11th District Caucus forum: Spring Training for County Exec Candidates

Last Saturday the Eleventh Congressional District Caucus held a forum for the declared county executive candidates who will be running in the September 7 primary. The timing was a little out of kilter because of the heated battles going on in several local Democratic primaries, not to mention the heated statewide battle for the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring US Senator George Voinovich.

Nonetheless, the forum was a good opportunity for the county executive candidates to try out their campaign themes on a politically sophisticated audience. Nearly 200 people were in attendance at the forum in the new John Adams High School on Cleveland’s east side. The candidates — Opportunity Corridor director Terri Hamilton Brown; former state representative Matt Dolan; Lakewood mayor Ed FitzGerald, and South Euclid mayor Georgine Welo — each offered an opening statement and then answered questions prepared by the moderator, county recorder Lillian Greene, or written down and collected from the audience.

Dolan’s participation must have surprised many in attendance, and was certainly news to some in the party hierarchy. The caucus has come to be widely but inaccurately perceived as being a Democratic Party affiliate. Its leader, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, D-11, has overseen the organization’s transformation from a strictly political organization to a non-profit, nonpartisan corporation. As such, the Republican Dolan was invited on the same basis as the others, and was in fact able to establish a connection with many in the audience.

Dolan told the crowd that the chief executive needed to set the vision for the new county government and council. He touted his bi-partisan bona fides and promised to use the position as a bully pulpit for public education. He came across as somewhat paternalistic when he talked about helping the new county council to see a broader vision.

FitzGerald stressed restoring integrity to county government and spoke of his experience as Lakewood mayor in managing a $100 million budget. He spoke optimistically of establishing a collegial relationship with the new council and indicated that a FitzGerald administration would emphasize human services along with jobs and growth.

Welo, styling herself as “the people’s candidate”, made it clear that a Welo administration would focus on the core issues of health, safety, and welfare. Her manner was direct and unvarnished as she strove to project a straight-ahead, commonsense, can-do approach.

The forum was probably most beneficial to Brown, who likely possesses the best resume as a professional manager but is a political novice as a candidate. She had difficulty in keeping her answers to a manageable length, and also struggled to find a natural, conversational tone. She is clearly more comfortable in a board room than on the stump, and whatever notion she had of making an easy transition to the microphone was quickly dispelled. To her credit, she acknowledged the challenge and her promise to meet it seemed to draw warm sympathy from the crowd. Brown also connected by tracing her Lee-Harvard upbringing.

Dolan likely has a clear path through the September Republican primary to the general election in November. Brown, FitzGerald and Welo will compete in the Democratic primary. The filing deadline for both primaries is June 24. Those who win the party primaries will be facing one and probably two additional major candidates. Conservative businessman Ken Lanci is running already as an independent, and rumors are rife that maverick Democrat and former county commissioner Tim McCormack will also run as an independent.

Four candidates in the general election, each reasonably well-financed and with a well-defined political base, means the first Cuyahoga County chief executive could be elected with as little as 30% of the vote in November.
• • •

Grits ain't Gravy [Miscellaneous Political Notes]

The caucus meeting offered some interesting side stories:
• Congresswoman Fudge, for instance, unlike many office holders, was content to make some brief remarks and then sit down without trying to dominate the proceedings.
• Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, running for the US Senate, arrived with her campaign team, made some concise remarks, and sat attentively throughout the meeting.
• A campaign tracker, said to be an operative of her primary opponent, Lt. General Lee Fisher, kept a camera focused on Brunner the entire time.

Fisher gears up for stretch run

Lt. Governor Lee Fisher was in his best campaign mode on Saturday when he appeared at the new Lancer Restaurant, across the street from its original historic location. He had invited the Cuyahoga County Young Democrats to breakfast, though its membership was considerably outnumbered by the old political heads that comprised the majority of his audience. Fisher’s campaign struck some new tones in calling upon old friends to help carry him to victory in the next 30 days in the May 4 Democratic primary battle to win the Democratic Party nomination to run in November for the open seat to succeed the retiring George Voinovich.    

 

The stakes are high, as Fisher himself noted. Ohio is a pivotal state in national politics, and its current senatorial and gubernatorial races are likely to have significant effect upon the 2012 presidential playing field.    

 

Fisher is no stranger to tight races. In 1990 he won the race to become state Attorney General by 1,234 votes out of 3,360,162 cast, or only 0.037% of the total number of votes cast, the closest statewide election in Ohio history. Twenty years later, “Landslide Lee”, so dubbed as a result of that earlier race, certainly did not expect to be in a race that is polling about as tightly as that 1990 race. But huge advantages in fundraising and statewide political experience, together with the backing of the vast majority of the party’s establishment and apparatus, have not been sufficient to separate him from the tenacious and resourceful challenge of Jennifer Brunner, who abandoned a likely easy re-election campaign for the chance to win an open Senate seat.   

 

Fisher now seems reconciled to being in a tough battle, and he may be warming to it. He referred to his challenger by name at least twice, and with respect. He invoked President Obama’s name repeatedly, and cited the president’s election in 2008 as being a major factor in his desire to go to Washington and engage in the national struggle for economic justice. He also put his humble side on display as he repeatedly asked for his audience’s help.   

