The Athens County Democratic Party featured as its dinner speaker Friday night Rep. Greg Landsman, a Democrat from the Cincinnati area who in 2022 flipped a seat long held by Republicans. 

It fell short of a homecoming for the Ohio University alumni. 

The Post, a student newspaper, had already published an open letter asking the party to disinvite Landsman from the dinner given his political support for Israel amid its occupation of Gaza in the two-year-long war that has left 67,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. 

About 50 people showed up outside the event to protest Landsman’s presence, according to photos provided by Lorraine McCosker, a party activist who organized the open letter. 

“I don’t want the Democratic Party supporting the [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu government and genocide. I think it’s totally wrong,” she said in a phone call. “We found it unacceptable that Landsman was invited because of his voting record.”

This kind of thing has grown more common. Last month, Landsman attended an anti-gun-violence youth event at a Cincinnati boxing gym. The Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition posted on Instagram that their “disruption forced the event to end over an hour early” and that Landsman left through a back exit to avoid a confrontation with protesters. 

Athens stands alone as the only rural county in the state where Democrats reliably win. Jake wanted to see how Landsman, one of only a few Democratic Party success stories in Ohio, would handle the fracture in the party. It turns out that Democrats don’t want to talk about it. 

County party chairwoman Lauren Dikis, reached Friday afternoon, declined my request to attend Landsman’s speech. She said she didn’t tell the local press about the dinner, so it wouldn’t be fair to let in a statewide reporter. She said it had nothing to do with the criticism around the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

“The timing just doesn’t work this time. So I truly appreciate your guys’ work,” Dikis said. “I truly appreciate you reaching out. But it just won’t work this time and I’m sorry.”

Jake asked Landsman’s office for an interview on the congressman’s impressions of the protest and how the party should navigate this schism. A spokeswoman didn’t return an email. 

March for Life rally 

Anti-abortion advocates used last week’s March for Life rally outside the Ohio Statehouse to signal that their movement remains active in state politics — even after voters added abortion rights to the Ohio Constitution two years ago.

As one of the invited speakers at the Ohio Right to Life March, State Rep. Adam Mathews plugged a handful of bills pending in Columbus that show how abortion opponents are charting their legislative path:

• House Bill 410, which would mirror a federal ban on abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood from receiving state Medicaid funds
• House Bill 347, which would require someone seeking an elective abortion to meet with a doctor at least 24 hours in advance first
• House Bill 324, which would ban selling certain drugs, including mifepristone, aka “the abortion pill,” through the mail 

Also receiving a shoutout was House Bill 485, which would require schools to show a video on fetal development produced by an anti-abortion group.

“These steps are not just policy. They’re a reflection of why we march to affirm that every life matters,” Mathews said.

The rally was the second March for Life event since Ohio voters added abortion rights to the state constitution in November 2023. National Republicans generally have followed President Donald Trump’s lead in de-emphasizing abortion, although the spate of pending House bills suggest that local Republicans might be dipping their toes back in the water.  

Anti-abortion activists stay clear of controversial proposal

Mathews and other participants notably did not mention House Bill 370, which would make abortion a crime equivalent to murder. Activists with End Abortion Ohio promoted the legislation by handing out pamphlets outside the event space.

End Abortion Ohio President Austin Beigel said in an interview that his group, which formed in 2023 to push a full criminally enforced abortion ban, was not invited to participate in the event. 

“We’re kind of like the black sheep of the pro-life movement,” Beigel said. “So we don’t get invited to those kinds of things.”

But Beigel said his group’s aim is to push inside the anti-abortion movement to make its position the “default position for all Republicans.” He said others in the anti-abortion movement have said they are sympathetic to his view but think it’s politically untenable. 

“I would anticipate when we continue to push this in the years ahead, you will start to see pro-life groups one by one come on board as this hopefully becomes the new standard for pro-life organizations,” Beigel said.

The rally was punctuated with references to Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was assassinated last month. Kirk was supposed to have appeared at a Center for Christian Virtue fundraiser in Cleveland on Sept. 26, Aaron Baer, the group’s president, told the crowd.

Vivek: Let’s talk 

Vivek Ramaswamy’s latest speech offers the clearest sign yet that the Ohio Republican is working to carve out a distinct identity within his party — and perhaps still thinking beyond next year’s governor’s race. 

Speaking Tuesday night at Montana State University, Ramaswamy took a break from Ohio’s rubber-chicken dinner circuit to urge conservatives to remain civil with Democrats and others on the political left. He also pressed the right to stay consistent on free-speech principles amid the charged climate that followed Kirk’s assination.

The event was organized by Turning Point USA, the conservative group Kirk led until his death. Ramaswamy cast his remarks — an extension of themes from a speech he gave at a Kirk vigil last month in suburban Columbus — as part of preserving Kirk’s legacy in the face of a “fork in the road” for conservatives. 

“So what does it mean to be an American in the year 2025?” Ramaswamy said, according to excerpts published by Axios. “It means we believe in free speech and open debate without censorship, whether you’re Nick Fuentes or Alex Jones or Jimmy Kimmel.”

He added that conservatives should aim to persuade people on the left, not “berate them, embarrass them, and banish them.”

At the same time, he acknowledged skepticism within his own ranks about “going soft, holding hands, and singing kumbaya.”

Ramaswamy didn’t mention Vice President JD Vance by name. But his remarks offer an implicit contrast with Vance and other Republicans who’ve taken the opposite approach.

Vance has cheered efforts to have people fired for publicly joking about the killing, previewed a Trump administration crackdown on liberal donors and rejected calls for “a fake kumbaya moment” with “the evil that still walks among us.” Trump’s FCC commissioner, Brandon Carr, pressured ABC to fire Kimmel over a joke the comedian made about Kirk’s death. 

Ramaswamy’s speech also is reminiscent of one he gave last year at the 2024 National Conservatism conference in which he described himself as a “national libertarian.” That label signals a different worldview on international trade, immigration and American identity than the “national conservatism” often associated with Vance.

Trump selected Vance as his running mate a few weeks later.

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