John W. Griffin (politician)

John William Griffin (June 9, 1927 – March 23, 2006) was an Ohio farmer and a perennial candidate for various local, state, and federal offices in Ohio. While he lost far more political races than he won, at the time of his death he was a duly-elected member of the Ohio State Board of Education. A resident of Miami Township in south central Montgomery County, Ohio between Miamisburg and Germantown, he irritated party and education officials with his bids for office and had been the subject of scathing articles in the Dayton press.

Griffin was the son of Francis and Genevieve (Stenger) Griffin. He graduated from Jefferson Township High School and attended the University of Dayton. Griffin was a Roman Catholic and a member of the Knights of Columbus.

Griffin won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Representative from Ohio's Eighth Congressional District in 1976, 1980, and 1982, each time losing to Republican incumbent Tom Kindness. In 1978, Griffin ran for Congress again, winning the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Republican Tennyson Guyer in the Fourth District. He was again unsuccessful.

Griffin ran again in the Eighth District in 1986 and 1988, both times losing to Kindness's successor Donald "Buz" Lukens. (Rather than seek re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives, Kindness had sought election to the U.S. Senate in 1986.) In 1998, Griffin again won the Democratic nomination in the Eighth District, defeating the Democratic party's endorsed candidate, but lost in the general election to Lukens's successor John Boehner. He sought the Democratic nomination in 2000 to challenge Boehner again, but lost the primary to John G. Parks – 15,924 (53 percent) for Parks, 14,126 (47 percent) for Griffin.

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