Stainbrook's soldiers

Behind the lines with Jon Stainbrook and his GOP Central Committee Soldiers

published May 7th 2008

Political candidate. Punk musician. Promoter. Lifeguard. Recording artist. Activist. Writer.

No one said defining Jon Stainbrook would be easy.

And after sitting down for three uninterrupted hours with the 44-year-old Toledo native, we’re certain that this man is not easily defined.

This individual, who stood by his longtime friend Joe Kidd when Kidd opened the Pandora’s Box that became the Tom Noe controversy, has become something of a pariah among many local Republicans for his attempts to organize the party’s central committee, and become its chair.

You probably know Stainbrook’s name. Behind the recent news coverage, concert flyers for his punk band The Stain, or his byline as a writer for skateboard magazine Thrasher (Stain — as he’s known to his friends — has written for them since he was 16), who is this man?

Armed with a tape recorder and notebook, Toledo City Paper talked with the man behind the public curtain. Did we capture the definitive portrait of this complicated and often polarizing public figure? Hard to say. But we know this much — he doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit.’

TCP: So where’d you grow up?

Stainbrook: Crossgates in South Toledo, near what is now Swan Creek Metropark.

What type of work did your parents do?

My mother was a model and a nurse — she was the Champion Spark Plug girl, the Driggs Dairy model, she did all the car shows. She also worked (as a nurse) at the Gillette Clinic. My father worked for Eli Lilly for over 30 years and then he was a pharmacist at MCO.

Do you have siblings?

Yeah, my brother Bob. He works for Toledo Public Schools as a foreman.

So was your father ever involved in politics?

Never. But he has been a Republican his whole life.

What about your mother’s political interests?

My mother was a very community involved person, she was president of the Ladies Auxiliary of Pharmacists (wive’s of pharmacists), the Trinity Lutheran Youth Group, the Trinity Lutheran Woman’s League, the Altar Guild. Many groups.

So she was actve in the community, not necessarily politically?

No, but community activism is the same as politics, so I can see where it came from. I would come down from watching Don Kershener’s rock concert upstairs and the Bible study groups were downstairs and I’d see everybody down there. I would hang out with these people, talk to them and get into the prayer groups. We were Lutheran, but there were Pentecostal people there, Baptists. . . . The house was packed with Christians and I thought ‘This is great’ and that’s where I became interested in becoming a communicator.

Did you attend high school in Toledo?

I went to St. John’s, Bowsher and Maumee Valley.

In high school, were you involved in politics in any way?

No.

Did you have any significant influences during high school?

What was interesting was that I had an opportunity to go to Bowsher, St. John’s and Maumee Valley. It was such a diverse spectrum. Bowsher was a complete public school. St. John’s was a Catholic school, and the feeling there was they were the cream of the crop. But then I went to Maumee Valley, and there were family members from the Boeschensteins, the Danas, the Stranahans, and then here I was. I wanted to run track and I needed these waffle track shoes that were like $80. My dad goes “OK, well go to McDonalds and work three hours a day and buy yourself some track shoes.’ I’m like, “Well, the Stranahan’s family is buying them their shoes.” (My dad said,) “Not the Stainbrook family.”

What year did you graduate from high school?

1982

And then did you attend college?

Yes I did. (I enrolled at the)University of Toledo.

My mom went into a coma in March 1983.I had just came home from playing this gig at St. John’s High School for one of those Friday night dances and my mom was being taken away in an ambulance. For three-and-a-half years, my mom was in a coma and so we had to drive back and forth to Green Springs, Ohio for one year, Ann Arbor for another year and then she was at Toledo Hospital, all of it in intensive care. Every night, the phone rang and the doctors were like “Your mom’s blood pressure dropped, you gotta get back up here.” So we’d drive all the way up there ... and it’d be a false alarm. So we just ended up staying at the hospital for three years. We slept there. My character was formed when I was straight out of high school. I graduated from college in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, even though my mom was sick.

Did you pursue any additional education after college?

Yeah, I almost have my Masters done; Master of Liberal Studies with a major in communications. I’m just waiting on my thesis to be approved.

What was your first job?

I started delivering papers for the Toledo Blade when I was 14.

What other jobs did you have?

McDonalds. . . I worked in animal research (taking care of the animals) at MCO for years. I started life guarding for the County. I worked at the Lucas County Rec Center. I worked at the Whitehouse Quarry and then I worked at Centennial (Quarry) in Sylvania. Bill Copeland hired me. Bill was a Democrat. (It was like)if you didn’t know somebody, they weren’t going to hire you. Right then, I said, “I don’t want a job through somebody who knows somebody. I’m going to sell myself.” So I got an appointment with Bill Copeland and he says, “You want this job? And I said, “Mr. Copeland I want to work this job.” He hired me right there on the spot. It was the coolest thing.

