Last night’s meeting in Shaker Heights of assorted eastside Democratic clubs and affinity-based caucuses was designed to ratify the selection by county party brass of Stuart Garson as the next chairman and to offer him a platform to articulate his vision of the future of the party. Mission Accomplished. Mostly.
Stuart Garson will be elected chairman of the party when the newly elected precinct leaders convene as the party’s 800-plus central committee on June 16 at John Carroll University. The party’s new crew chief brings an old-fashioned roll up your sleeves and outwork the other fella attitude to the task of electing Democrats and defeating Republicans. He projects a rough-and-tumble attitude that may be borne of his workers’ comp practice.
Garson will bring a strong array of assets to the party, the most obvious being his strong rapport with soon-to-be senior Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Marcia Fudge. Gov. Strickland is very much on board with Garson’s designation, as his spokesperson Anne Hill said at last night’s meeting. Garson’s manner exuded self-confidence without suggesting arrogance, and a glimpse of his sense of humor occasionally broke free of his straight-ahead approach.
Last night Garson offered his view of the party. He said there would be a zero-tolerance policy for self-dealing by party leaders. He wants to find, recruit, elect and support the best Democratic candidates for public office.
Garson deplored the stagnant vista from his 16th floor Rockefeller Building office, which he said for 21 years has offered up only surface parking lots on the Public Square. He sees this as representative of a collective community failure to create opportunities for young people in this region. Acknowledging that he has reached the stage of life where he is planting trees under whose shade he will never sit, he acknowledged a personal resonance to the city’s decline: all three of his daughters have moved so far away that he can see them only by flying cross-country. He decried the cost of this brain drain, observing the investment Clevelanders make in raising and educating our young who then spend their productive energies building other communities.
The analysis, both heartfelt and keen, did not mask the new leader’s potential problems with the “vision thing”. He seems not to appreciate the “soft skills” of communication and cultural sensitivity that make for successful people management in today’s complex society. He seems more a Woody Hayes disciple of the “three yards and a cloud of dust” football approach than to the fluid, evolving triangle offense of basketball’s Phil Jackson. Thus, he wants to defer party reform until some future day, without giving much thought to how the top-down, behind closed methodology contributed to the atmosphere in which malfeasance thrived. During the Q & A that followed his prepared remarks, he suggested without a shred of hubris that the party’s image had changed, because he was now heir apparent.
Voters, along with many rank-and-file, will more likely demand a transplant in operations instead of a makeover before agreeing to renew a courtship that ended in betrayal.
• • •
Mark Griffin made a concise and eloquent plea for the party to take responsibility for its past mistakes and to take ownership of its future by committing to achieving excellence in all endeavors. He played a difficult hand throughout the process with grace and intelligence and loyalty. What place if any Garson finds for the younger and energetic Griffin will send a clear signal about the substance and style of the Garson administration.
• • •
Michael Jackson, president of the Shaker Heights Dems, did a fine job of running the meeting on a timed agenda. He also deserves kudos for his quiet suggestion to Garson at meeting’s close that the party rank and file want reform and that if Garson seeks to extract a commitment from them to work hard through November, he should offer a reciprocal formal commitment to serious reform.
• • •
One of the brightest lights on the local Democratic landscape this past year has been Michael Ruff’s work with local political parties all across the county. Ruff was director of regional field operations for the Cuyahoga region for the state party. Party executive director Doug Kelly seems to have grossly under-appreciated Ruff’s effectiveness in healing much intra-party discord and tamping down simmering turf battles by reminding folks to keep their eyes on the greater good.
Terri Hamilton Brown wasted no time in outracing the competition for Ruff’s services. He debuted as her campaign manager this past Monday. His countywide contacts are sure to be an important boost to Brown’s field operations.
The kickoff itself was a successful affair, as more than 125 people walked through the door at Massima de Milano’s on West 25 Street, many with checks in hand. Brown, who has never run for political office, has assembled a top-drawer political team that has Burges & Burges for political strategy and the veteran Tom Andrzejewski as media adviser and spokesman.
• • •
A tidbit for the loyal reader who has continued to the end:
Shaker mayor Earl Leiken introduced Garson last night and said that Garson had never run for office. Not exactly. Garson was on the countywide ballot only last November. He came in 28th of 29 candidates for one of 15 seats on the charter review commission. Issue 5 did not win passage and thus the commission was not established.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Psst: Wanna Be Party Chair?
Local Democrats have operated for the last 40+ years with a focus on
1970s issues, a 1950s outlook, and a 1930s ideology. The party leadership
has been provincial, ham-handed, and shortsighted. Conceited but
lacking in self-respect or ambition, they have been content to win
electoral victories based on overwhelming numerical advantage.
Essentially they claimed success that was due largely to demographics.
Since their professional horizons stopped at the county line, it
didn’t occur to them to grow or consolidate their enormous potential political power statewide. Had not their leaders run into legal trouble and public disgrace, there is no telling how long the party’s sorry state would have continued.
A changing of the guard is now underway in the Cuyahoga Democratic
Party, driven by that external force known as a U.S. prosecutor. The
federal investigation appears focused on the public misfeasance of
elected officials, but the public is right to make no distinction
between a party chief and a public official. Both are positions of
public trust. In fact, the public officials known as precinct
committee persons elect the party chiefs in Ohio. Leading Democrats
have finally come to grips with the fact that the head of the party
should not simultaneously be an elected official.
So who will be the new party chair? It’s a pretty thankless job,
apparently, because no one is seeking it openly. The job pays zero if
you are honest. No salaries, no perks. Just thousands of demands from
people who want jobs, favors, endorsements, assistance, advice,
direction, encouragement. You have to raise your budget while enduring slurs, assaults, and subversion, usually but not always coming from the other side. You are kind of like the Daddy of a humongous family with
legions of always hungry and perpetually ill behaved children. Your job is to organize this crew around noble political objectives and win victories that make your community a better place to live. Good luck with that!
So who are the candidates? Well in this corner is a brilliant labor
lawyer who fights by any ethical means necessary to achieve justice
for his injured clients. He’s wealthy and he’s earned it. His friends
see him as compassionate. He raises money for political causes and he
donates money to a variety of candidates, some even outside his party
who hold views contrary to his own. He doesn’t suffer foolishness, which means he has little patience for retail politics. He’s sixty but looks older. You wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t kiss his own grandchildren. Don’t expect him to be patient with questions from the party faithful, who may work 12 hours at the polls in November rain. Nuance is not his thing.
In the other corner is another brilliant trial lawyer. He’s expert in election law, has a passion for public policy, is open and refreshing,and is so transparently candid in a 21st century kind of way that in the smoky atmosphere of county politics people can’t figure out that he too says what he means. He’s 46, looks younger and probably rolls in the grass with his kids. He comes from a family of respected and honored public servants; his father and grandfather served roughly half a century between them as county trial judges. He was honored with fellow team members as Ohio Democrat of 2009.