 

Fisher’s performance appeared to find resonance with his audience. Some in the black community have been piqued at Fisher’s reported aversion to citing the President by name, an apparent hangover from his fervent support of Hillary Clinton in 2008. And current Fisher campaign literature argues that “Washington is broken”, a perplexing position given that his party controls the White House and both houses of Congress. The candidate gave Obama credit for the historic health bill achievement, and noted that the president has been besieged by some on account of his race as well as his politics.   

 

Fisher reminded his breakfast guests that he is the only statewide candidate from northeast Ohio on the ballot this year. Democratic turnout in Cuyahoga County has always been critical to the party’s success statewide. This year the county's impact is likely to be no different, and moreover will probably determine whether Landslide Lee gets a chance to return to a November ballot.   

 

Fisher has put a new team in place for his stretch drive to the nomination. He brought on a new and savvy communications director in January, and is apparently finding some new African American counsel to go along with longtime political ally and adviser Arnold Pinkney. 

• • •

Grits ain't Gravy [Miscellaneous Political Notes]

 

Terri Hamilton Brown has told friends that she is likely to throw her hat into the ring for county executive. Brown’s current gig is director of the Opportunity Corridor. She earned high marks as a manager in Cleveland’s community development department and as chief executive of the county’s public housing authority. With a resume that also includes stints as president of University Circle Inc and as a National City Bank vice president, she clearly possesses the executive depth to handle the job.  But doing a job and campaigning for it require different skill sets, something she is probably doing due diligence on as you read this.

• •

We only got to speak to her for two minutes, but District 10 county council candidate Sharon Cole was ready. She managed to tell us that she has two engineering degrees [Purdue and Case Western Reserve universities], and fell in love with public service while doing constituent service work for the late Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones. She currently is executive assistant to Cleveland councilman Eugene Miller. District 10 includes Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, Cleveland Wards 10 & 11, and Bratenahl.

• •

Lost in the primary season has been the issue of a new county chair of the Cuyahoga Democratic Party. Interim chair Pat Britt has told supporters she doesn’t want the position permanently. Party rules call for the party’s central committee to meet between May 10 and May 19 to elect the new chair. Campaigns for the position have typically been conducted over the phone or person-to-person. Some party activists are hoping to initiate a more open process this year. More on this is likely to emerge soon. 

• • •

 

State Senator Nina Turner files today to return to Ohio Senate

Regular readers of this space have no doubt observed that The Real Deal is an evolving blog. Last week we offered our first commentary on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Today we offer our first news scoop, not a biggie as scoops go, but perhaps a harbinger of things to come, especially for followers of the Cuyahoga political scene.

We learned just a few moments ago that Nina Turner, whose name has been bruited about as a possible candidate for the new post of Cuyahoga County chief executive, filed today to run for a full term as state senator representing the 25th District. Turner was appointed to this position to fill the unexpired term of Lance Mason, who resigned in 2008 to accept an appointment by Governor Strickland to be a common pleas judge.

We think this represents the sound move for Turner, who rocketed to local political prominence last year as one of the few black elected officials to endorse Issue 6, the successful ballot measure creating the new form of county government that takes effect next January 1. Our guess is that she realized that popularity with the Plain Dealer and Issue 6 proponents would have been of little avail in a run for county executive against opponents who plan to raise and spend the estimated cost of such a campaign.

While the Senator could still file to run for county executive before the June 24 deadline, the idea is improbable given the May primary for the race she has just entered. She would either have to abandon her supporters if she won, or file to run for a bigger office after being unable to hold the home base seat to which she had been appointed. In neither instance would she be displaying the sound political judgment she has shown at this stage in her relatively young career.

Her return to the Ohio Senate is by no means guaranteed, as she may face substantial challenge from foes eager to punish her for her Issue 6 stance or hoping to capitalize on her perceived weakness as a result of carrying the Issue 6 banner in one of the very areas where the issue was rejected by voters.

Cultural Divides

When I was young I used to think that the key to success in Cleveland was to observe what was being done on either coast and to adapt that to the local scene. It seemed to me at the time that we were ten years or so behind what was happening in the leading business and cultural trend-setting centers of the nation.

Now, 30+ years later, [as we embark upon a new, yet to be named decade], as political and cultural evolution accelerates more rapidly in much of the rest of the country and the world than here in Cuyahoga, we may be facing a larger gap.

The perceptive Fareed Zakaria observed last year in his book, The Post-American World, that America’s real problem was not one of excellence but one of access. Recognizing the danger posed by the country’s inequalities, he argues that the country will decline “if we cannot educate and train a third of the working population to compete in a knowledge economy.”

An application of this global political analysis to our beloved crooked river community suggests that Zakaria’s concern has special resonance in our County. Indeed, apprehension over the effects that the new county charter would have in exacerbating the County’s existing inequalities was a paramount concern for many opponents of the charter.

Charter champions touted the ability of a sleek new county government to drive economic development. Others, sensitive to the county’s historic role as provider of essential health and social services to those in need, worried about the neglect of those services by a county administration focused on bringing new development in. This worry was joined by concerns that the fruits of any new development would be skewed towards those Cuyahogans who already enjoy the most fruits of America’s competitive marketplace.

In reality, both sides of the Charter dust up may have been guilty of a too-narrow focus. Greater Cleveland’s competitive advantage once relied on its “great location”. Once upon a time we touted that with great community pride. The refrain now echoes plaintively as if emanating from a scratchy phonograph record still looping; everyone has left the party and nobody stayed to clean up.

In today’s wireless digital age, a company’s choice of where to locate may have more to do with the owner’s preferred lifestyle than the economics of manufacturing. But what has remained constant for business success, of course, is human capital.

