Wadhams' response.

Is there a silver lining to losing six seats and the majority in the state Senate? New Hampshire Republicans hope so. It's true that they have to defend fewer seats, which might leave more money to spend on offense. It's also arguable that after the shellacking they took in 2006, only the strongest GOP senators remain.

And finally, it's true that the more seats you have to defend, the more likely it is that the ball may take some unexpected bounces. All this gives the Republicans some hope if (and it's a big if) the electoral winds stop blowing in their faces this fall.

Sara Gear Boyd has passed away from cancer. The former legislator had been the national committeewoman for the past 16 years. She had split her time between Vermont and Arizona. Yet every summer she was active on the campaign trail according to some GOP sources we spoke too.