The choice only seems clear. The candidate first described — Stuart Garson — doesn’t want the job but is willing to serve because party leaders have importuned him. He knows strong leadership is needed to avoid disaster in this fall’s elections. He wants to put any talk of openness and transparency and reform and communication and party reorganization aside until after the next election cycle or two. His will be a top-down, command and control administration. That’s the way it’s always been in the Party, so why change? Get busy and grind out victories at the polls.
The second candidate — Mark Griffin — wants the job but won't exactly say so, because he is willing to stand aside because if senior party leaders actually have command of their troops, it would be detrimental to the party to have a division over party leadership. His manner and style would clearly be effective in helping the party distance itself from its scandal-ridden image. And he is clearly more appealing to the scores of newly-elected and energetic precinct committee people, but they have yet to be
consulted, courted, or even welcomed into the leadership in any coherent, healthy or affirming manner. And, without a champion to lead them, they may not be organized in time to have any impact before the party chair vote looming on June 16.
Tonight, both the reluctant candidate and the reticent non-candidate
are expected to be at what promises to be a lively evening at the
Stephanie Tubbs Jones Community Building, 3450 Lee Road in Shaker Heights. The fun will start at 7pm. Come early for a ringside seat. Expect jabs, some crosses, perhaps a few uppercuts, and certainly a few haymakers. But be prepared to duck, because most punches are likely to be thrown from the audience.
1970s issues, a 1950s outlook, and a 1930s ideology. The party leadership
has been provincial, ham-handed, and shortsighted. Conceited but
lacking in self-respect or ambition, they have been content to win
electoral victories based on overwhelming numerical advantage.
Essentially they claimed success that was due largely to demographics.
Since their professional horizons stopped at the county line, it
didn’t occur to them to grow or consolidate their enormous potential political power statewide. Had not their leaders run into legal trouble and public disgrace, there is no telling how long the party’s sorry state would have continued.
A changing of the guard is now underway in the Cuyahoga Democratic
Party, driven by that external force known as a U.S. prosecutor. The
federal investigation appears focused on the public misfeasance of
elected officials, but the public is right to make no distinction
between a party chief and a public official. Both are positions of
public trust. In fact, the public officials known as precinct
committee persons elect the party chiefs in Ohio. Leading Democrats
have finally come to grips with the fact that the head of the party
should not simultaneously be an elected official.
So who will be the new party chair? It’s a pretty thankless job,
apparently, because no one is seeking it openly. The job pays zero if
you are honest. No salaries, no perks. Just thousands of demands from
people who want jobs, favors, endorsements, assistance, advice,
direction, encouragement. You have to raise your budget while enduring slurs, assaults, and subversion, usually but not always coming from the other side. You are kind of like the Daddy of a humongous family with
legions of always hungry and perpetually ill behaved children. Your job is to organize this crew around noble political objectives and win victories that make your community a better place to live. Good luck with that!
So who are the candidates? Well in this corner is a brilliant labor
lawyer who fights by any ethical means necessary to achieve justice
for his injured clients. He’s wealthy and he’s earned it. His friends
see him as compassionate. He raises money for political causes and he
donates money to a variety of candidates, some even outside his party
who hold views contrary to his own. He doesn’t suffer foolishness, which means he has little patience for retail politics. He’s sixty but looks older. You wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t kiss his own grandchildren. Don’t expect him to be patient with questions from the party faithful, who may work 12 hours at the polls in November rain. Nuance is not his thing.
In the other corner is another brilliant trial lawyer. He’s expert in election law, has a passion for public policy, is open and refreshing,and is so transparently candid in a 21st century kind of way that in the smoky atmosphere of county politics people can’t figure out that he too says what he means. He’s 46, looks younger and probably rolls in the grass with his kids. He comes from a family of respected and honored public servants; his father and grandfather served roughly half a century between them as county trial judges. He was honored with fellow team members as Ohio Democrat of 2009.
The choice only seems clear. The candidate first described — Stuart Garson — doesn’t want the job but is willing to serve because party leaders have importuned him. He knows strong leadership is needed to avoid disaster in this fall’s elections. He wants to put any talk of openness and transparency and reform and communication and party reorganization aside until after the next election cycle or two. His will be a top-down, command and control administration. That’s the way it’s always been in the Party, so why change? Get busy and grind out victories at the polls.
The second candidate — Mark Griffin — wants the job but won't exactly say so, because he is willing to stand aside because if senior party leaders actually have command of their troops, it would be detrimental to the party to have a division over party leadership. His manner and style would clearly be effective in helping the party distance itself from its scandal-ridden image. And he is clearly more appealing to the scores of newly-elected and energetic precinct committee people, but they have yet to be
consulted, courted, or even welcomed into the leadership in any coherent, healthy or affirming manner. And, without a champion to lead them, they may not be organized in time to have any impact before the party chair vote looming on June 16.
Tonight, both the reluctant candidate and the reticent non-candidate
are expected to be at what promises to be a lively evening at the
Stephanie Tubbs Jones Community Building, 3450 Lee Road in Shaker Heights. The fun will start at 7pm. Come early for a ringside seat. Expect jabs, some crosses, perhaps a few uppercuts, and certainly a few haymakers. But be prepared to duck, because most punches are likely to be thrown from the audience.
Friday, May 28, 2010
PART II: New Day [not the Bedford Court clerk] on Horizon for Dems as Election of New Party Chair Nears
I promised a follow up to yesterday’s report on the efforts by Cuyahoga Democrats for Principled Leadership to encourage/support/nudge/shove/drag the county Democratic Party towards a 21st century, Obama-era stance of openness, modernity, and inclusiveness.
Specifically, I indicated I would be reporting on the westside CDPL forum held last night. I am going to do so succinctly, because an analysis of where the Party sits suggests a situation so explosive that more time is demanded. I will endeavor to do that over the weekend. So if you come back Monday I promise something for you to think about around the Memorial Day grill or the muni fireworks, assuming money woes haven’t caused your community to cancel them.
So, without my notes, and thus apologies to any community omitted, here goes: About 65 Democrats showed up at Rocky River Civic Center. No city had a large contingent, but almost every westside municipality was represented, including Rocky River, Parma, Bay Village, Westlake, Old Brooklyn, Cleveland Ward 16, Strongsville, North Olmsted, and Broadview Heights. East Cleveland and Shaker Heights were also in the house. Most attendees raised their hands when asked how many were newly elected precinct committee people.
All likely candidates for Party Chair were invited to attend and offer remarks. Only Mark Griffin accepted. A letter from John Ryan, a senior aide to Senator Sherrod Brown, D-OH to co-convener Jan Roller was read, indicating that Ryan could not attend, and was deferring any interest in becoming party chair and endorsing Stuart Garson for the position.
Griffin declined to say specifically, “I want to be Party Chair.” Instead he repeated his remarks from the previous evening, saying that he was “a candidate for change,” that Stuart Garson was a fine fellow who had the votes, that the Party needed major changes, and that he wanted to play a significant role in bringing about that change.
Griffin did say that he was interested in being a vice chair or some other major position of leadership. He emphasized that he did not want to be divisive candidate in any way that would hinder the Party in the critically important fall county and statewide elections.
Translation: Griffin wants the job but sees that the Party hierarchy prefers Garson. So he is willing to support and work with Garson for the good of the Party.
