Krikorian announces run for 2010

Businessman David Krikorian (I-Madeira) wants to be the next member of Congress for Ohio's 2nd Congressional District...in 2010.

Just one day after losing the 2008 race, Krikorian told PolitickerOH.com that he was making plans for 2010.

U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Loveland) was re-elected in Ohio's 2nd, beating Krikorian and Dr. Victoria Wulsin (D-Indian Hill).

Schmidt got 44.96 percent of the vote to Wulsin's 37.27 percent and 17.77 percent for Krikorian.

Schmidt received a total of 143,287 votes, compared to 118,770 for Wulsin and 56,633 for Krikorian.

"I think our results were actually pretty darned good," Krikorian said. "When you factor in the fact that both of my opponents spend ten times more than I did, each. And you factor in that in the last week alone, Sarah Palin was in the district and Schmidt was stumping with her. Joe the over-hyped plumber was stumping for her. [Former U.S. Rep.] Rob Portman was stumping for her. And McCain won our district, so you had a lot of people out there pulling the party levers."

Krikorian pointed to President-elect Barack Obama, Gov. Ted Strickland and U.S. Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) stumping for Wulsin.

"We also had the serious headwind of a whole lot of people who wanted to vote for us, but ended up not voting for us because they were afraid that if they did it would help Wulsin get elected," Krikorian said. "That was a very real dynamic in this race, and there were a whole lot of people who, quite frankly, just did not think that an independent could win and therefore voted with one of the two party candidates."

Krikorian said that the fact that he still pulled 18 percent of the vote was pretty remarkable.

"We'll be back in 2010," Krikorian said. "In fact, we've spent much of the day [Wednesday] planning our next move."

Krikorian said he thinks Wulsin will be done after this and that Schmidt is still an extremely vulnerable representative, "and a bad one at that."

"I think that depending on how things play out, I'm going to be there, either as a Republican in the Republican primary, as a Democrat or as an independent," Krikorian said. "I don't think there's any reason whatsoever not to pursue this office, and I think if it's a two-person race, me against her, I think I would have won this time."

Krikorian pointed out that his campaign also had the opportunity to point out Schmidt as a denier of the Armenian genocide.

"If you denied the holocaust there's no way that you would be in the U.S. House of Representatives," Krikorian said. "And I think it's going to come back to bite her fairly substantially. And in fairly short order, because Obama is already on record -- in fact, he reaffirmed last week -- that he would indeed officially recognize the Armenian genocide."

Krikorian said Schmidt would look silly when Obama does so and Schmidt has denied it.

Schmidt spokesperson Bruce Pfaff has said that Krikorian showed his colors at the end of the campaign as a one-issue candidate when he started hitting Schmidt on the issue.

Krikorian said that he would work to make sure that district was well aware "that she took the blood money" from Turkish government political action committees "in exchange to deny it."

Krikorian said he may write a book about his run for Congress to raise some funds for his next run, and in a larger sense, keep him in the public eye.