Election Day 2010

I am a traditionalist when it comes to voting. I like walking to my neighborhood precinct — usually the library or the elementary school — and physically casting my ballot in our increasingly virtual world.



[Actually, I’m a deep procrastinator, so I wait until the last day, telling myself you never know what may happen during the campaign to change my assessment. [Only yesterday I read that a Seattle newspaper withdrew its endorsement of a judge who made public statements betraying his deep bias and limited understanding.



I also confess that, from the vantage of one who writes about politics and public affairs, I am less and less impressed with newspaper endorsements. They seem so after the fact. The paper’s decision makers favor this candidate, and then they set out to find reasons to convince voters who are undecided, wavering, harried, uninformed, preoccupied or lazy, why they should vote the paper’s way. Editorialists argue in a Mt. Olympus tenor that suggests they know best. Even if you know nothing about the candidates, it often comes across as so much b.s.



Much of the time it seems candidates are asked the wrong questions. Candidates talk about policies and what they intend to do. Their commercials bash their opponents. Too many exaggerate their virtues and demonize their opponents. When 80% of the electorate tunes out, the politicians get louder and more strident. This season, as the television blasted four, five, even six consecutive political ads in a single commercial break, I resorted to an old tack. I turned off the sound and observed their faces and body language, and looked for character clues.



Why is this candidate really running? Do they appear to have a real dedication to public service? Is their opposition to existing policy based on genuine analysis or the financial interests of their backers? Can they be counted upon to stay true to conviction when the discussions are private and compromises [“deals?”] are on the table? Are they special interest captives, reflexively parroting a party line? Depending on the nature of the office they seek, what evidence suggests they have the requisite components of executive, legislative, or judicial skills and temperament to be honest and effective public servants?



Seldom do I find my local papers giving me real help in discovering answers to these questions. And history tells us these questions mean more than platforms and promises, because the issues that arise during the term of service are often unforeseen. Bush 41 was elected president with presumed foreign policy expertise and was undone by domestic issues. Bush 43 had an intense domestic agenda that took a deep back seat to post-911 global issues. Lyndon Johnson had immense legislative skills that proved useless in charting a course in Southeast Asia. Neither Ike nor JFK was prepared to deal with civil rights.



The same considerations apply locally. Every current candidate for county executive proclaims that his administration will be honest, open, and efficient. I bet they all love their grandmothers too. Who among them, however, has the political and life experience to revamp effectively a huge public bureaucracy with requisite degrees of wisdom, tenacity, and fairness? Who is least likely to make critical errors that will erode the public support and confidence necessary for effective leadership? The “best” policies mean nothing without the ability to implement them. So who can work best with a new county council whose dynamics are totally unknown?



These are the kinds of questions I have been asking since the new county charter was approved. [I have been asking similar questions about state and federal races as well.] To answer them I have, like many of you, watched and listened to the candidates, read campaign literature, visited websites, reviewed platforms, talked with supporters and opponents.



So, for those of you are either undecided, wavering, harried, uninformed, preoccupied, lazy, or just curious, here is who I plan to vote for county exec when I go to Noble Elementary School Tuesday, November 2.



I think independent Don Scipione and Green Party nominee David Ellington are the "smartest" candidates. They are reasonable men who if elected, would serve in a true spirit of public service. If either were elected they would find themselves as unprepared as was Dennis Kucinich the day he was sworn in as mayor of Cleveland. This would only be slightly less true of independent Ken Lanci. His frustration would come as soon as he discovered that you can’t fire everybody who doesn’t want to do things your way, and that there are vast differences between running a company you own and having to pretty much negotiate everything you do with independently-based council members, civil servants, interest groups, media, and several score municipalities.



I respected Tim McCormack as county auditor and county commissioner and thought he got a political raw deal when business interests conspired to oust him in favor of pseudo-liberal Tim Hagan several years ago. He was an uncompromising commissioner in healthy ways. But his strong self-righteousness and thin-skinned persona would likely endanger the kind of coalition-building necessary to get our new charter experiment off to a successful start. I also have a sense that he is now a stealth candidate for some of the same business interests that consistently roam local corridors of power.



Republican Matt Dolan impressed me when he appeared this past April at an early nonpartisan forum sponsored by the Eleventh District Congressional Caucus. He was direct and surprisingly at ease in a gathering that was mostly black and Democratic. I am disappointed that he did not continue along the same path of positive engagement countywide. Instead, he seemed to retreat to his comfort zone in the mostly white, mostly wealthy corners of the county, from where he lobbed grenades attacking his Democratic opponent as a foe of charter reform and scurrilous attacks linking him to the county corruption.



I had never heard of Lakewood mayor Ed FitzGerald, the Democratic Party nominee, until after last year’s charter vote, even though he was mayor of one of the county’s largest and best run cities. I was initially cautious about him, especially because of presumed ties to the Bill Mason faction of his party. In twelve months of watching and investigating, I have found nothing to be concerned with on that score, even absent the mounting evidence that county prosecutor Mason’s political career is moving to a dead end with all deliberate speed.



FitgGerald’s charter opposition, rooted in a belief that a different process would have led to an improved charter, is not a reason to disqualify him from serving as County Executive, any more than it would be a reason to disqualify the more than half a million registered County voters who did not vote for the charter from voting for the new positions the charter created.



But I have found several positive reasons to vote for Ed FitzGerald. First, he has real leadership skills. He is a grounded individual, based upon his family, church, and community values. He has regularly articulated the clearest, most comprehensive, and positive vision of what Cuyahoga County can become, and he has done it consistently all across the county, with voters of every ethnic and class background. And no matter where he has been, or who he has been in front of, he has been himself, seeking to connect with people where there are, suggesting that a common journey to a better place is possible. He has done so earnestly, his message appropriately leavened by a deft sense of humor that the new county executive will surely need.


I think Ed FitzGerald is clearly the best choice to be our first County Executive.

If you haven’t voted, I hope you find the discussion useful. If you weren’t planning to vote, perhaps you will be persuaded to go to the polls and exercise your right and duty. And if you don’t vote, then in the words of a longtime friend, a true Republican, a retired judge who is still a feisty and active civic leader, “Nobody gives a damn what you think if you don’t vote.”

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.
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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.