VERSAILLES — The Darke County Republican Party held its annual Lincoln Day dinner Saturday evening at the Stillwater Valley Golf Club in Versailles.
Bob Paduchik, newly elected Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party and a former advisor to President Donald Trump, was the keynote speaker.
Former Ohio State Rep. Jim Buchy (R-Greenville) introduced Paduchik to the crowd.
“This guy is the real deal,” he said. “He got Trump elected in Ohio two times. We’re lucky to have him here tonight.”
Paduchik is a native of Tallmadge, Ohio, a University of Akron graduate, and is married to Greenville native Amanda Myers Paduchik.
He started his extensive political career as the coordinator for Northeast Ohio during the senate campaign of Mike DeWine in 1994 and later served on Sen. DeWine’s staff. He became political director in Bob Taft’s successful Ohio gubernatorial campaign in 1998. He founded his own political consultancy, Agincourt Consultants, in the Columbus area.
More recently, Paduchik served as the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee from January 2017 to 2019, when he left to join President Trump’s reelection campaign. He ran successful Ohio Presidential campaigns for Trump in 2016, and George W. Bush in both 2004 and 2000. Paduchik was named chairman of the Ohio Republican Party in March 2021.
Paduchik spoke about his current concerns with the administration of President Joe Biden, calling it the “third Obama administration.” His main concern is that the administration is using issues like open borders, COVID relief, infrastructure and Supreme Court packing to consolidate power for the Democratic Party.
He said Biden dismantled previous policies on immigration in order to gain influence.
“They believe if these people come into this country and get money from The Department of Health and Human Services,” he said. “If they get education, if they get those things, they will be able to buy their votes. Open borders policy is not about helping people better themselves. It’s about growing a Democrat constituency.”
Paduchik said that like immigration, the American Rescue Plan had nothing to do with what it was actually supposed to. He said a slim margin of the funding actually went to COVID-related relief, while the other relief went to bailing out large cities.
“Nine percent of the funding for that was about COVID,” he said. “Do you know what the rest of that was? Bailing out labor unions that have pensions that don’t work. Bailing out Democrat cities that have had Democratic leadership for decades now and are failing. They’re basically taking this money and dumping into large urban areas. Why? They’re trying to repair the Democrat machine, because that’s where the votes come from.”
Paduchik added that like COVID-relief, Biden’s plan for infrastructure is about taking money. He said it’s not about roads and bridges, but using them as the reason to take $2 trillion more because the last $2 trillion wasn’t enough to build up the “Democrat machine.”
He said the Biden Administration is waging war on the Supreme Court by potentially packing the court, adding new justices or putting term limits on the justices.
“Why are they doing this?” He asked. “If they can take politics for the White House and the Congress than the only thing standing in their way is the United States Supreme Court. They’re actively trying to undermine that now.”
He stressed the Democrats are trying to do everything they can to remain in power after the 2022 mid-term elections, and called it the “greatest power grab in the history of our nation.”
Taking questions from the audience, Paduchik was asked if President Trump will run for President in 2024.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know that he knows. I do know that he likes what he’s doing. He likes being a king-maker and he likes golfing. I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s got some time, he could always enter late.”