This wasn’t good enough for those in attendance. Some were clearly ready to throw their support behind Griffin’s reserved candidacy, but most wanted the standard “I’m running and I’m here to ask for your support.”
But disenchantment for Griffin’s nuanced non-declarative statement of readiness was mild compared to the anger directed towards party brass and presumed designee Garson. Few in the meeting had ever heard of him, almost everyone who spoke expressed concern about the high-handed manner of his anointment as preferred candidate, and the feeling was virtually unanimous that the Party has performed abysmally in failing to communicate with the newly elected committeepersons about process, scheduling, responsibilities, or anything else.
When Chuck Germana of Parma rose to put in a kind word for Garson, he began by acknowledging that he too, was “disappointed that he is not here”. But when he tried to suggest that Garson would be a concerned and effective party chair, Germana was practically hooted into silence, one woman angrily proclaiming that “if Garson gave a damn about what we thought, his butt would be here tonight!”
Long story short, the precinct committee members present wanted answers that no one present could provide, and by the end of the evening people were talking about strategies that could be employed to make their displeasure known, and perhaps to change what some may have only recently thought would be a pre-ordained conclusion.
Come back Monday! Have a great weekend!!
Specifically, I indicated I would be reporting on the westside CDPL forum held last night. I am going to do so succinctly, because an analysis of where the Party sits suggests a situation so explosive that more time is demanded. I will endeavor to do that over the weekend. So if you come back Monday I promise something for you to think about around the Memorial Day grill or the muni fireworks, assuming money woes haven’t caused your community to cancel them.
So, without my notes, and thus apologies to any community omitted, here goes: About 65 Democrats showed up at Rocky River Civic Center. No city had a large contingent, but almost every westside municipality was represented, including Rocky River, Parma, Bay Village, Westlake, Old Brooklyn, Cleveland Ward 16, Strongsville, North Olmsted, and Broadview Heights. East Cleveland and Shaker Heights were also in the house. Most attendees raised their hands when asked how many were newly elected precinct committee people.
All likely candidates for Party Chair were invited to attend and offer remarks. Only Mark Griffin accepted. A letter from John Ryan, a senior aide to Senator Sherrod Brown, D-OH to co-convener Jan Roller was read, indicating that Ryan could not attend, and was deferring any interest in becoming party chair and endorsing Stuart Garson for the position.
Griffin declined to say specifically, “I want to be Party Chair.” Instead he repeated his remarks from the previous evening, saying that he was “a candidate for change,” that Stuart Garson was a fine fellow who had the votes, that the Party needed major changes, and that he wanted to play a significant role in bringing about that change.
Griffin did say that he was interested in being a vice chair or some other major position of leadership. He emphasized that he did not want to be divisive candidate in any way that would hinder the Party in the critically important fall county and statewide elections.
Translation: Griffin wants the job but sees that the Party hierarchy prefers Garson. So he is willing to support and work with Garson for the good of the Party.
This wasn’t good enough for those in attendance. Some were clearly ready to throw their support behind Griffin’s reserved candidacy, but most wanted the standard “I’m running and I’m here to ask for your support.”
But disenchantment for Griffin’s nuanced non-declarative statement of readiness was mild compared to the anger directed towards party brass and presumed designee Garson. Few in the meeting had ever heard of him, almost everyone who spoke expressed concern about the high-handed manner of his anointment as preferred candidate, and the feeling was virtually unanimous that the Party has performed abysmally in failing to communicate with the newly elected committeepersons about process, scheduling, responsibilities, or anything else.
When Chuck Germana of Parma rose to put in a kind word for Garson, he began by acknowledging that he too, was “disappointed that he is not here”. But when he tried to suggest that Garson would be a concerned and effective party chair, Germana was practically hooted into silence, one woman angrily proclaiming that “if Garson gave a damn about what we thought, his butt would be here tonight!”
Long story short, the precinct committee members present wanted answers that no one present could provide, and by the end of the evening people were talking about strategies that could be employed to make their displeasure known, and perhaps to change what some may have only recently thought would be a pre-ordained conclusion.
Come back Monday! Have a great weekend!!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
New Day [not the Bedford Court clerk] on Horizon for Dems as Election of New Party Chair Nears
The sun doesn’t rise in the east but it dawned there last night. In Cleveland Heights. That’s where a surprisingly large and energetic rainbow of party regulars gathered publicly for the first time to envision a new era for the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. A spirited crowd of more than 125 came together on the initiative of a small band of concerned party members who refer to themselves as CDPL, short for Cuyahoga Democrats for Principled Leadership. They have been quietly meeting around the county for several months — mostly in midtown, Lakewood, or Euclid — talking, analyzing, organizing, and acting for several months with the goal of achieving what came into view last night: the potential for not just a new party chairman, but a rejuvenated, holistic, more effective political organization.
The purpose of this week’s public meetings — a second will be held tonight in Rocky River’s Civic Center — is to foster party revitalization in light of the upcoming meeting to elect the new party chair on June 5th. Ohio law provides that every four years each of the major parties elect members of a central committee by precinct. There are 1068 precincts in the county, which means there were 1068 separate races for committee positions, albeit not all were contested. (A county board of elections spokesman said that to keep the ballot at manageable length, Republicans elect their central committee on a different four-year cycle; their most recent precinct level election was last year.)
Precinct committee people, as they are also known, may be thought of as second lieutenants, an army’s lowest ranking commissioned officers. They are supposed to know their local political terrain, to recruit new party members, to serve as two-way channels between the party brass and the privates, the latter a hopefully informed citizenry of regular party voters. A dynamic and effective precinct leader will organize his or her constituency via neighborhood, street, and block clubs, etc. to pass the word, get out the vote, know the pulse of the man on the street, and just be in the know about all things political in their territory.
It’s a 19th century form of urban political organization by proximity. At its essence it is rooted in personal contact and interaction. In an era of too much to do in too little time, at a time when so many have so much anxiety over having too little money to meet so many responsibilities, this grass-roots system had become too attenuated in the Democratic Party to be any relevance. The party itself had calcified at the top by too large a sense of entitlement, too much parochialism, and with no mechanism and even less desire for self-examination.
That is why, by the way, the Obama campaign essentially bypassed the clogged arteries of the Democratic Party, set up a parallel organization along the same lines outlined two paragraphs above, and delivered victory margins that the bloated party apparatus has not delivered in a generation of election cycles.
Pssst! The President of the United States was once a community organizer.
Some of those folks who came to Cleveland to work the 2008 political campaign, as well as some 2004 Kerry people, found enough to like about our little city with the big lake to put down roots. A few of them were instrumental in finding enough local Democrats with sufficient pulse, conscience, and sense of personal agency to begin planning for a renewed party based on principle and not personal power.
That first meeting was a tentative after-work gathering of nineteen at CafĂ© Ah-Roma across from Cleveland State. It was full of bewilderment, idealism, and excessive legalism. Lawyers are lousy at revolution planning. By the time of the next gathering, at 7:30 a.m. on a sunny day in December, a more veteran and politically astute cast of fifty or sixty had been assembled. That meeting birthed the group’s name — CDPL— and began to stitch the core of those who with some sense of constancy would keep the group more or less focused on the task at hand: getting the public Party to clean up after the private party of Public Officials Numbered You Know Who and Him Too.
