David Hartley served Clark County in the Ohio House of Representatives for 28 years and served as a Clark County commissioner for 10 years.
I live in the 4th Congressional District. And we have a three-way race between the incumbent Republican Jim Jordan Democrat Joshua Kolasinski and Tracey Tackett, an independent.
As a Democrat, I am asking Kolasinski to drop out of this election. The request does not come lightly.
I am a lifelong Democrat who served Clark County in the Ohio House of Representatives for 28 years. I served as a Clark County commissioner for 10 years.
Right now, we are a country in crisis. I fear this might be the last free election in America. We need to change the direction of our country before it's too late.
Congress has abandoned
its constitutional role as a check and a balance at a time when we have a president determined to abuse his office for personal enrichment and reckless partisan ends.
In under two years, we have seen the sale of presidential pardons, arbitrary imposition of taxes without congressional authorization, and the unconstitutional launch of a war. We cannot afford two more years of an absent Congress. The midterms are our one chance to restore accountability, and that means this election is too important to let party loyalties get in the way.
Kolasinski should move out of the way
As a result of the latest redistricting, our district is now the 20th most Republican in the country.
In 20 years, no Democrat has come close to defeating Jim Jordan. Less than 10% of the district is registered Democratic. In the last five elections, the Democrat has barely broken 30%, and the district is even more tilted toward Republicans today. This is simply the fundamentals of the district. In a Democrat-versus-Republican race, the outcome has already been decided. Voters deserve a real choice.
Tracey Tackett can give them one.
As assistant mayor of Springfield, the district's largest city, she understands the challenges faced in local government, where public service matters most. And as a true independent, she can reach beyond the partisan trenches to disaffected Republicans, independents and everyone who wants a representative rather than a partisan. She can give voters a real choice.
A strategic vote could make the difference
A matchup of Tackett against Jordan is also what exposes Jordan.
He has never had to campaign because he has never been at risk of losing. He has never had to serve his district because serving his party was enough to keep his seat. And it's that guaranteed reelection that allowed him to lead 20 years of congressional gridlock, government shutdowns, skyrocketing national debt and an attempt to overturn a presidential election.
The Democratic Party has, from time to time, asked voters to vote strategically and choose us as the lesser evil. We are now presented with the opportunity to live up to that ourselves and vote strategically. We can set aside our ambitions as a party in this one district and join a coalition to defeat Jim Jordan, a politician who has never before faced democratic accountability.
David Hartley served Clark County in the Ohio House of Representatives for 28 years and served as a Clark County commissioner for 10 years.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: I'm a Democrat. The Dem challenging Jim Jordan has to quit for sake of nation | Opinion
