The Springfield News-Sun mentions two more names that may represent open seats for the Ohio GOP to defend: Ralph Regula and Dave Hobson.Now, everybody has been expecting Regula to retire, but this is the first time I've heard that Hobson may hang 'em up as well.
In a statement this week, Hobson said "as of now, I'm running," but added that he hasn't completely gone through his decision-making process yet.As the article points out, Regula already has a challenger for the general in State Sen. John Boccieri and there are two Republicans seeking to take him on in the primary (State Sen. Kirk Schuring and county commissioner Matt Miller).
Still, he's raising money for 2008. Hobson, 70, had $887,894 in his campaign coffers as of June 30 and between April 1 and June 30, he raised $201,868, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. That's comparable to what he raised at this time during the 2006 campaign.
Regula, 82, who is in his 18th term representing his northeast Ohio district, has not committed to running or retiring. He had $163,579 in the bank as of June 30, but at this time period in the last election cycle, he only had $114,752 in the bank.
The big name mentioned for the Hobson seat is State Sen. Steve Austria whose seat in the state legislature is term limited. However, Speaker Husted would prefer that Austria come to the Ohio House representing the 70th district.
That the Ohio GOP only lost Bob Ney's seat in '06 was a tremendous win for the state party. To see two more join Rep. Deb Pryce in retirement will make the task that much harder.