What kind of work are you doing now?

I own a company called Vehicle Public Relations. We do video, we do pictures we did the parades for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. We do the set-up, the advertising, the whole public relations (gamut). I’ve had the company for two-and-a-half years.

Not so Grand Ol' Party

How many precincts are there in Lucas County?

495 of them. A precint is the size of a subdivision or a neighborhood. Each one of those has a precinct committee person who answers to the ward chairman. There are 24 wards in the city, and then you have the suburbs, so that makes up the county.

The problem is that in years past, party chairmen suffocated or manipulated the Central Committee purposely because they wanted to control it, so that they could say “We’re going this way and you have no choice.” Well, they got a lot of stuff done, but they had ulterior motives.

Did the party leaders just have a better idea? Maybe they were actually leaders (the party chairs).

Yeah, but not in a good way. They would take over the meetings and say nobody gets to vote. They would say “John Doe for chairman I second it, third it, Robert’s Rule its done.” I have witnessed a couple of those. And I say, “What was that? They said “Don’t question it, let’s just move on.”

I went to screening committees and I said “Wow, this is an honor. I’m getting to screen a judge to see who is going to run for that open seat. . . and then I walk in and they would say, “This is the guy we already picked.” So I’d ask “Aren’t we going to be able to talk to them?” And they said, “It doesn’t matter who you talk to; this is the guy that we picked.” Am I not a team player because I want to question the candidates and see who would be the best guy to sit? The whole process to date has been predetermined - you know this happens.

So the significance of the Central Committee is that it is comprised of elected representatives from each neighborhood or small group of homes?

Yes.

Why is the membership of the Central Committee important?

Because if its a group of people who are not going to follow the party line, then they (the current party leadership) don’t want them. (Current leadership) wants people to get their agenda through, but it’s not called a takeover, its called an election. (What I am trying to do with a fresh slate of candidates for Central Committee members) is invigorate the party with badly needed new blood. These are new people, fresh new people — I’ve got a senior advocate (a guy who goes into nursing homes and checks on people), I’ve got the chef from Diva, I’ve got an inspector from the health department, two healthcare insurance people, a database manager, a bunch of small business owners, a CEO of a mortgage company, a tattooed guy with a goatee. . . I signed up my buddy JJ (bassist for Rob Halford’s band Fight) from the East side, he signed up almost that whole side of the river - but it’s more salacious if you highlight somebody like that. I have a diverse group of professionals and I’ve got people who work at McDonalds, too. It doesn’t matter.

What does a Republican look like? Does he look like any guy who wants to vote Republican, a small business owner, perhaps? Somebody who is for smaller government?

So you recruited these people?

Oh, definitely. I sent out an e-mail saying, “If you are interested in serving for a two-year term in your neighborhood on the grass roots level of the Lucas County Republican party, send me something back and if you are going to sign up, I am going to hold you to doing the work.”

How many people did you send that e-mail to?

Probably over 3000.

When did you send that?

Towards the middle of December, 2007.

What was the genesis of the effort? Did you just wake up one day and say, “Gee, the Central Committee thing is not working?”

No actually, it was Joe Kidd. This whole Noe thing had happened and then Kidd was a hero for standing up and doing what he did. Out in the community I listened to voters talking to Joe and they were like “God bless you, Joe Kidd, you stood up and did the right thing. You could have left town, but that’s what separates the men from the boys.” We were at the Dowtown Fourth of July fireworks and walking through the crowd with Joe Kidd was almost like walking with Elvis or something. It was just really bizarre. People kept saying, “Joe, you need to run for office,” and the lights went on for Joe. He says, “I’m running for council. Will you help me, Jon?” And I said “Well, yes, Joe, you’re my friend. I stood with you throughout this whole thing. I’ll do it.” He runs and the Lucas County Republican Party runs somebody against him and they never called me. I’m an elected precinct committee person, living in South Toledo where they have the open seat because Rob Ludeman is gone. So you would think this party, in all of its infinite wisdom, would have called and asked me if I knew anybody to run. But they never called. They never called anybody that I knew; they just had a meeting and said “I heard Joe Kidd is running. We are not endorsing him.”

So you had been very active in the party and you have been involved now for over 20 years and the party has an open seat for council and ...

It was the Noe thing. That’s exactly what it was. Joanne Wack (executive director) told us that. She said, “We are not going to do it, Bob Reichert (the Republican party chairman)wants nothing to do with Joe Kidd because he stood up against the Noes.”