This area once boasted one of the largest, most highly skilled and best trained manufacturing workforces the world has ever seen. The guts of that workforce are now largely deceased, retired, transferred, migrated, or casualties of globalization.

The establishment of Plato’s Republic along these southern Erie shores will not be sufficient to attract new businesses if we cannot replace that legendary workforce with its modern equivalent: tech-savvy, open-minded, versatile, young men and women with a global appreciation of possibilities.

Those kinds of workers flock to Silicon Valley, Route 128, Austin, the Research Triangle, and other dynamic locales. We have some of them here, concentrated in world-class enterprises like the Cleveland Clinic and hey, the Cleveland Cavaliers [key workers come from Lithuania, Brazil, Mississippi, Akron, and wherever Jamario Moon is from].

Today’s workers are increasingly people of color, some with ethnic self-descriptions and sexual orientations that defy the white bread, black-white, male-dominated, racial and religious, manifest destiny, nine planet world reference points we were once fed as universal and eternal truths. Many are multi-lingual and untethered from our own sense of limitation.

Here in Cuyahoga, we are going to have to work diligently and creatively to unleash the creativity in our most precious resource, our children. Where in our community is there greater hunger and energy than in our public schools?

My son struggled with some typical black-male issues in his suburban high school years, persevered, got an M.B.A., and now runs a successful company in … Hong Kong [www.chunkyonion.com]. His customers are those who aspire to a global understanding for their children so they can compete internationally. Do we want as much for our community’s kids?

We have bought or been sold a new form of government. Left untouched in the transaction was any discussion of consolidation, of working across municipal boundaries that would go unrecognized but for differently colored street signs, or of cooperating safety, sanitation, or [!] school systems.

Zakaria understood that part of the universal appeal of American culture is rooted in its celebration and reinforcement of a problem-solving attitude that questions authority and thinks heretically.

The authors of the new county charter should have included a provision for those traits to be embedded in the DNA of all county office seekers. They omitted such a clause, so county voters are going to have to demand it from candidates. Maybe we should start demanding it from all of our leaders. Maybe we should demand it of ourselves.

• • •

Building Community across Cuyahoga

I have been speaking with a lot of our community’s political leaders lately in the aftermath of last month’s volcanic decision to smash the existing political compact.

There were many civic-minded citizens on both sides of the question of how best to reform a Byzantine system of government that promoted nepotism, encouraged inefficiency, rewarded mediocrity, and tolerated corruption. But the decision was made in the crisis atmosphere that typifies much of our community decision-making: winner-take-all snake-oil salesmen on one side and we-are-all losers demagogues on the other.

The voters were fed up, thanks to a tanking economy accompanied by blaring headlines signaling widespread corruption. In our collective wisdom, amidst despair over the economy and disgust with many of our politicians, we have jumped into the treacherous waters of structural reform. Next up: selecting a captain and a crew to steer our vulnerable county ship.

My discussions about leadership with some of our most savvy and successful politicians — including some at the top and several on the rise — have led me back home. I want to talk about my mother.

Maybe that’s because I write this on Christmas Sunday morning, an especially sacred day in my household, and often the busiest day of the year. My father, re-channeling his inner Oliver Wendell Holmes, had at age 40 been called to his first pastorate by one of Cleveland’s oldest black churches, Mt. Zion Congregational Church. My mother, a music professor at Howard University, resigned her job and came to Cleveland with her husband and two grade school children to start a new life in the bustling Midwest metropolis that 1953 Cleveland seemed to be. She was 38 and I had no idea that her earthly life was more than 3/4 spent.

She might have known that, however. Several years earlier, she had undergone a double mastectomy, undergoing radical radiation that left scars and disfigurement that I can still see. Radiation burns and extraordinary edema notwithstanding, she was beautiful both inside and out.

The church was in a precarious position. Its last pastor had moved onto a bigger church in Chicago. The last church home had been sold and converted into a nursing home by new ownership. Sunday service was held in two small meeting rooms at the Cedar YMCA. The church office was down the street, sharing a suite of rooms with a dental practice. The dentist was a church trustee who lived upstairs from his practice. There was a parsonage in Glenville, with a huge sycamore tree that dwarfed the two-cent postage stamp of a lawn.

And there was a choir. It seemed to sing only dirges.

But the church congregation was not without assets, primary among which was a core of faithful members. These included several leaders who even in de facto segregated Cleveland of the 1950s were accomplished professionals and community leaders.

But about that choir. My mother, Marjory J. Andrews, became the organist and choir director sometime in that first year. Within no more than three years, she had five choirs going, for everyone from preschoolers to the transformed Chancel Choir. It was the latter where her impact was most dramatic. The Mt. Zion music ministry became known throughout community. Its repertoire included Tchaikovsky, Handel, Beethoven, and prominently featured brilliantly arranged Negro spirituals.

On the Sunday before Christmas, Mt. Zion Vesper Service began at 6pm. If you weren’t there early you either had to stand in the back or along the sides, or sit and hear through loudspeakers from an anteroom. Worshippers came from all over, from Lakewood and Rocky River to Chagrin Falls.

My soft-spoken mother was a totally dedicated, demanding, professional. She was upbeat and optimistic, and she accepted no excuses for anything less than excellence. Her approach began to attract some of the area’s best singers and musicians, a process accelerated by the Church’s buying property in University Circle and building a magnificent sanctuary.