Fast forward to last night. The Cleveland Heights forum was not a civics class. The invited were the newly elected precinct people, and many showed. They came from Euclid, Pepper Pike, Hough, Collinwood, Shaker, and even from as far as Bay Village. They introduced themselves and then listened to co-convener Jan Roller outline the Party constitution [soon to be online here], and talk about key party process and central committee member duties. Then came highlights and firecrackers.
All six potential candidates who whose names were bruited about as in the mix for party chair were invited by letter to the forum, either to state a case for their candidacy, to say why they had chosen not to compete, and also to share their vision for what the Party should be. Additionally, each was called and if not reached, called again.
Of the six, it appeared only Mark Griffin would show. The trial lawyer came prepared. He didn’t say he was running but he certainly presented himself as the eligible bachelor, capable and ready. He was idealistic, he was earnest, and he was practical. He would be a new face and a strong and clear voice for the Party. He would love to be selected because he relishes both the challenge and the opportunity, though he didn’t say so. Not in words.
Questions and complaints began before Griffin could finish. These are Democrats, and orderly meetings are often but rumor. Most of the complaints had to do with alleged Party rules, excessive favoritism of incumbents, the rejection of new blood and new ideas, and most especially, the failure of rumored frontrunner Stuart Garson to show up.
We skimp on the details here so as not to deprive tonight’s meeting of its anticipated freshness. Suffice to say, the surprise of the evening was the arrival of said Stuart Garson at 8:25 p.m., five minutes before the scheduled closing. He was as blunt as a rifle butt.
Part II of this report will appear tomorrow, after tonight’s meeting in Rocky River. I don't want to spoil the fun for west side Dems who will show up tonight…
The purpose of this week’s public meetings — a second will be held tonight in Rocky River’s Civic Center — is to foster party revitalization in light of the upcoming meeting to elect the new party chair on June 5th. Ohio law provides that every four years each of the major parties elect members of a central committee by precinct. There are 1068 precincts in the county, which means there were 1068 separate races for committee positions, albeit not all were contested. (A county board of elections spokesman said that to keep the ballot at manageable length, Republicans elect their central committee on a different four-year cycle; their most recent precinct level election was last year.)
Precinct committee people, as they are also known, may be thought of as second lieutenants, an army’s lowest ranking commissioned officers. They are supposed to know their local political terrain, to recruit new party members, to serve as two-way channels between the party brass and the privates, the latter a hopefully informed citizenry of regular party voters. A dynamic and effective precinct leader will organize his or her constituency via neighborhood, street, and block clubs, etc. to pass the word, get out the vote, know the pulse of the man on the street, and just be in the know about all things political in their territory.
It’s a 19th century form of urban political organization by proximity. At its essence it is rooted in personal contact and interaction. In an era of too much to do in too little time, at a time when so many have so much anxiety over having too little money to meet so many responsibilities, this grass-roots system had become too attenuated in the Democratic Party to be any relevance. The party itself had calcified at the top by too large a sense of entitlement, too much parochialism, and with no mechanism and even less desire for self-examination.
That is why, by the way, the Obama campaign essentially bypassed the clogged arteries of the Democratic Party, set up a parallel organization along the same lines outlined two paragraphs above, and delivered victory margins that the bloated party apparatus has not delivered in a generation of election cycles.
Pssst! The President of the United States was once a community organizer.
Some of those folks who came to Cleveland to work the 2008 political campaign, as well as some 2004 Kerry people, found enough to like about our little city with the big lake to put down roots. A few of them were instrumental in finding enough local Democrats with sufficient pulse, conscience, and sense of personal agency to begin planning for a renewed party based on principle and not personal power.
That first meeting was a tentative after-work gathering of nineteen at CafĂ© Ah-Roma across from Cleveland State. It was full of bewilderment, idealism, and excessive legalism. Lawyers are lousy at revolution planning. By the time of the next gathering, at 7:30 a.m. on a sunny day in December, a more veteran and politically astute cast of fifty or sixty had been assembled. That meeting birthed the group’s name — CDPL— and began to stitch the core of those who with some sense of constancy would keep the group more or less focused on the task at hand: getting the public Party to clean up after the private party of Public Officials Numbered You Know Who and Him Too.
Fast forward to last night. The Cleveland Heights forum was not a civics class. The invited were the newly elected precinct people, and many showed. They came from Euclid, Pepper Pike, Hough, Collinwood, Shaker, and even from as far as Bay Village. They introduced themselves and then listened to co-convener Jan Roller outline the Party constitution [soon to be online here], and talk about key party process and central committee member duties. Then came highlights and firecrackers.
All six potential candidates who whose names were bruited about as in the mix for party chair were invited by letter to the forum, either to state a case for their candidacy, to say why they had chosen not to compete, and also to share their vision for what the Party should be. Additionally, each was called and if not reached, called again.
Of the six, it appeared only Mark Griffin would show. The trial lawyer came prepared. He didn’t say he was running but he certainly presented himself as the eligible bachelor, capable and ready. He was idealistic, he was earnest, and he was practical. He would be a new face and a strong and clear voice for the Party. He would love to be selected because he relishes both the challenge and the opportunity, though he didn’t say so. Not in words.
Questions and complaints began before Griffin could finish. These are Democrats, and orderly meetings are often but rumor. Most of the complaints had to do with alleged Party rules, excessive favoritism of incumbents, the rejection of new blood and new ideas, and most especially, the failure of rumored frontrunner Stuart Garson to show up.
We skimp on the details here so as not to deprive tonight’s meeting of its anticipated freshness. Suffice to say, the surprise of the evening was the arrival of said Stuart Garson at 8:25 p.m., five minutes before the scheduled closing. He was as blunt as a rifle butt.
Part II of this report will appear tomorrow, after tonight’s meeting in Rocky River. I don't want to spoil the fun for west side Dems who will show up tonight…
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Cavaliers Win: LeBron Leaves or Stays; Cavaliers Lose: LeBron Stays or Leaves; Cleveland: We Have Problems
I take a back seat to no one in my detestation of all Boston sports teams. I went away to high school within shouting distance of Boston, and I learned to detest the smug arrogance of the Celtics as personified by their radio announcer, Johnny Most. As a young black person coming of age, I resented how Celtic success was undergirded by Bill Russell, Satch Sanders, and the Jones boys,Sam & K.C., -- all of whom were black -- but Bostonians’ love of their team was centered on Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman, Frank Ramsey, and Tommy Heinsohn – all white. I also couldn’t help but notice that the Red Sox were all white, the last Major League baseball team to integrate. They stunk, so that was o.k.
Cleveland’s major teams, on the other hand, were both uniformly good and thoroughly integrated during the time my attachments were formed. Marion Motley, Bill Willis and Dave Pope lived in my neighborhood. Our little league teams were named for Luke Easter, Larry Doby. Life would have been heavenly but for those damn Yankees. Elston Howard couldn’t even redeem them.
Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t all about color: in fact, it was mostly about excellence. I loved Bob Lemon, Al Rosen, Vic Wertz, Otto Graham, Dante Lavelli, Lou the Toe, the whole lot of them. But those Cleveland teams were inclusive, and that was an essential ingredient of their excellence.
Away from the field or diamond we are far from a post-racial society, and not likely to get there for a long time. In the arena, however, is where we are perhaps closest: we all pretty much like winners and admire talent. There is no Cavs fan of any stripe or hue who wouldn’t want Nowitzki the German Maverick, Gasol the Spanish Laker, or Parker, the French Spur. And we all appreciate our own Lithuanian Z, even as we in the moment denounce the Mississippian Williams and Brown the peripatetic coach [army brat].
But back to Boston and the matter at hand: the Cavs, surprisingly, face elimination tonight against the Celtics. More incredibly, even given our history of sports disappointments, Greater Cleveland is already resigned to both defeat and departure, the latter of course a reference to the impending free agent loss of the world’s best player, LeBron James.
Losing to the Celtics would be terrible for me personally. I have two stepsons who live in Boston. Neal -- the handsome, generous, bright, lovable one -- is a staunch Cavs fan; his favorite player is Delonte West. Neal’s brother? Well, I love him too, but he has a really annoying habit of calling me up and gloating whenever his Bosox, Patriots, or Celts vanquish our local heroes. And their mother, my wife — a casual observer of sport but an acute observer of life — will always pontificate after the fact on the cruel psychological burden Cleveland sports teams carry for the entire region’s inferiority complex.
In 1964 I shivered in youthful joy in the upper deck of Memorial Stadium with my father and brother on that gloriously frigid day when the Browns shut out the Baltimore Colts, the last time a Cleveland team was world-best in a major sport. There was no shortage of heroes that day: Gary Collins, Jim Brown, Frank Ryan, the offensive line, the entire defense.
Cleveland was a major American city in 1964. We aren’t anymore, though we remain lead dog in a major region. Since then, our educational production has declined along with our population, our industrial output and our political muscle. Yet in the midst of our reversible decline, our biggest civic fear seems to be LeBron’s inevitable, imminent departure.
I want the Cavs to win, for personal and civic reasons, including enormous bragging rights. But if they lose, tonight, or Sunday, or to Orlando, or to Phoenix [more relatives] or Los Angeles, and Lebron leaves, it won’t be nearly as catastrophic as if we can’t find a way to get the Cleveland school administration and the union to collaborate on how best to educate our children, or if the world’s best medical institutions can’t find ways to arrest our third-world infant mortality rates, or if we can’t find ways to overcome our regional parochialism, or weave all of our citizens into a plan to restore our economy.
Cleveland’s major teams, on the other hand, were both uniformly good and thoroughly integrated during the time my attachments were formed. Marion Motley, Bill Willis and Dave Pope lived in my neighborhood. Our little league teams were named for Luke Easter, Larry Doby. Life would have been heavenly but for those damn Yankees. Elston Howard couldn’t even redeem them.
Don’t misunderstand, it wasn’t all about color: in fact, it was mostly about excellence. I loved Bob Lemon, Al Rosen, Vic Wertz, Otto Graham, Dante Lavelli, Lou the Toe, the whole lot of them. But those Cleveland teams were inclusive, and that was an essential ingredient of their excellence.
Away from the field or diamond we are far from a post-racial society, and not likely to get there for a long time. In the arena, however, is where we are perhaps closest: we all pretty much like winners and admire talent. There is no Cavs fan of any stripe or hue who wouldn’t want Nowitzki the German Maverick, Gasol the Spanish Laker, or Parker, the French Spur. And we all appreciate our own Lithuanian Z, even as we in the moment denounce the Mississippian Williams and Brown the peripatetic coach [army brat].
But back to Boston and the matter at hand: the Cavs, surprisingly, face elimination tonight against the Celtics. More incredibly, even given our history of sports disappointments, Greater Cleveland is already resigned to both defeat and departure, the latter of course a reference to the impending free agent loss of the world’s best player, LeBron James.
Losing to the Celtics would be terrible for me personally. I have two stepsons who live in Boston. Neal -- the handsome, generous, bright, lovable one -- is a staunch Cavs fan; his favorite player is Delonte West. Neal’s brother? Well, I love him too, but he has a really annoying habit of calling me up and gloating whenever his Bosox, Patriots, or Celts vanquish our local heroes. And their mother, my wife — a casual observer of sport but an acute observer of life — will always pontificate after the fact on the cruel psychological burden Cleveland sports teams carry for the entire region’s inferiority complex.
In 1964 I shivered in youthful joy in the upper deck of Memorial Stadium with my father and brother on that gloriously frigid day when the Browns shut out the Baltimore Colts, the last time a Cleveland team was world-best in a major sport. There was no shortage of heroes that day: Gary Collins, Jim Brown, Frank Ryan, the offensive line, the entire defense.
Cleveland was a major American city in 1964. We aren’t anymore, though we remain lead dog in a major region. Since then, our educational production has declined along with our population, our industrial output and our political muscle. Yet in the midst of our reversible decline, our biggest civic fear seems to be LeBron’s inevitable, imminent departure.
I want the Cavs to win, for personal and civic reasons, including enormous bragging rights. But if they lose, tonight, or Sunday, or to Orlando, or to Phoenix [more relatives] or Los Angeles, and Lebron leaves, it won’t be nearly as catastrophic as if we can’t find a way to get the Cleveland school administration and the union to collaborate on how best to educate our children, or if the world’s best medical institutions can’t find ways to arrest our third-world infant mortality rates, or if we can’t find ways to overcome our regional parochialism, or weave all of our citizens into a plan to restore our economy.
One Lap Down, Three to Go in Race to November
Last week’s primary election marked the quarter-pole of the critical 2010 political season. The major political parties settled on their statewide tickets, while on the county level, several candidates for county executive popped through the starting gate and began running. Also, nearly a hundred people — an intriguing mix political novices, veterans, and perennial also-rans — have pulled and in some cases have filed petitions for the new eleven member county council to be elected this fall.
The second quarter — the next six weeks until the June 24 filing deadline to run in the September partisan primaries for county executive and county council — would be a fairly quiet time of candidate maneuvering and alliance building were it not for the end of the Jimmy Dimora reign as Democratic Party chair. The party’s central committee is scheduled to elect a new chair on June 5. Dimora, who has been under the cloud of a federal investigation for nearly two years, long ago made clear that he would not seek to retain the post he has held since 1993.
Intra-party politics in the past have usually resulted in a closed-door selection process of the party chair. A small but influential group of party faithful, calling themselves Cuyahoga Democrats for Principled Leadership* [CD4PL] is making plans for two forums on May 25 [Cleveland Heights] and May 27 [Rocky River] for candidates for party chair to state the case for their election.
