Latest / Brian Thomas / New Hamilton County Republican GOP Party Chairman Josh Gerth

Transcript

New Hamilton County Republican GOP Party Chairman Josh Gerth · Brian Thomas

0:01
Speaker 1: Eight o five. I'll think about GARCD talk station. Thomas
0:04
Speaker 1: right here, wish you never went. A very happy Friday Eve.
0:08
Speaker 1: And before we get the signal nine at the bottom
0:10
Speaker 1: of the hour, we have Josh Girth. Congratulations Josh Girth.
0:14
Speaker 1: He is now the Hamilton County Republican Party chair. Josh.
0:17
Speaker 1: It's good to have you on the program. And congratulations
0:19
Speaker 1: to you, sir.
0:21
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Brian. I don't know if congratulations is
0:24
Speaker 2: the right.
0:24
Speaker 1: I was going to get to that to wait for it. Josh,
0:28
Speaker 1: you signed up for this. You actually sort of kind
0:31
Speaker 1: of campaigned within the Hamilton County Republican Party for this job,
0:33
Speaker 1: and with for that alone, I salute you because you
0:37
Speaker 1: know what I know, and anybody who's around here knows
0:39
Speaker 1: that we got an uphill challenge here for folks that
0:41
Speaker 1: are not happy with the current makeup and political direction
0:44
Speaker 1: of Hamilton County. It's been turning blue and it's now
0:47
Speaker 1: fully blue. I transformed over my entire life from a
0:51
Speaker 1: bright red, always republican conservative county to now what it
0:54
Speaker 1: is now. We got problems on our hands, which you know,
0:56
Speaker 1: and that's why you ran for the job, I'm sure,
0:58
Speaker 1: But I want to point out, battle tested. You're an
1:01
Speaker 1: Anderson Township trustee, and you were a trustee with Andrew Pappas,
1:05
Speaker 1: and you were able to survive that challenge. After all
1:06
Speaker 1: that time, I know you're ready for this job. Josh.
1:11
Speaker 2: That is one hundred percent accurate. Brian, Yes, I had
1:15
Speaker 2: to do that well.
1:16
Speaker 1: And you know I was looking at the Aaron Glenn
1:18
Speaker 1: did an article about you, you know, taking over the role,
1:21
Speaker 1: and you were you plan on going after liberal judges.
1:24
Speaker 1: Before we get to that, she said, democrats ousted you
1:27
Speaker 1: from Anderson Township. I always thought Anderson Township was bulletproof
1:31
Speaker 1: in terms of liberalism and very conservative. You had a
1:34
Speaker 1: great I have a great thing going on over there,
1:36
Speaker 1: tax revenues grade, there's a lot of business, a lot
1:39
Speaker 1: of beautiful homes. I mean, has it happened in Anderson
1:43
Speaker 1: Township as well? Josh.
1:46
Speaker 2: I think we're a product of our own success in
1:48
Speaker 2: Anderson Township. We have built an incredible community. And when
1:52
Speaker 2: I say we, not just myself and fellow trustees over
1:55
Speaker 2: the last twelve years when I was in office, but
1:58
Speaker 2: it goes well beyond that. Previous trustees and the staff
2:02
Speaker 2: and administration that run the township are phenomenal and very
2:06
Speaker 2: business minded, business thinking people. And because of that, we
2:09
Speaker 2: created and still have an incredible community. And when people
2:13
Speaker 2: move out of the city, and when people decide that
2:16
Speaker 2: they don't want to be in areas where they can't
2:18
Speaker 2: raise their families or they have concerns about safety, where
2:21
Speaker 2: do they go. They go to places that have all
2:23
Speaker 2: that stuff pretty well locked up. And that's what Anderson had.
2:27
Speaker 2: But yet for some reason, Brian, they still keep voting
2:30
Speaker 2: the same way.
2:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never understood that. Of course, you're talking about
2:35
Speaker 1: a phenomenon that's happened all over this country. A post
2:38
Speaker 1: COVID everybody moved out of the inner city areas because
2:40
Speaker 1: they could work from home, and they brought their stupid
2:42
Speaker 1: policies with them. People never seem to learn, Josh, they
2:45
Speaker 1: really don't. And I'm sorry to hear that that's coming
2:47
Speaker 1: into Anderson Town. Try. I suppose it was a bunch
2:49
Speaker 1: of folks that previously lived in the city of Cincinnati
2:52
Speaker 1: who moved there.
2:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's some of it. I mean, the
2:56
Speaker 2: new trustees that we have are did not grow up here,
3:00
Speaker 2: and you know, it's I do think that there's some
3:04
Speaker 2: of that that's going on. And I think the other
3:06
Speaker 2: thing too, is that the turnout, and that's one of
3:09
Speaker 2: the things that we're going to have to work on,
3:10
Speaker 2: is is a party. I mean the turnout in Anderson.
3:15
Speaker 2: I think in nine or twenty twenty four, fifteen thousand
3:19
Speaker 2: people voted for Donald Trump and Anderson township in twenty
3:22
Speaker 2: four in twenty five, fifteen thousand people voted total.
3:27
Speaker 1: Oh no, well that's yeah. Well you stumbled upon the
3:33
Speaker 1: problem in downtown Cincinnati as well. Only twenty five percent
3:35
Speaker 1: of the registered voters showed up in the city, and
3:38
Speaker 1: of course you get the same old, same old, because
3:40
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, the Democrats have a built in base
3:42
Speaker 1: of political activists that are more than willing to go
3:45
Speaker 1: out support campaigns and actually vote. So there's a challenge
3:49
Speaker 1: right there. Let's talk about that because November is really,
3:52
Speaker 1: obviously stating the obvious is very critical for the Republicans
3:55
Speaker 1: got to maintain control of the House and Senate hopefully
3:57
Speaker 1: to get things done without voter turnout, we're not going
4:00
Speaker 1: to be able to do that. So, as the chairman
4:02
Speaker 1: of the Hamilton County Republican Party, which a lot of
4:05
Speaker 1: people at mat matter of fact, a lot of people
4:06
Speaker 1: have made the decision just to leave the county, and
4:09
Speaker 1: you can put my wife in the basket of folks
4:12
Speaker 1: that think about that all the time because of what's
4:14
Speaker 1: going on here. But if people are that disappointed and
4:17
Speaker 1: see how blue the county has become, how do you
4:19
Speaker 1: get Republicans to sort of, you know, say, you know,
4:22
Speaker 1: we can fix it, we will go out and vote,
4:25
Speaker 1: we can write the ship. That's a big ask, Josh Girth,
4:28
Speaker 1: how do you plan on doing that?
4:31
Speaker 2: It is a big ask, and it's a big job,
4:32
Speaker 2: and it's a huge challenge. And I think that the
4:36
Speaker 2: overarching if there's one word that you said you've got
4:40
Speaker 2: to give me to make that happen, it's engagement. And
4:44
Speaker 2: we have been sitting on the sidelines a lot. Our
4:48
Speaker 2: party has done some great things. This is not a
4:53
Speaker 2: slam against russ or Alex or the people that came
4:56
Speaker 2: before me, because they continued to hold strong and they
5:01
Speaker 2: ran the party well. But I do think there's areas
5:04
Speaker 2: that we probably haven't been as strong in the past
5:07
Speaker 2: that maybe the Democrats have, and engagement is one of those.
5:12
Speaker 2: And it starts from the top, it goes all the
5:14
Speaker 2: way down to the grassroots level. It's everything from raising
5:18
Speaker 2: money and supporting candidates through financial means all the way
5:22
Speaker 2: down to knocking on doors. And there's gonna have to
5:25
Speaker 2: be a revitalization of the plan to do that. And
5:30
Speaker 2: how do we do that. We got to get more
5:32
Speaker 2: people in the rooms, sitting at the table who are
5:34
Speaker 2: experts and who have the experience to do those specific
5:38
Speaker 2: things to drive out that support and get people out
5:42
Speaker 2: to vote. It's amazing to me that we have an
5:45
Speaker 2: entire month now to vote and yet people still don't
5:49
Speaker 2: find the time or think it's important to go vote.