The choir included at least a dozen solo-quality singers, blended together in near perfection with supporting voices. Members were schoolteachers, basketball coaches, grad students, housewives, engineers, and probably a couple of roués. They were black, white, straight, gay, young and seasoned.

Long story short: I never thought of my mother as a leader, though clearly she was. She was my mother. I did understand that professionally she was an accomplished and dedicated musician who, despite the severe physical limits under which she labored as a result of her cancer, always found the stamina to practice.

But with half a century to figure it out, I realize that my mother was not just a leader in her profession. She was a builder. And she worked with everybody. She built an outstanding music program by focusing on the mission. She never sought personal acclaim and did everything she could to enhance the ensemble over any individual. And she found a place for everyone. If you couldn’t sing especially well, maybe you could maintain the music library.

She never assumed that your social status, skin color, or previous condition established your talent or worthiness in support of the common endeavor. And she never accepted that excellence and equity were incompatible.

I could say more, but I hope the point is made. Cuyahoga is a venerable institution with a rich history. We face daunting challenges that are both real and spiritual. Our choir sings dirges. We have lots of talent, though we stifle much of it.

We seldom focus on excellence and equity as partners.

We need builders who will focus on our joint mission to create a healthier community and not worry about who gets the credit.

United Pastors initiate Community Dialogue for Reconcilation and Unity

About 60 citizens took up the invitation extended by the United Pastors in Mission to attend a community meeting called in the wake of the recent controversy over the tasteless assault upon State Senator Nina Turner in the Call & Post for her alliance with the architects of the successful Issue 6 campaign to change the form of county government.

The tone of yesterday's meeting was restrained for the most part. UPM president C. Jay Matthews, pastor of host church Mt. Sinai Baptist on Woodland Ave., stated at the outset “you can’t have private reconciliation in a public debate” and sought throughout the 90-minute session to focus attention on moving forward with outreach and community engagement. While he had some success in this effort, many in attendance were still preoccupied with the last campaign and the passions it exposed throughout the community regarding change, political power, and economic and social inequalities.

These passions were best put in perspective by the Rev. Tony Minor of Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry, who first arrived in Cleveland 25 years ago, dispatched here, he said, by Rev. Joseph Lowery of Alabama, to re-establish a local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Minor recalled a conversation with one his parishioners, a single mother who had come to him seeking aid because her cupboard was bare and she was being evicted. In the midst of assisting her, he asked her opinion about the Aunt Jemima depiction of Sen. Turner. As might be assumed, the woman, consumed by hand-to-mouth necessities, was totally unaware of the controversy.

Minor used the vignette to argue that “the town needs to change; the old guard needs to open up and change.”

This theme was echoed by Matthews, who said, “Leadership is not born or made. It has followers.” He said that there was a “process of opportunity”, and that while we certainly had not become a post-racial society, the election of President Obama suggested that there are some new opportunities open to African Americans that should be seized.

Yet and still, there was discussion of issues further polarized by the Call & Post cartoon. Deborah Plummer, chief diversity officer at the Cleveland Clinic, rose to express her appreciation to UPM for standing up on behalf of women. Attorney Michael Nelson argued that the cartoon merely depicted what many, if not most, of Cleveland’s black community were thinking and saying about Sen. Turner, including all … of Cleveland’s black councilmen.

County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, saying that he felt a newfound liberation in his new, charter-mandated lame-duck status, spoke of the importance of participating in the election of new county officials next year. Pointing to his obligation as a countywide official to pay attention to the “aspirations, needs, and desires” of all county residents, he expressed concern whether county council candidates would feel similarly obliged.

The meeting, which began with a presentation on behalf of Christians United for Israel, concluded with a stirring Advent homily from Dr. Marvin McMickle, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church.

In the brief press conference that followed, Rev. Matthews, who during the meeting lifted up the diversity of the black community, was backed by nearly 20 members of UPM as he resisted any line of questioning that sought to exploit fissures in the ongoing relationship of the black clergy and the Call & Post. While that posture may appear ironic, his answer was both adroit and accurate, as UPM’s stated intent is to continue dialogue both with the paper’s leadership as well as with those who are involved in delineating the new county government.

NAACP Youth Gathering Holds Promise

Christmas came early for the three dozen or so aspiring young political activists who responded to the NAACP flier inviting them to a primer on building a framework for leadership in the new political landscape ushered in on election day last month, even if the lessons didn’t go exactly as planned.

More than 250 people filled the atrium at Cleveland State’s Levin College of Urban Affairs last night in a pulsing, buzzing swarm that in some ways resembled a political convention. There was an intriguing mix of officials serving as faculty, but the audience included a rich array of political activists whose roots go back to the black community’s heady successes of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, and a surprising number of current elected officials whose presence [in a delightful departure from normal protocol, was not officially recognized]. There was also a healthy dose of the hoi polloi, whose dismay at the perceived loss of black political power in the wake of the county’s new charter provided hot sauce for the evening’s brew.

An enterprising political aspirant could reflect on the mixed bag of wisdom that came from the invited panelists [State Rep. Robin Belcher, Lakewood mayor Ed Fitzgerald, Cleveland council members Mamie Mitchell and Zach Reed, Young Democrats president Curtis Thompson II, Jose Feliciano Jr. of the Hispanic Roundtable, and for good measure, community activist Eric Johnson and Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc. [State Senator Nina Turner was an invited panelist but chose not to participate.]

