By John Kiesewetter
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON - The nasty primary election battle between Greg Jolivette and Mike Fox has been avoided, but the war within the Butler County Republican Party isn't over.

Fox, the outspoken county commissioner not endorsed by the party last fall for re-election, and supporters are trying to seize control in the March 2 primary by unseating long-time Republican Party Central Committee members.

The committee sets policy, selects the party chairman, appoints officials to vacant county offices and votes with the executive committee on endorsements. Among the central committee members Fox supporters are challenging are two incumbent state legislators.

"I didn't want to experience what I did in (the fall)... and I encouraged a lot of people to run," Fox explained. "It was more self-defense."

Fox last week dodged a fight for his job when party leaders allowed Jolivette, a state legislator losing his seat to term limits in 2006, to switch positions with Commissioner Courtney Combs, the only candidate on the ballot for Jolivette's seat. The central committee meets at 6 p.m. today to appoint Jolivette to Combs' county job.

Republican leaders last year urged Jolivette, a former Hamilton mayor, to run against Fox in the primary. Party leaders were unhappy at Fox's high-profile criticism of how two Republican judges operate Domestic Relations Court.

Before the Jolivette-Combs deal was announced last week, more than 100 people had been recruited to challenge central committee precinct representatives, many of them Jolivette supporters. Usually only 10 to 15 incumbent committee members are challenged in any given election, said Bob Mosketti, Butler County Board of Elections director. A committee member is elected in most of the 289 precincts every two years. Among Republicans facing competition to remain on the committee: State Sen. Scott Nein, R-Middletown; State Rep. Shawn Webster, R-Hanover Township; Bea Lyons, wife of Judge Robert H. Lyons; Donna Connaughton, wife of Judge John Connaughton; assistant Butler County Prosecutor Roger Gates, and Chris Wunnenberg, development director for Schumacher Dugan.

Nein, one of Jolivette's four campaign chairmen, opposed a Jolivette-Combs swap last summer to avoid a primary because it circumvented the party's screening and endorsement process. "It's very well-known I've not been supportive of Mike Fox," Nein said.

"To challenge a sitting state senator in his own precinct is an insult," said Wunnenberg, one of 20 central committee members being challenged of the 45 in West Chester Township.

Also facing competition in West Chester is Dorothy Roth, an active committee member for 15 years. "I was just shocked to have opposition," says Roth, a Jolivette supporter.

The unprecendented number of precinct challenges in Butler County "is unusual in Ohio, but it does happen," says John C. Green, director of the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute for Applied Politics.

These grassroots precinct elections "create the avenue for controlling the county party" because the central committee has the power to fill vacant county offices, he said.

E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com