Pictured are Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper (wearing grey suit with pink and blue striped tie), ODP Political Engagement Chairwoman Nina Turner (in blue-green suit), who is also a former Ohio senator, Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chairman Stuart Garson (wearing brown suit and brown striped tie), Democratic Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (wearing beard), a three-term Black mayor of the largely Black major American city, and Ohio Governor John Kasich (R-OH) (wearing blue suit and light blue tie).
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
Coleman is a 22-year political, legal and investigative journalist who trained for 17 years, and under five different editors, at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Led by chairman David Pepper, the Ohio Democratic Party, along with the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, which is under the leadership of chairman Stuart Garson, a greater Cleveland attorney, will host a GOP debate watch party on Thursday, Aug. 6, starting at 8 p.m. on Cleveland's west side at the lower level of the Market Garden Brewery, 1947 West 25th Street. This week's debate, the first of 11 GOP debates scheduled relative to the crowded race for the 2016 Republican nomination for president, airs live beginning at 9 pm EST from Quicken Loans Arena in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.
Ohio remains a pivotal state for presidential elections, and Cleveland, led by three-term Black Democratic Mayor Frank Jackson, will also host the Republican National Convention next year, another much needed financial boost for the majority Black and impoverished major American city.
A press release from Pepper to Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news, says also that the watch party event will include "Democratic officials and grassroots activists from across Ohio."
The top ten of the 17 declared GOP presidential candidates are expected to debate, including front runners Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former governors Jeb Bush of Florida and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, and flamboyant billionaire businessman, actor and author Donald Trump.
Ohio Gov John Kasich, who announced his candidacy for president on June 21, is among them.
Kasich has been assertive in courting the Black vote since his announcement two weeks ago and said during his 45-minute speech that Blacks in America have a right to feel disenfranchised, given the historical discrimination lodged against the Black community. And even today, said Kasich, African-Americans are denied equal rights, and equal opportunity.
Pepper told Cleveland Urban News.Com at a political forum eraler this year in Cleveland Heights, a middle-class Cleveland suburb, that "African-Americans are our most loyal Democrats." And he said that Black people should not be fooled by Republicans because the Republican Party wants to "take away the right to vote."
Pepper was hired as state party Democratic chairman in January of this year and intermediately brought on former state senator Nina Turner, also a frequent guest on MSNBC cable television, as the director of political engagement for the ODP.
Also a former Cleveland councilwoman, Turner is popular, articulate, and politically energetic, and Black. She and Pepper were among a slate of Democratic candidates for statewide office last November that lost in a Republican sweep led by Kasich, Pepper unsuccessfully seeking the attorney general slot held by incumbent Mile DeWine , and Turner losing the race for Ohio secretary of state to incumbent Jon Husted.
Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, is the largest of 88 counties statewide, and is roughly 29 percent Black. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