Perhaps the most important lesson a novice politico could have learned was the need for patience and composure in the face of the untidy part of public life: when citizens, feeling disempowered and deeply upset with the state of public affairs, take the microphone and say so in all kinds of ways.

Charged with keeping the proceedings under control were recent law school graduate NeKima Hill of the NAACP Youth Council and radio talk show host Basheer Jones. Hill focused on keeping both panelists and audience on point, though her predetermined questions left panelists groping to respond at times. Jones showed promise as a moderator, and earned audience gratitude when he gracefully but firmly forced ever-garrulous Gerald Henley to give up the microphone after an overlong declaration of his intent to run for a seat on the new county council.

Panelists expressed a range of views when asked why Issue 6 had passed. Lakewood mayor Fitzgerald observed succinctly that people had lost faith in the existing system, and expressed it by overturning the existing order. He said, “Sometimes elections are about an idea, and not about the specifics.”

Eric Johnson argued that Issue 6’s mandate was weak because of poor turnout. Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell pointed out that very few of the politicians who stated opposition to the new charter actually campaigned against it.

For Curt Thompson II, three factors contributed to the result: the overwhelming amount by which Issue 6 proponents outspent the opposition, the ongoing corruption revelations and allegations, and a lack of engagement by Issue 6 foes. Speaking to The Real Deal in a post-forum analysis, he said matter-of-factly, “there is no more Issue 5 or Issue 6. Issue 5 is dead and Issue 6 is a law. We must concentrate now on putting people into office who will concentrate on progress and growth.”

Councilman Zach Reed was blunt in his analysis. “Issue 6 passed”, he said, “because the Plain Dealer wanted it to pass, and they took advantage of the corruption issue.” He said several times, in apparent reference to Republicans and their allies, “the people who couldn’t get in the front door came around the back door.”

Reed did have some cogent advice for those young people who want a place set for them at the table. It’s about power, he told them, and it’s not in the nature of power to yield except in the face of a greater power.

Among those on hand, possibly to recruit new blood or take the measure of potential rivals, were Cleveland council members Mike Polensek, Eugene Miller, and councilman-elect Jeff Johnson; mayor-elect Gary Norton of East Cleveland, and Highland Hills councilman Kenneth Roberts. Also in attendance was former county commissioner Tim McCormack, giving fuel to talk he may be considering a run for county executive.

Other public officials observed at the forum were former election board chief Jane B. Sheats, former Cleveland safety director James Barrett, chief Cleveland Municipal Court referee Greg Clifford, former Central State University board chair Betty Pinkney, and deputy county administrator Lee Trotter.

• • •

The Plain Dealer account of this event reported attendance as “more than 100” and seemed to suggest that the event was a downer because many older citizens lamented the passing of the old order.

In fact, more than 125 attendees signed in according to the organizers, and at least an equal number did not.

Whether or not a sizable number of young people attended depends in part not only one’s ability to guess ages, but also how old you can be and still qualify as young. I saw a vibrant mix of young and old, tried and true, straight and crooked. There was pessimism yes. There was despair, yes. But when I left after 90 minutes, finally tearing myself away from a fascinating evening to keep a commitment a few blocks away, I left feeling that I might be witnessing multiple manifestations of the law of unintended consequences. First, that a ballot initiative developed with the intent by at least some of its partisans to diminish some segment of the electorate, might prove a galvanizing force to greater involvement by that very segment. Second, that the evening’s takeaway for a young leader could plausibly include receiving not only a realistic dose of what his or her constituents likely feel, but a commitment to work to channel the intensity and depth of those feelings in positive ways, and to feel supported in that quest by the veteran troops who came out to be a part of a night for the new and the young.

Kudos to the NAACP, its Youth Council, and its executive director, Stanley Miller. Here’s hoping they do it again, east side, west side, all around the town.

County Charter, Dimora Departure, offer Opportunity for Cuyahoga Democrats to Restructure, Rejuvenate their Party

Jimmy Dimora has literally and figuratively cast a huge and depressing shadow over the county Democratic Party for more than a decade. As the ongoing federal investigation has forced him to step away from his central command post as party chair, small rays of light have begun to expose long-suppressed sores and scabs in the folds of the party’s huge, stagnant and shaken body.

The dominance of the party in sweeping all non-judicial county races since 1992 has been less attributable to Dimora’s political acumen than to simple demographics. Republicans have either fled Cuyahoga for the fresh air of Lake, Summit, Medina or Lorain counties, or have retreated into privileged enclaves along the outskirts.

Dimora can be credited, in a quasi-positive way, for navigating the community’s long unresolved ethnic and class fault lines — lines faithfully recapitulated within the Party — with sufficient fairness and skill to keep the party’s core constituencies from imploding into unmanageable intraparty strife. He did this not with an iron fist but by using a carefully honed affability to disguise constant use of a mental abacus to calculate his political advantage.

Unfortunately for northeast Ohio, Dimora’s lame and dishonest stewardship as county commissioner has been a key element — though by no means the only or even the most important one — in retarding regional adjustment to 21st century realities.

Dimora’s greatest gift to his community, to paraphrase some wag, may be found in the appropriately large wake of his effective departure from his twin posts as government official and party boss. While he still has the titles, his power and influence have been eviscerated as a result of his total loss of public face. While the legal end to the federal investigation is not in sight, nor its outcome guaranteed, county voters overwhelmingly slammed the door on the particular form of government that facilitated his malfeasance.