The names most commonly bandied about include longtime party insiders Tom Day, clerk of the Bedford Heights Municipal Court, and Rudy Stralka, currently serving as party treasurer. But it appears that senior party officials, including Rep. Marcia Fudge, county prosecutor Bill Mason, and Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson have decided to support attorney Stuart Garson and commission him to restore integrity to party process, rebuild infrastructure, and unify Democrats for what will be a challenging election season. Assuming Garson becomes chair, he will face stern early tests: a county primary in September and the general election in November.
One key to watch: whether Garson steps forward to attend the CDPL forums later this month.
Grits ain't Gravy [Miscellaneous Political Notes]
Last week also offered a possible preview of what may be a new future for the county Democratic Party, which is sorely need of a new young leadership cadre. We refer to the kick-off party for Phil Robinson’s campaign for the District 11 county council seat. Robinson is a bright, young, articulate aspiring public servant who in his first try for public office just missed winning a seat on the University Heights City Council last year. These sorts of events are usually attended by one’s oldest and closest friends, so the ethnic, religious and geographic diversity — to name but a few measures — of his kickoff crowd was notable insofar as it suggests his appeal might carry across municipal boundaries stretching from Euclid to Beachwood.
Speaking just before the candidate was State Senator Nina Turner, who encouraged Robinson for the new county council. Turner was the leading black public official to support the change in county government. Also in attendance was Julian Rogers, like Robinson a progressive political activist and African American male seeking a county council seat and enjoying Turner’s support. Rogers is running for the District 10 seat that covers Cleveland wards 10 & 11, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, and Bratenahl.
Two candidates for the county council District 2 seat — State Senator Dale Miller and independent Stephanie Morales — also found their way east to be at the kickoff.
*Disclosure: I am an active member of this group, whose statement of principles may be found on their website: (www.cuyahogadems4pl.org/)
The second quarter — the next six weeks until the June 24 filing deadline to run in the September partisan primaries for county executive and county council — would be a fairly quiet time of candidate maneuvering and alliance building were it not for the end of the Jimmy Dimora reign as Democratic Party chair. The party’s central committee is scheduled to elect a new chair on June 5. Dimora, who has been under the cloud of a federal investigation for nearly two years, long ago made clear that he would not seek to retain the post he has held since 1993.
Intra-party politics in the past have usually resulted in a closed-door selection process of the party chair. A small but influential group of party faithful, calling themselves Cuyahoga Democrats for Principled Leadership* [CD4PL] is making plans for two forums on May 25 [Cleveland Heights] and May 27 [Rocky River] for candidates for party chair to state the case for their election.
The names most commonly bandied about include longtime party insiders Tom Day, clerk of the Bedford Heights Municipal Court, and Rudy Stralka, currently serving as party treasurer. But it appears that senior party officials, including Rep. Marcia Fudge, county prosecutor Bill Mason, and Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson have decided to support attorney Stuart Garson and commission him to restore integrity to party process, rebuild infrastructure, and unify Democrats for what will be a challenging election season. Assuming Garson becomes chair, he will face stern early tests: a county primary in September and the general election in November.
One key to watch: whether Garson steps forward to attend the CDPL forums later this month.
Grits ain't Gravy [Miscellaneous Political Notes]
Last week also offered a possible preview of what may be a new future for the county Democratic Party, which is sorely need of a new young leadership cadre. We refer to the kick-off party for Phil Robinson’s campaign for the District 11 county council seat. Robinson is a bright, young, articulate aspiring public servant who in his first try for public office just missed winning a seat on the University Heights City Council last year. These sorts of events are usually attended by one’s oldest and closest friends, so the ethnic, religious and geographic diversity — to name but a few measures — of his kickoff crowd was notable insofar as it suggests his appeal might carry across municipal boundaries stretching from Euclid to Beachwood.
Speaking just before the candidate was State Senator Nina Turner, who encouraged Robinson for the new county council. Turner was the leading black public official to support the change in county government. Also in attendance was Julian Rogers, like Robinson a progressive political activist and African American male seeking a county council seat and enjoying Turner’s support. Rogers is running for the District 10 seat that covers Cleveland wards 10 & 11, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, and Bratenahl.
Two candidates for the county council District 2 seat — State Senator Dale Miller and independent Stephanie Morales — also found their way east to be at the kickoff.
*Disclosure: I am an active member of this group, whose statement of principles may be found on their website: (www.cuyahogadems4pl.org/)
Monday, April 26, 2010
Speak Now Against the Day [apologies to William Faulkner]: an open letter to the Plain Dealer editor
Dear Ms Goldberg,
I want to thank you for collecting and posting all of the comments on your website allegedly entered by some person or persons logged into a Justice Center computer assigned to Judge Saffold's courtroom. I read every one of the comments and was absolutely riveted by the breadth of the subjects covered, the writer[s]’s audacity, tendentiousness, lack of charity and general ignorance. After reading them I was convinced that no jurist could have authored most of those entries because of their generally puerile nature and their grammar school spelling. But that aside, I am writing you for a different reason.
I am a faithful reader of your print product, one of a vanishing breed, I fear. I am an addicted Cleveland sports fan, and have been since the days of Otto Graham, Bill Willis and Marion Motley; Bob Lemon, Larry Doby and Luke Easter. For some time now I have felt assaulted by your sportswriters. They have offended me to the point where a few months ago I start cataloging their assaults just to have some proof should I ever explode and need to defend myself.
I have nonetheless been reluctant to write about it for several reasons. I know you and your publisher have so many more serious challenges to deal with. And our community, which your paper covers with increasing superficiality, also has many more serious issues than today’s lament.
But then I was reading an online book review in which the reviewer called his subject “the worst-edited book put out by a reputable publisher that I have ever read.” The reason for this, he concluded, was that the book had a defined but limited audience, and “using a competent editor to correct [the many] grammatical errors and malapropisms” was not fiscally beneficial. Ergo, the publisher dissed the readership. And that made me decide to write this letter.
I prefer to think that, unlike that book publisher, you respect your readers but that as a California transplant, you just don’t read about your adopted city’s sports. So I conclude that you have not seen these egregious examples of the sloppy and/or ignorant writing that occurs almost daily in Section D:
Brian Windhorst
There’s plenty of other reasons, but that rational right there is one of the reasons for the impasse.
He already has been out a month and will miss significant more time.
“Also well known, however, was how his competitive drive carried over off the court. Whether it was trying to hit a baseball or his gambling habits, be it at casinos or on the golf course.”
The Cavs were handed another defeat Wednesday night in a game they were thoroughly outplayed.”
Doug Lesmerises
Though road teams can easily whither, the momentum can be easily swung the opposite way by tough-minded teams.
Paul Hoynes
Could have Peralta have paid a little more attention to the sirens going off around him? …
Bud Shaw
“Neddlesome”
Mary Kay Cabot
“feint of heart”
“good for both he and linebacker”
Who’s for whose and it’s for its appear almost as frequently as team logos:
ĂŒ “It’s running game struggled most of the night.”
ĂŒ “Hafner’s contract … carries it’s own kind of weight.”
ĂŒ “Duke is playing in its 15th Final Four, it’s 11th under Krzyzewski, …”
I am sure you agree that most of these are sore thumb errors to any competent editor. Your sports section lists five editors. Do the editors not read the copy either before it goes to press or after it appears in print? [Maybe you could reassign Kevin O’Brien here and solve two problems at once!]