5:52
Speaker 2: And you're right, this November we have some very critical
5:56
Speaker 2: races in the with judges. We've got nine judges, and
6:00
Speaker 2: we also have some very key legislative races that I
6:03
Speaker 2: think we can flip up in Columbus. So it's the time.
6:08
Speaker 2: We never have enough time, But that's my job for
6:12
Speaker 2: at least the immediate future is going to be focused
6:14
Speaker 2: on those races, getting them support and making sure that
6:18
Speaker 2: we have the network of people to get out and
6:22
Speaker 2: remind the public, the voters that they need to go
6:25
Speaker 2: vote starting in October.
6:28
Speaker 1: Well, and turning to your point about wanting to go
6:30
Speaker 1: after judicial races as your number one priority has head
6:32
Speaker 1: of the have on kind of Republican party. I did
6:35
Speaker 1: note that the Republican Party didn't even bother running candidates
6:39
Speaker 1: in a variety of different races. I mean, if that
6:41
Speaker 1: that's to me just screams capitulation.
6:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I hear you. It wasn't from lack of
6:49
Speaker 2: asking and trying to find candidates. And even some of
6:54
Speaker 2: the even some of the judges on the that are
6:57
Speaker 2: up this election, they specifically went and asked people on
7:02
Speaker 2: behalf of the party if they would run. And there's
7:04
Speaker 2: just I think there's just an apprehension for good people
7:10
Speaker 2: to run for public office, whether it's a judge, whether
7:13
Speaker 2: it's a trustee, whether it's mayor it's hard to find
7:17
Speaker 2: good people to run well.
7:19
Speaker 1: I mean, putting aside what you and I might subjectively
7:21
Speaker 1: conclude as a good person. Is there something more problematic
7:25
Speaker 1: with the refusal of people to run. Is it this
7:27
Speaker 1: social media and doxing and fear of being attacked or
7:30
Speaker 1: having their family stocked. Yeah, all the things that the
7:33
Speaker 1: left wingers typically do and get away with.
7:35
Speaker 2: Josh is somebody who's experienced all of that, more so
7:40
Speaker 2: last year than I ever had before. Yes, I think
7:43
Speaker 2: that's absolutely part of it. But I also think that
7:46
Speaker 2: there's people out there that want to do this. You know,
7:49
Speaker 2: you mentioned at the beginning of the conversation. You know
7:52
Speaker 2: that I signed up for this. It's absolutely right. And
7:54
Speaker 2: after I lost the election in Anderson, I, you know,
7:58
Speaker 2: I was obviously pretty upset, but I have a political
8:02
Speaker 2: bug in me that's not going to go away, and
8:04
Speaker 2: so when this opportunity came up, I said, well, maybe
8:07
Speaker 2: there was a reason I lost, and maybe I can
8:10
Speaker 2: take some of the experience that I've had running for
8:13
Speaker 2: office locally and being in office and help recruit people
8:18
Speaker 2: and give them the support. And I think that's the thing.
8:21
Speaker 2: If there's people out there that I think would run
8:23
Speaker 2: for office that they knew they had a network of support,
8:27
Speaker 2: we have to vocalize and tell people we will be
8:31
Speaker 2: there to support you as a candidate. The Hamilton County
8:34
Speaker 2: Republican Party will be in your corner. Well.
8:37
Speaker 1: The fact that you two have been attacked social media
8:40
Speaker 1: and otherwise and you're still willing to run to be
8:42
Speaker 1: Hamilton County a Republican party chair. Honestly, I got to
8:45
Speaker 1: say that speaks volumes about your character. You are not
8:47
Speaker 1: going to capitulate, and you're not going to just cower
8:51
Speaker 1: in the face of what might happen along those lines.
8:53
Speaker 1: You're going to stand up to it and stand on
8:55
Speaker 1: your principles. I think that brings a lot to the
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Speaker 1: table in your position now.