So what was it that upset you ?

No one in the party communicated. I made it very clear – I’m not some shrinking violet - I called them and said “What’s going on?” I told Bob Reichert, “Why is my name on as the Central Committee person? I’m never invited to any meetings. (It was) exclusionary politics. We were talking and I said, “You know what I have to do is sign up everybody I know (to run for Central Committee as a precinct rep) so then we would have a completely new party that wants to communicate and wants to work to get Republicans elected.” I sent an e-mail and 750 people responded and said “I’ll do it.” There were only around 130 (of the 465 Central Committee seats) filled, so I had 365 seats to fill. So I just went up to people and said, “I’ve got to re-register to vote so the Board of Elections doesn’t mess with your signature, sign this.” They’d ask “What are you going to ask me to do?” I’d tell them, “Campaign, maybe motorcade, maybe lit (campaign literature) drop. . . “Now sign this and you are in. You’ve got to be a Republican for two years. I’m going to call on you. Deal? Sign it.” (I called Joanne Wack) and said “I need to know the people that are on the Central Committee, let me know where their seats are.” But they wouldn’t tell me what they (the party leaders) were doing, . . . where they were signing people up. I’m like,”Why aren’t they calling me?”

So you asked Joanne Wack,the executive director, who were the members of the Central Committee, because you did not want to recruit candidates for precincts that already had elected reps?

Right. (Joanne) said in the Blade, yes, Jon Stainbrook and I are working together and Bob Reichert said, “I don’t see this as a takeover.” So I was invigorating and rejuvenating the party. They have consistently lost people over the past 20 years or so. They have lost people on the Central Committee, and it just keeps dwindling down, and they are not gaining any new ground. There was no effort to attract new people.

So the point is, there is attrition — people moved, people died, transferred party, whatever the reason; now its going down, down, down and you look at the thing and say, “Hey, why don’t we talk to some new people?”

No, I kept calling her just because I don’t want to run people against good Republicans. She knew that I was doing it, but she didn’t think about the volume of which I was doing it. I didn’t want to do it because you know what it’s like when you run somebody against Bob Reichert — you are in the dog house.

So how many people did you run?

I signed up 170. Some of these people got great media coverage because of the diversity of the personalities. Out of 170 people, 25 percent are non-traditional people who are not (necessarily) working 9 - 5. There’s a tattoo studio where the guys make a $150 per hour. Tattoo artists are the epitome of a small businessmn . . . these guys are NRA members, and want more money for themselves. They are so Republican it is unbelievable, but yet they don’t look like somebody in a Brooks Brothers suit. It’s a better picture if you show all the diversity. It’s more salacious — look at the guy with the goatee and the bass. This guy is the epitome of creativity - that’s the guys we need. We need someone new to come in and go “OK, how do we get people elected here, how do we get young people to want to come to a phone bank?” All this hoopla is over the fact that (some existing Central Committee members) will not go to a meeting with a guy that looks like Bob Marley and has dreadlocks down his back.

Is the Central Committee structure set by statute?

Yes, the Ohio Revised Code. It’s an election.

So you signed up 170 people to run, how many were elected to the Central Committee?

That is the issue we are in Court over. We are arguing over 22 people. We elected 126 people and they ( the existing party leadership) elected 123 to the Central Committee. The party sued to have 22 of my recruits declared ineligible - it is that close.

So what are we calling those 123 people who are running for the Central Commitee. Stainbrook recruits?

There are 123 that were either previously elected or were recruited by the party in this last election. They have turned this thing into an ‘us versus them.’ It is that serious. I’ve cold-called these people and said, “This is Jon Stainbrook, I just want to congratulate you on winning your Central Committee race. So have you been following us in the paper recently?”

So when is the Republican Central Committee meeting to elect the new Central Committee Chair?

It will be determined when Judge Bowman announces his decision on these 22 remaining candidates.

So the question is, how do you define who’s a Republican?

Ohio Revised Code does. Who is elected and shows up to the meeting and votes the leadership. We didn’t purge the party of what was left over of the Noes and the people who are hired by the Noes and are still running it.

(The Central Committee) is all just new people coming in.

Can you communicate this to the people on the Central Committee?

I have been. I called them up and said “All we want to do is bring new people to the party. When it gets to this actual meeting, it’s like somebody coming over and saying, “Hey, I got a bunch of new people that are going to invigorate your country club.” And they respond, “We don’t want those people in our country club.” That what it reminds me of — a country club. And it’s no club, it’s a political organization.