What amazes me about this is that Sports is probably the best-read section of your paper. It has more stories and with more pages than the Metro, Business, or Arts & Living sections. Judging by the volume of online comments on major stories regarding the Browns, Cavs, and Indians, your sports readers are the paper’s most devoted.
The problem is becoming contagious, by the way, migrating to writing that appears only online. It also seems to have affected virtually every sportswriter except Bill Livingston [who seems to find a locution he likes and then write a whole column just so he can use it], and the indefatigable Terry Pluto, your most incisive sports and faith reporter. Tony Grossi, Elton Alexander and Mary Schmitt are pretty good, also. But even good writers can in haste drop a letter or misspell a word, and their typos go uncorrected.
The last time I called a problem to your attention — the conscious failure to mention a major candidate for an important race [here]— you addressed it online within four hours and in print the next day. It may take a little longer to correct this problem, but I am sure you will get it handled.
After all, neither you nor I want to see a headline on that glorious June day that says
“Cavs When NBA Tittle!!!”
Sincerely,
Richard T. Andrews
I want to thank you for collecting and posting all of the comments on your website allegedly entered by some person or persons logged into a Justice Center computer assigned to Judge Saffold's courtroom. I read every one of the comments and was absolutely riveted by the breadth of the subjects covered, the writer[s]’s audacity, tendentiousness, lack of charity and general ignorance. After reading them I was convinced that no jurist could have authored most of those entries because of their generally puerile nature and their grammar school spelling. But that aside, I am writing you for a different reason.
I am a faithful reader of your print product, one of a vanishing breed, I fear. I am an addicted Cleveland sports fan, and have been since the days of Otto Graham, Bill Willis and Marion Motley; Bob Lemon, Larry Doby and Luke Easter. For some time now I have felt assaulted by your sportswriters. They have offended me to the point where a few months ago I start cataloging their assaults just to have some proof should I ever explode and need to defend myself.
I have nonetheless been reluctant to write about it for several reasons. I know you and your publisher have so many more serious challenges to deal with. And our community, which your paper covers with increasing superficiality, also has many more serious issues than today’s lament.
But then I was reading an online book review in which the reviewer called his subject “the worst-edited book put out by a reputable publisher that I have ever read.” The reason for this, he concluded, was that the book had a defined but limited audience, and “using a competent editor to correct [the many] grammatical errors and malapropisms” was not fiscally beneficial. Ergo, the publisher dissed the readership. And that made me decide to write this letter.
I prefer to think that, unlike that book publisher, you respect your readers but that as a California transplant, you just don’t read about your adopted city’s sports. So I conclude that you have not seen these egregious examples of the sloppy and/or ignorant writing that occurs almost daily in Section D:
Brian Windhorst
There’s plenty of other reasons, but that rational right there is one of the reasons for the impasse.
He already has been out a month and will miss significant more time.
“Also well known, however, was how his competitive drive carried over off the court. Whether it was trying to hit a baseball or his gambling habits, be it at casinos or on the golf course.”
The Cavs were handed another defeat Wednesday night in a game they were thoroughly outplayed.”
Doug Lesmerises
Though road teams can easily whither, the momentum can be easily swung the opposite way by tough-minded teams.
Paul Hoynes
Could have Peralta have paid a little more attention to the sirens going off around him? …
Bud Shaw
“Neddlesome”
Mary Kay Cabot
“feint of heart”
“good for both he and linebacker”
Who’s for whose and it’s for its appear almost as frequently as team logos:
ĂŒ “It’s running game struggled most of the night.”
ĂŒ “Hafner’s contract … carries it’s own kind of weight.”
ĂŒ “Duke is playing in its 15th Final Four, it’s 11th under Krzyzewski, …”
I am sure you agree that most of these are sore thumb errors to any competent editor. Your sports section lists five editors. Do the editors not read the copy either before it goes to press or after it appears in print? [Maybe you could reassign Kevin O’Brien here and solve two problems at once!]
What amazes me about this is that Sports is probably the best-read section of your paper. It has more stories and with more pages than the Metro, Business, or Arts & Living sections. Judging by the volume of online comments on major stories regarding the Browns, Cavs, and Indians, your sports readers are the paper’s most devoted.
The problem is becoming contagious, by the way, migrating to writing that appears only online. It also seems to have affected virtually every sportswriter except Bill Livingston [who seems to find a locution he likes and then write a whole column just so he can use it], and the indefatigable Terry Pluto, your most incisive sports and faith reporter. Tony Grossi, Elton Alexander and Mary Schmitt are pretty good, also. But even good writers can in haste drop a letter or misspell a word, and their typos go uncorrected.
The last time I called a problem to your attention — the conscious failure to mention a major candidate for an important race [here]— you addressed it online within four hours and in print the next day. It may take a little longer to correct this problem, but I am sure you will get it handled.
After all, neither you nor I want to see a headline on that glorious June day that says
“Cavs When NBA Tittle!!!”
Sincerely,
Richard T. Andrews
Friday, April 23, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Brunner the Best for Ohio Democrats
Democratic voters have an excellent chance this fall to send a strong new voice to Washington as Ohio’s next U. S. senator. Almost from the day George Voinovich announced in January 2009 that he would retire at the end of his term this year, it was clear that Democrats would be choosing their nominee between two of their best state officials, Lt. Governor Lee Fisher and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner.
The last 15 months of head-to-head political campaigning have made two things clear: Jennifer Brunner would be a stronger Democratic standard bearer against the Republican nominee in November, and Jennifer Brunner would be a stronger US Senator for Ohio and the nation.
When voters are faced with two strong and capable candidates who hold roughly similar political views, who to vote for becomes less a matter of policy positions and more a question of character and style. This is perhaps especially true when the electoral prize is one of just a hundred seats in the US Senate, often referred to as “the world’s most exclusive club”.
Ohio’s Democratic leaders seem to have had that paradigm of exclusivity in mind as they fell into near lockstep behind Fisher. For Gov. Strickland on down through the party apparatus of Democratic state legislators, county party chairs and the rest of the old guard party hierarchy, Fisher has been the sanctioned choice.
That he would serve capably there is really no doubt. He is an experienced legislator and was a very good Ohio attorney general. He is a well-seasoned politician who would fit easily in the Senate. He is a prolific fundraiser, but is a two-edged sword. The ability to put big-time contributors at ease seems to make even the best-intentioned politicians less like public servants and more like leaders who follow lobbyists. In the wake of the recent abominable Citizens United decision by the US Supreme Court that seems to encourage unprecedented corporate intrusion into the electoral process, this is likely to be an even larger problem.
Brunner is much less likely to be a handmaiden to the corporate interests that dominate the club. For starters, she hasn’t been a career politician, having been in public office only since 2000, when she ran successfully for common pleas judge in Franklin County. Two years later, she was re-elected, serving about six years before resigning to run statewide for Secretary of State.