9:00
Speaker 2: I appreciate that it's very, very important that we get
9:06
Speaker 2: good people in office and that we have a solid
9:09
Speaker 2: government that puts common sense, law and order and the
9:14
Speaker 2: general respect of the communities that we all live in
9:16
Speaker 2: and want to continue to live in. Hamilton County is
9:20
Speaker 2: still a great place. I have lived here my entire life.
9:24
Speaker 2: I've lived in Anderson forty years, and I don't want
9:28
Speaker 2: to give up on it, and I think there's a
9:30
Speaker 2: lot of people out there that don't want to give
9:31
Speaker 2: up on it. We have to change our messaging, we
9:34
Speaker 2: have to use social media different, we have to engage
9:37
Speaker 2: with people that maybe we haven't engaged with before. And
9:41
Speaker 2: if we do these things and we put a solid
9:44
Speaker 2: plan together, we I think can win back some of
9:48
Speaker 2: these offices, certainly locally on the perimeter and back in
9:52
Speaker 2: the county and eventually get people on city council.
9:55
Speaker 1: I love your optimism. It's a rare thing to hear
9:58
Speaker 1: at such optimism in this county. We're gonna pause, bring
10:00
Speaker 1: Josh Girth, head of the Hamilton County Republican Party overwhelmingly,
10:05
Speaker 1: so we're going to see what we're gonna find out.
10:07
Speaker 1: I want to find out if there's any still this
10:08
Speaker 1: infighting I keep hearing about, and if there is, why
10:11
Speaker 1: why don't we play nicely together? A fifteen right now?
10:14
Speaker 1: Stick around in this station eight nineteen to fifty five
10:20
Speaker 1: KIRCD talk station, Happy Friday, Signal ninety nine is coming
10:24
Speaker 1: up next. You know, your popular winning op ed piece
10:27
Speaker 1: is written and published by the Since any acquire the meantime, though,
10:30
Speaker 1: the brand new Hamilton kind of Republican Party chair, Josh
10:33
Speaker 1: Girth's on the phone, and I got to ask you, Josh,
10:35
Speaker 1: your opponent was Robert Ruhlman, who I understand is retired.
10:39
Speaker 1: No any bad blood between the two of you. You know,
10:42
Speaker 1: you were both running for the same position. I'm just
10:44
Speaker 1: kind of curious to know because I keep hearing and
10:46
Speaker 1: you know, rumors and little birds talking in my head
10:49
Speaker 1: about infighting within the Republican Party. I'm not sure if
10:52
Speaker 1: that's true. You can address that, But how about between
10:54
Speaker 1: you and Robert Ruhlman?
10:57
Speaker 2: No, no bad blood at all. I mean, you know,
11:01
Speaker 2: he served a long time as a judge, well respected
11:05
Speaker 2: the game, big family. You know, he's west side on
11:09
Speaker 2: the east side. I looked at it as more of
11:11
Speaker 2: a way to bridge both sides of I seventy five.
11:16
Speaker 2: But I know, I you know, yes, obviously we were
11:20
Speaker 2: running against each other, so we had different ideas when
11:22
Speaker 2: it came to what we were going to do. But
11:24
Speaker 2: a lot of our ideas also were the same engagement,
11:29
Speaker 2: you know, getting activated all those things that were resonating
11:32
Speaker 2: out of both sides.
11:33
Speaker 1: Well, and different ideas is one thing. The question is
11:36
Speaker 1: whether any of the ideas conflicted with each other. Prioritization
11:40
Speaker 1: is a different subject. Maybe you guys are all on
11:42
Speaker 1: the same page collectively over all of the issues. But
11:45
Speaker 1: your priority, which is an extraordinarily important one, and I
11:47
Speaker 1: would put it number one on the list. Like you
11:49
Speaker 1: have the judicial races, I mean City of Cincinnati, most
11:52
Speaker 1: notably in Hamilton County. Generally speaking, we're dealing with a
11:55
Speaker 1: bit of a crime problem stated in the obvious, but
11:57
Speaker 1: you can't have successful law enforcement with that. A judiciary
12:00
Speaker 1: that's willing to punish people who commit crimes. It's the
12:03
Speaker 1: key element of the criminal justice system. It's the leg
12:06
Speaker 1: that I mean, the reason for punishment is to act
12:08
Speaker 1: as a deterrent and a warning and a cautionary tale
12:10
Speaker 1: to the other idiots out there who may consider committing crimes.