• • •

Notwithstanding the abrupt and dramatic shift to a new form of county government that will soon be underway, it is the new contours of the local Democratic Party that may have greater impact upon the community’s public life. This is presently uncharted territory.

Will there simply be a repeat of the top-down structure with a new head? That is the dominant model across too many domains in this region. If that model prevails within the Party, there will likely be further erosion of party strength, with especially negative consequences to the state Democratic ticket next year.

Will old-style jockeying to protect county jobs and long-established fiefdoms derail a healthy and open process? Not if a new group calling itself Cuyahoga Democrats for Principled Leadership has anything to do with it.

Yesterday, shortly after sunrise, there appeared signs in Midtown Cleveland of a new coalition of activist Democrats. There were about 40 in attendance. Prominent public officials, even those who likely would support efforts to transform the party into a more open, transparent, democratic organization, were intentionally left off the list of invitees. A few suburban council people, including Lakewood’s Tom Bullock [one of the conveners], Pepper Pike’s Rick Taft and Rob Zimmerman of Shaker Heights did overcome the disability of office-holding. The diverse assembly included a smattering of precinct committee members, some old war-horses, some presumptive office-seekers, and a healthy contingent of new blood.

This latter group included several young people who have come to northeast Ohio from outside the state in recent years for reasons of job, family, or in several cases, to work on national campaigns. This segment seemed particularly appalled at the condition of local party affairs.

The tone of the meeting was crisp, open, organized, realistic, agentic, and hopeful. The focus was on values and practices, not personalities. Consensus was reached early in the ninety-minute meeting that the group would commit to openness, transparency, and inclusiveness.

The group has adopted no formal position statement, has no officers, no membership requirements. As a measure of its openness, the blogger/journalists in attendance [I counted two] were not asked to treat the meeting as confidential.

After the meeting, Tom Bullock, emailed The Real Deal to say the meeting "was the first of what we hope will be a series of meetings that will include a growing circle of participants. The invitation list for this first session did not include major elected officials but rather emphasized rank-and-file Party members, activists, and campaign volunteers to allow for a grassroots discussion. Some attendees hold formal Party positions; many do not. All agreed that future meetings should reach out to an ever-broader circle of Cuyahoga Democrats, including elected officials."

Stay tuned!

Building a New Ship, or Re-arranging the Deck Chairs?

Those who discounted the argument that the Issue 6 measure was at base about power and money should be a lot less certain today in the wake of the Plain Dealer’s call for a major shift in the public control of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

If Fox News is the communications arm of the Republican Party, our community’s daily has long played the increasingly transparent role of mouthpiece for the dominant corporate interests that have always controlled this region no matter which party has nominally controlled the reins of city and county government.

Cleveland has had only three mayors in the last sixty years who weren’t eager to do the bidding of the region’s economic oligarchy. In 1967 Carl Stokes came into office with a progressive and pro-active civil rights and economic agenda. He was supported by the business community not so much for its positive elements as for the expectation that he could keep the fuse from being lit on the stockpile of socio-economic dynamite created by a half-century of retrograde policies. Dennis Kucinich squeaked into office in 1977 on an anti-corporate agenda but had no plans and no ability to do anything, given that his administration was at war with the Establishment every day of his tenure.

The current mayor, Frank Jackson, runs an honest, prudent, and pragmatic administration, no mean achievement in a time of national and regional economic freefall. His lack of personal political ambition and greed means he can’t be bought off like so many of his predecessors who aspired either to higher political office or to personal wealth. So while he leads well by example, and works constructively behind the scenes, he has yet to field an effective voice to counter the growing assaults upon his domain.

Perhaps the crassness of the Plain Dealer’s call for Cleveland to cede two seats on the Port Authority board to what is likely to be a business-controlled county government will stir some emotion in our strong-willed but publicly dispassionate mayor. Some righteous indignation would be both good and justified.

Brent Larkin, whose PD columns should be set in faint type, italicized, and boxed to show their kinship to commercial speech, gratuitously slurs both current and former Port Authority trustees by suggesting they represent a “generally pathetic” crop of public appointees. The recent sudden departure of the port’s chief executive, Adam Wasserman, has provided a convenient excuse to set up this latest power grab. His board-requested resignation is wholly unrelated to a discussion about how board members are selected.

A majority of the current board had no role in Wasserman’s hiring. The Nov. 10 PD editorial suggestion that current directors owe their selections largely to their political clout is ludicrous. The disdain for their expertise is rooted perhaps more in the fact that three of them are African American and one is Hispanic. Collectively, these four have less political clout than the weakest city councilman. All were appointed by Jackson, though the Port’s chair, Steven J. Williams, was originally appointed in 2002 by Jane Campbell, Jackson’s predecessor. It seems that their main shortcoming in the Plain Dealer’s eyes is that they are NOT inside players in the region’s shadow government.

Cleveland enjoyed phenomenal growth from mid-nineteenth century commercial town to world-class industrial behemoth during the roughly hundred-year period ending around 1950. This growth was largely built on the backs of immigrants, initially from central and southern Europe and later from the black farmlands of Alabama and Georgia. The social and infrastructure strains these newcomers placed on the city were manageable in an era of nearly unbridled growth. Congestion, pollution, and other public challenges could be and were personally resolved for industry leaders by relocation to newly minted suburbs.

Direct control of city government was relinquished by the city’s industrial captains as a consequence of the suburban migration, and replaced by informal methods devised to protect commercial and class interests.

