Two people who knew Republican handler Ray Bliss well, Bill Hershey and John C. Green, have written a book about the amazing party organizer, “Mr. Chairman: The Life and Times of Ray C. Bliss.”

Bliss was a Grand Old Party man to the core. When Bliss’ choice, Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft, failed to win the 1952 presidential nomination, Bliss threw his wiles and support behind Dwight D. Eisenhower. When the Ike that everybody Liked campaigned in Ohio, Bliss made sure that campaign events ran like a D-Day military operation.

So well that, in 1965, President Eisenhower suggested that Bliss become the Republican National Chairman. That warmed the cockles of even Barry Goldwater’s heart, the ultra-conservative who lost his Presidential bid by a landslide the year before to Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Bliss was a master of the nuts and bolts of practical politics and at the forefront of bringing polling and TV into campaigns. Everyone knows there are plenty of nuts in politics. Just check out today’s Senate and House.

Hershey and Green are a perfect team to tell the terrific tale of Bliss’ footprints and fingerprints on Republican history.

Hershey dealt with Bliss often while Bill spent four score covering Ohio politics, much of it as Ohio bureau chief for the BJ and the Dayton Daily News (he flipped back and forth between the two newspapers in his career, bringing dogged digging to benefit both).

Green is director of the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. I saw him at the BJ so often that I thought he was on John S. Knight’s payroll, but Hershey disabused me of that mistaken belief.

Bliss was as good at “applied politics” as Corey Kluber is at baffling batters who oppose the Cleveland Indians or LeBron James is at applying muscle that won NBA titles in Cleveland and Miami.

Hershey also can think quickly with a gun to his head . . . literally. During his State Desk days under the incomparable Patrick T. Englehart, Mogadore’s magnificent master of managing reporters, Bill was covering union coal miners roaming around southeast Ohio trying to convince non-union mines to organize. Their tactics were their version of The Godfather’s horseless head scene.

While Bill was on the phone, talking to me about his coverage, he said: “I have to call you back.”

Later, Bill phoned me again and said, “There was a guy with a gun wanting to know what I was doing. I told him, ‘People are saying a lot of lies about you and I’m here to get the truth.’ “

The man with the gun replied: “Well, come on, then. Follow us.” So Bill got the story of tipples burning and union organizing. And lived to write about it.

I got this email from Bill, who apparently took time out from petting and dealing with his private home “kennel” of dogs to write it:

“Hi, John

“Glad you got out of the muck. (I was trapped for 30 minutes by Brandywine Country Club muck on the #9 hole that once was the bottom of the pond before the shoreline was shortened by 20 feet; 3 rescuers, an extended metal ladder and a 3 x 8 foot board rescued me with so little damage that I shot a 38 at Sycamore golf course two days later.)

“John Green, director of the Bliss Institute at Akron U, and I have written a biography of Ray Bliss, the Akron insurance man who was chairman of the Republican Party in Summit County, Ohio and the U.S.

“It is available although the official ‘release’ is at the State of the Parties political scientist conference at Akron U in November.

“As you probably know, Bliss and John Knight were long-time friends and their lives and careers often crossed. Some Beacon Journal retirees might be interested so I thought I'd let you know.

“The book follows Bliss' career from Akron to Columbus to Washington, D.C. but he was a die-hard Akron fan and came home to retire in 1969 after Nixon forced him out as chairman of the national Republican Party. Some people think Nixon could have avoided Watergate if he had listened to Bliss but Nixon wasn't much of a listener.

“Here is a link to a description of the book and also to how it can be ordered.

http://www.uakron.edu/uapress/browse-books/book-details/index.dot?id=1e1333b9-fd61-41ef-b916-4ce805f7da4b

“It's taken more than 25 years to put this thing together and I think there is some interesting stuff as well as ‘inside baseball.’ It's also available through Amazon and some other sites.

“Stay out of the mud!!

“  - - Bill H”

Green is the guy that newspapers and TV go to for insight on politics, particularly in Ohio.

Remember how we were always warned to avoid religion and politics in gatherings among friends to dodge turning them into enemies? Well, John is a “Distinguished Professor of Political Science” who is famous for his work in both areas.

Green is co-author of “The Bully Pulpit: The Politics of Protestant Clergy; Religion and the Culture Wars: Dispatches From the Front” and “The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s Changing Role in American Politics.” Plus co-editor of “The State of the Parties,” now in its 5th edition, “Multiparty Politics in America” and “Financing the 1996 Election.”

Not much political grass grows under his feet without his tootsies interpreting it.

He spent his student years at 2 C’s, universities of Colorado and Cornell.

John Green also qualifies for academia because he has a massive academic beard, great for pontificating.

Bill had a significant role in the 1987 Pulitzer that came flying to Ol’ Blue Walls over BJ coverage of Sir James Goldsmith’s greenmail takeover attempt of Goodyear and spent two years with the Peace Corps in Ethiopia.

 

His student years were spent at Michigan’s Albion College and New York’s Columbia University. The Flint native lives in Columbus with wife Marcia and the dogs (I’ve lost count; one dies and Bill replaces it with two more, or so it seems).

He retired from his second stint with the Dayton Daily News in 2012.

But not from writing, thus the Ray Bliss book. And no one put a gun to his head to make him write it, either. Thank God!