12:13
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to be that guy and
12:14
Speaker 1: end up in jail. You don't have that, You don't
12:16
Speaker 1: have criminal justice.
12:19
Speaker 2: Amen, you're exactly right. I really can't say anything more
12:22
Speaker 2: than what you just laid out. And the fact that
12:25
Speaker 2: people keep electing representatives in no spots that are not
12:31
Speaker 2: doing what you just said is disgusting. It's literally ruining
12:37
Speaker 2: the communities that we live in. People commit crimes, they
12:40
Speaker 2: need to go to jail, and I mean the kind
12:43
Speaker 2: of crimes that obviously warrant jailed, but still it's not happening.
12:47
Speaker 2: And if it does, you know, happen, or if they don't,
12:50
Speaker 2: they put no bond, small bond. All these things are crazy,
12:54
Speaker 2: and I don't understand why anyone is standing for it.
12:59
Speaker 2: Certainly are side is not going to stand for it.
13:01
Speaker 2: Why isn't the business community, you know, no one should
13:04
Speaker 2: be standing or standing for this stuff. It's ridiculous.
13:07
Speaker 1: It is you know, the judicial races are the hardest
13:10
Speaker 1: races to campaign for because everybody wants to know, well,
13:12
Speaker 1: how will you rule in any given case? And judges
13:14
Speaker 1: are not allowed to give advisory opinions like that, and
13:17
Speaker 1: they also don't run under a party affiliation. You know,
13:21
Speaker 1: that's the challenge. And couple that with here, we're going
13:24
Speaker 1: to build on the problems here. Who in the hell
13:27
Speaker 1: knows about judicial races anyway? The vast majority of people
13:30
Speaker 1: have no connection with with the with the judicial system.
13:33
Speaker 1: So how someone might perceive the constitution or civil litigation
13:37
Speaker 1: or criminal litigation, it's a mystery to the vast majority
13:39
Speaker 1: of people. So there's a knowledge hurdle you got to
13:41
Speaker 1: deal with. And then you go back to voter turnout.
13:45
Speaker 1: The most active voters, the ones that show up to
13:47
Speaker 1: the election again twenty five percent in the city of
13:49
Speaker 1: Cincinnati most recently, are the active leftist people who get
13:53
Speaker 1: out there and vote. They're the ones with the political
13:55
Speaker 1: agenda that undermines the societal fabric, like letting criminals out
13:59
Speaker 1: of jail without punishment. If you let them vote and
14:02
Speaker 1: run the show and you don't get up and vote yourself,
14:04
Speaker 1: you're gonna get more of the same.
14:07
Speaker 2: You're exactly right, and I think the problem now is
14:11
Speaker 2: what we've talked about a couple of times here is
14:14
Speaker 2: how do you get people out to vote? And we're
14:18
Speaker 2: gonna have to. You know, it used to be we
14:19
Speaker 2: could just put judges' names on our pink tickets, have
14:23
Speaker 2: some people stand at the polls and that way, you know,
14:26
Speaker 2: pass them out when they walked in, and then they
14:28
Speaker 2: knew who those Republican conservative judges were.
14:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got to walk in.
14:33
Speaker 2: You gotta walk. Yeah, that's exactly right, but you got
14:35
Speaker 2: to get there. I think the way to do things
14:39
Speaker 2: a little different and get people out and even excited
14:43
Speaker 2: about going out and voting is to use different communication tactics.