Meanwhile, first white and then black ethnics, each in turn fearing loss of hard-fought political clout, rebuffed repeated attempts by good-government types to reform county government. Excepting the goo-goo types, nobody seemed much disturbed by the culture of corruption and inefficiency that infested county government, going back decades before mid-20th century party boss Albert Porter and extending forth decades to the present era. Winner-take-all, zero-sum game politics has been the name of our political game.

This didn’t seem to matter much fifty years ago. Hey, we had world-class institutions! We had more Fortune 500 companies than anywhere outside of New York or Chicago. We had the world-class Cleveland Browns! We had the Cleveland Indians, better than any team not the Yankees! We were the greatest location in the nation!!!

Anybody check the standings lately?

The fading of the industrial age, a transition to service- and knowledge-based economies, urban sprawl, and globalization, finally combined to force a renewed focus on the consequences of our inefficient and corrupt ways of doing public business. Unfortunately, we didn’t police ourselves but needed federal prosecutors to do it for us.

Embedded in the new county charter are mechanisms for the old forces to control valuable public resources in the name of economic development that never seems to trickle down in ways useful to those at the very broad bottom of our community. It is now incumbent on those who insisted that a new charter was about efficiency and progress to ensure that they are not out-maneuvered by those for whom Issue 6 was always about money and power.

Lingering Images from the Campaign Trail

While the Board of Elections tells us the bottom line winners and losers in an election, it helps to be out on the hustings to get a sense of what really happened. Newspapers once served to give us a flavor of the political battles and the contestants, but in today’s era of contracted resources and decreasing institutional memory, campaign vignettes are a rare sighting. As we begin the adjustment to the new political realities in Cuyahoga County, it seems appropriate to step back and share some of our lasting impressions of the campaign trail.

Peter Lawson Jones established himself as both an indefatigable campaigner and the most knowledgeable official around about the workings of county government. He showed up late to practically every event but unlike most of his fellow Democratic office holders, who opposed Issue 6, Jones actually campaigned against it. In the process he revealed a depth of knowledge about county operations and responsibilities that could serve him well if he decides to seek the new chief executive position.

George Forbes was the most predictable person we saw on the campaign trail. Appearing alongside Arnold Pinkney at a debate organized by the Black Women’s Political Action Committee to provide historical perspective on county reform efforts, Forbes allowed Pinkney to do the heavy lifting as to the history. Forbes simply enumerated all the white politicians who came beseeching his support of Issue 6 [implied testimony to his continued self-professed status as defender of all things black] and scowled that “Issue 6 was bad for black people.” This act needs a curtain call.

Lillian Greene was the most aggrieved campaigner. After resigning a Common Pleas judgeship to accept the position of county recorder, she set about reforming and streamlining the recorder’s office, successfully standing for election to the post in November 2008. Feeling tarred by the broad brush of corruption allegations against Public Officials 1 & 2, she defends both her own honor and that of the overwhelming majority of her fellow county employees, elected and hired. No shrinking violet, she castigated those who would condemn county employees as mostly a bunch of incompetent and or crooked bumblers, and repeatedly trumpeted her belief that the reforms that Issue 6 will usher in will lead to unimaginable problems for Cuyahoga County residents and government.

Harriet Applegate made the most memorable declaration we heard during the campaign. Alluding to organized labor’s often sordid history in blackballing black workers, she vowed that labor would never desert the black community so long as she was AFL-CIO secretary. Made us wonder if her labor troops would have her back if push came to shove.

Ronald V. Johnson Jr. of South Euclid was the most impressive candidate we interviewed during the campaign. A lawyer with KeyBank, Johnson was the lone Republican on the Issue 5 slate. He thoroughly studied the Issue 6 proposal, along with existing state law, concluded that its shortcomings outweighed its merits, and actively spoke out against it.
It was a mark of the shortsightedness of local Democratic Party leadership that Johnson was the only member of the Issue 5 slate not to receive party endorsement. Bright, articulate, and conscientious, Johnson is the kind of candidate both parties should be recruiting for the new county council.

Nina Turner was the most courageous figure on the campaign tour. The state senator was virtually alone among black political leaders in endorsing Issue 6. Her refusal to kowtow to the old guard and to stand on political convictions earned her this observer’s respect even though we disagreed with her. Reports are that she will face a tough fight in that labor and black leaders have vowed to defeat her should she choose to try and retain her seat. But she should not be underestimated.

Cuyahoga County: What Change Do We Want?

In less than 24 hours Cuyahoga County voters will head to the polls to cast the most consequential ballots this community has seen since Carl Stokes was elected Cleveland mayor in 1967. Voters’ decisions on county Issues 5 and 6, along with results of Statewide Issue 3, are likely to bring profound change to the area’s political landscape. Some of that change has already begun to occur.

Cuyahoga’s landscape has been bleak for a long time. While a lot of manure has been spread over bald spots in the name of economic development, the establishment preference for quick and dirty fixes instead of labor-intensive work to rebuild the community’s barren polity almost guarantees that we will get the stench of economic b.s. [“34,000 jobs”] in the guise of fake economic development and imitation political reform.