14:49
Speaker 2: You have Signal ninety nine comme uent. There's a perfect
14:51
Speaker 2: example of somebody who is pushing out common sense stuff
14:57
Speaker 2: about crime and what's going on in the city. And
15:01
Speaker 2: those are the kind of media outlets that we can
15:04
Speaker 2: hopefully engage with and then rely on to push out
15:07
Speaker 2: the names of our judicial candidates, our legislative candidates, people
15:12
Speaker 2: that are going to make a difference so that people go,
15:16
Speaker 2: I keep hearing this name, I keep hearing these these issues.
15:20
Speaker 2: I got to get out and vote, and it's got
15:22
Speaker 2: to be constant. I mean to the point where almost
15:25
Speaker 2: like if I'm sure everybody remembers this little congressional race
15:29
Speaker 2: in northern Kentucky that took placed recently, because we heard
15:32
Speaker 2: about it every single minute of every single day.
15:35
Speaker 1: Well, that takes money, Josh Garth, The problem with the
15:39
Speaker 1: Hamilton County Republican Party is they seem to and before
15:42
Speaker 1: you took the role and are all prepared to take
15:44
Speaker 1: it to the next level and successfully successfully, so they
15:48
Speaker 1: seem to be a little silent and you don't get
15:51
Speaker 1: people to donate money the Hamilton County Republican Party, which
15:54
Speaker 1: can then you know, go on this this this campaigning effort.
15:58
Speaker 1: If people don't think they're going to reach get a
16:00
Speaker 1: return on their donation investment. There are a lot of
16:03
Speaker 1: political action committees that might perform better than the Hamilton
16:05
Speaker 1: kind of Republican Party. So that's a separate challenge. The
16:09
Speaker 1: fundraising component.
16:10
Speaker 2: Josh absolutely, and it's again as party chair that is
16:15
Speaker 2: probably my biggest and most prolific responsibility is helping to
16:20
Speaker 2: raise that money. We are fortunate that we have a
16:25
Speaker 2: network of donors who have been with us for a
16:28
Speaker 2: while and obviously they are going to continue to be
16:32
Speaker 2: important and they believe in the mission. They've they've they've
16:35
Speaker 2: they've been true supporters of our party in many ways.
16:38
Speaker 2: We got to find new donors. We have to find
16:40
Speaker 2: new people and new ways to support the party. I
16:44
Speaker 2: think we can do that, and I did it in
16:47
Speaker 2: Anderson Township. I raised a record amount of money locally
16:51
Speaker 2: in my community because I believe that I had a story,
16:56
Speaker 2: I had a plan, and I had some excite and
17:01
Speaker 2: people believed in that. Now, I mean you said to
17:03
Speaker 2: return on investment. Well, I mean, it doesn't always work out,
17:07
Speaker 2: but if you get people excited about your ideas, you
17:11
Speaker 2: have a solid plan, you give them hope it works
17:16
Speaker 2: and people will get behind it. That I'm and I'm excited.
17:19
Speaker 2: I mean, that's one of the things I'm excited about
17:21
Speaker 2: is telling people we're going to change things up. We're
17:24
Speaker 2: going to use the brand more, We're going to be
17:27
Speaker 2: out in local communities, We're going to do more volunteering.
17:30
Speaker 2: We're going to be the party that has fun, that's engaged.
17:33
Speaker 2: And I think people will get behind this. Not only
17:35
Speaker 2: will the traditional donors and supporters be excited about it,
17:39
Speaker 2: but I think we're going to get some new ones
17:40
Speaker 2: as well well.
17:41
Speaker 1: Again with that level of enthusiasm and optimism, and you
17:43
Speaker 1: give people an idea about what the money's going to
17:46
Speaker 1: be used for and why it's worthy investment. Like you
17:49
Speaker 1: are doing right now, I think you will have success.
17:51
Speaker 1: I wish you all the best in your new role
17:54
Speaker 1: as Hamilton kind of Republican party chair. Josh Kirth, it's
17:57
Speaker 1: been a pleasure having you on the program. Congratulations again
17:59
Speaker 1: and you and I will definitely talk again soon. You
18:02
Speaker 1: have an open forum here on the morning Show.