The previous sentence may presage my vote, but my opinions are based on having talked to numerous municipal and county elected officials across the County, including those whose jobs will be directly eliminated if Issue 6 passes, and many who will remain in place however 5 and 6 turn out. I also have attended more debates than the select few the Plain Dealer chose to report, and they absent at some important ones. These would include newsworthy programs sponsored by the Black Women’s Political Action Committee at Cleveland State University and last week’s informative presentation at Case Western Reserve University, organized by State Senator Shirley Smith.

The Case presentation was especially notable because its Allen Auditorium stage not only included key Issue 6 proponents Parma Heights mayor, Martin Zanotti and State Senator Nina Turner on one side, and the fiercely-against 6 County Recorder Lillian Greene, but literally in between her and them were Issue 5 supporters, County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones and North Olmsted councilwoman Ann Marie Donegan, as well as two out-of-state experts on local and county government imported to lend perspective on what is happening here and what ought to happen here. Presiding over the program was Case Professor David Miller, also a South Euclid councilman, and surely the only public official in these parts who packs both a PhD and an impressive set of dreadlocks.

Finally, I also have talked with close to a dozen of the impressive citizens who will be appearing in alphabetical order on the ballot as candidates for the charter review commission that will be established if Issue 5 passes. If the Plain Dealer talked to any of these people and reported on them as other than Issue 5 pawns or mostly-Republican Issue 6 supporters, that day’s paper wasn’t delivered to my home.

In support of the claim that the political landscape will change irrespective of tomorrow’s voting results, consider this: two local dinosaurs are dying. With respect to Issues 3, 5 and 6, the Plain Dealer has shown itself to be the FoxNews of Cuyahoga County, only with less imagination, energy, and imagination. The dumbed-down discussion promoted by a one-newspaper town was stultifying in its simplicity. In failing even to provide comprehensive analysis of the issues — not to be confused with relentless repetition of the flattest aspects of the debate — the paper has pretty much unmasked itself as being on sale to the highest bidder.

But a word of praise: retired PD writer Thomas Suddes wrote a piece that appeared in the October 18 Sunday edition of the paper that was remarkable for the plain and simple way it ripped the covers off the casino issue, exposing its sordid money plays, its assault upon the State Constitution, and its likely consequences for the already overburdened citizens of this county. If you voted early for Issue 3, you probably called the Board of Elections the next day and tried to get your ballot back.

A second major dinosaur about to fall is the black political leadership infrastructure. Little observed among the huge forest of demographic trends that both contribute to and document the community’s declining resources has been the emergence of positive black political leadership in many of Cleveland’s suburbs. If Issue 6 passes, this leadership will become more important in countywide discussions, Even if Issue 6 fails, the political domination of Stokes-Forbes-Pinkney will soon be retired, both by time and an inability to adapt its carnivorous ways. The issue here will be whether the new leadership will attempt to replicate the personal style of power accumulation that has retarded both the black community and the region, or whether they will lead the way in emulation of the more transparent, inclusive, and bottom-up style of the current White House occupant.

• • •
As to the Issues, I have almost given up hope, but here goes my Suddes-like evaluation:

Issue 3 is a sucker’s bet. The State’s voters will allow this community to play the lottery, which is to say, we will provide eternal riches to Dan Gilbert via constitutional amendment on the very long shot that casino gambling will revive us to the same extent that winning LeBron James in the NBA lottery revived the Cavaliers. Lightning strikes the whole community! Economic miracle! VOTE NO ON ISSUE 3.

Issue 6 is also a sucker’s bet. Whereas the casino issue is all about money, which buys power, the charter reform plan is all about political power, which when abused is a great way to acquire money. I have many, many good friends who believe in good government, who know that our current system is inefficient, obsolete and corrupt at key spinal joints, and who therefore support this county reform plan as a last gasp life-saving operation. But Issue 6 is like giving the County a blood transfusion with infected blood. It doesn’t address the corruption issues, it won’t improve the quality of our public officials, it puts too much power unchecked into the wrong hands, and it enhances the power of one current public official who either knew about county political corruption and did nothing or should be out of office for not having known. It will also perpetuate and extend the current inequities in our community in the name of economic development.

And the most important reason to vote against Issue 6 is that it is the product of a deeply flawed process. It is top-down reform being sold as our only way out. Those who are not cynically trying to regain the control they lost when they moved to pristine exurbs are totally frustrated by the County’s last-century orientation and believe that this is our last chance to turn the ship around. They have no faith that we can do better so they will gamble that the hungry sharks behind Issue 6 don’t bite.

We do need change. But Issue 6 is not the change we need. Process matters. VOTE NO ON ISSUE 6.

I am excited about Issue 5. I am excited because I believe some of Cuyahoga’s best citizens are members of both slates. I have talked at length with people like Tom Kelly, Ronald V. Johnson, Angela Thi Bennett, and James Brady about how they were selected, why they are running, and what they hope to accomplish. I don’t believe they are puppets for political leaders of any faction.

If Issue 5 passes, the citizens of Cuyahoga County will be empowered. We have been awakened by this political campaign in spite of its atrocious media coverage. We will not relapse into apathy. We will rise and re-take control of our community and craft a charter through a process that is open, inclusive, and transparent. The result will be a much stronger charter and a much better county government. The year spent in this process will not be wasted but will equip us to move forward together. VOTE YES ON ISSUE 5 and vote for at least 5 candidates from your less preferred slate.

P.S. This is an overwhelmingly Democratic county. The best reform we could make would be to reform the Cuyahoga Democratic Party. But that’s for a future post, for which you won’t have to wait as long.

BE SURE TO VOTE. IT MATTERS.