Notwithstanding her relative freshness as a public official, Brunner, 53, possesses considerable political savvy. She worked four years for Sherrod Brown in the mid-eighties when the latter was Ohio’s Secretary of State. Additionally, she represented many elected officials during her private practice on issues involving election law and campaign finance. She was an innovative judge in Franklin County, not from the standpoint of being an “activist” judge, but as a jurist who sought to improve the system by working with her colleagues. We think she can help President Obama do the same in Washington.
My direct observations of Brunner in different settings — as public official and on the campaign trail — suggest that she is a thoughtful and committed public servant, both open and approachable. She gets the idea of servant leadership. She acts from a strong and secure principled base, with more quiet tenacity and much less bombast than most politicians. What you see in public is likely what you will get in private.
Probably no place is that attribute more significant — and rare — than in the US Senate. Our local daily, in its weakly-supported endorsement of Fisher, suggested that he was more likely to get along in the clubby Senate than she. No doubt. But it’s not clear why that was a virtue.
Ohio has never sent a woman to the US Senate, where women are outnumbered by worse than four-to-one. And it should be noted that among GOP senators, it is the women senators from Maine who are the least doctrinaire and partisan. As the junior US senator, we think Brunner would be inside the room, but more likely than most to insist that the door be open for the public interest.
All the Democratic bigwigs are behind Lee Fisher in this race. That Brunner has neither bent, buckled nor broken in the face of the behind-the-scenes bullying is telling. She has stayed the course in the race, connected with voters in large settings and small, campaigning with a quiet ease and grace that have been impressive.
While some who have worked with her express concern about her administrative skills, she has run an impressive and imaginative campaign with far fewer resources than her opponent. She is clearly but quietly a formidable candidate. If she wins the nomination, she will have an outstanding to chance to win in November and become an equally formidable Senator for progressive issues.
Democrats who have yet to cast their primary votes should put Brunner at the top of the ticket. President Obama told us during the campaign that he could not bring change by himself. Nominating Jennifer Brunner as Ohio’s Democratic candidate for Senator would signal change about the role of money in campaigns, and address the concerns of many local Democrats about fostering a more open and transparent party process.
Party rank-and-filers: if you want to feel better about your party and your choice -- both in November and for the next six years – vote for Brunner.
The last 15 months of head-to-head political campaigning have made two things clear: Jennifer Brunner would be a stronger Democratic standard bearer against the Republican nominee in November, and Jennifer Brunner would be a stronger US Senator for Ohio and the nation.
When voters are faced with two strong and capable candidates who hold roughly similar political views, who to vote for becomes less a matter of policy positions and more a question of character and style. This is perhaps especially true when the electoral prize is one of just a hundred seats in the US Senate, often referred to as “the world’s most exclusive club”.
Ohio’s Democratic leaders seem to have had that paradigm of exclusivity in mind as they fell into near lockstep behind Fisher. For Gov. Strickland on down through the party apparatus of Democratic state legislators, county party chairs and the rest of the old guard party hierarchy, Fisher has been the sanctioned choice.
That he would serve capably there is really no doubt. He is an experienced legislator and was a very good Ohio attorney general. He is a well-seasoned politician who would fit easily in the Senate. He is a prolific fundraiser, but is a two-edged sword. The ability to put big-time contributors at ease seems to make even the best-intentioned politicians less like public servants and more like leaders who follow lobbyists. In the wake of the recent abominable Citizens United decision by the US Supreme Court that seems to encourage unprecedented corporate intrusion into the electoral process, this is likely to be an even larger problem.
Brunner is much less likely to be a handmaiden to the corporate interests that dominate the club. For starters, she hasn’t been a career politician, having been in public office only since 2000, when she ran successfully for common pleas judge in Franklin County. Two years later, she was re-elected, serving about six years before resigning to run statewide for Secretary of State.
Notwithstanding her relative freshness as a public official, Brunner, 53, possesses considerable political savvy. She worked four years for Sherrod Brown in the mid-eighties when the latter was Ohio’s Secretary of State. Additionally, she represented many elected officials during her private practice on issues involving election law and campaign finance. She was an innovative judge in Franklin County, not from the standpoint of being an “activist” judge, but as a jurist who sought to improve the system by working with her colleagues. We think she can help President Obama do the same in Washington.
My direct observations of Brunner in different settings — as public official and on the campaign trail — suggest that she is a thoughtful and committed public servant, both open and approachable. She gets the idea of servant leadership. She acts from a strong and secure principled base, with more quiet tenacity and much less bombast than most politicians. What you see in public is likely what you will get in private.
Probably no place is that attribute more significant — and rare — than in the US Senate. Our local daily, in its weakly-supported endorsement of Fisher, suggested that he was more likely to get along in the clubby Senate than she. No doubt. But it’s not clear why that was a virtue.
Ohio has never sent a woman to the US Senate, where women are outnumbered by worse than four-to-one. And it should be noted that among GOP senators, it is the women senators from Maine who are the least doctrinaire and partisan. As the junior US senator, we think Brunner would be inside the room, but more likely than most to insist that the door be open for the public interest.
All the Democratic bigwigs are behind Lee Fisher in this race. That Brunner has neither bent, buckled nor broken in the face of the behind-the-scenes bullying is telling. She has stayed the course in the race, connected with voters in large settings and small, campaigning with a quiet ease and grace that have been impressive.
While some who have worked with her express concern about her administrative skills, she has run an impressive and imaginative campaign with far fewer resources than her opponent. She is clearly but quietly a formidable candidate. If she wins the nomination, she will have an outstanding to chance to win in November and become an equally formidable Senator for progressive issues.
Democrats who have yet to cast their primary votes should put Brunner at the top of the ticket. President Obama told us during the campaign that he could not bring change by himself. Nominating Jennifer Brunner as Ohio’s Democratic candidate for Senator would signal change about the role of money in campaigns, and address the concerns of many local Democrats about fostering a more open and transparent party process.
Party rank-and-filers: if you want to feel better about your party and your choice -- both in November and for the next six years – vote for Brunner.
• • •
Saturday, April 03, 2010
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.
• • •
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Plain Dealer: What Do They Know, When Do They Know It, and What Do They Do About It?
With apologies to the alternative weeklies, Cuyahoga has essentially been a one-newspaper community since the controversial closing of the Cleveland Press in 1982. By default, the Plain Dealer became our town’s newspaper of record. It represents us whether we like it or not. So its deteriorating coverage and declining editorial standards, compounded by increasing arrogance, is a cause for both anger and sadness.
But even as a hopelessly habituated newspaper reader, I find myself challenged to explain how the Plain Dealer has failed to publish the fact that one of the community’s most prominent citizens — Bill Patmon — a major candidate in the recent Cleveland mayoral race, is now running for the Ohio House in District 10.
Patmon filed his petitions at 9AM on Friday, February 18. An experienced and canny politician, he no doubt had political reasons for pulling his petitions anonymously and waiting until the last day of filing. But the story is not Patmon’s campaign. It is why the Plain Dealer has failed for three weeks to inform its readers that Bill Patmon is challenging incumbent Robin Belcher and longtime Cleveland city councilman Roosevelt Coats in the May primary.
The Plain Dealer has often bestowed favorable coverage upon the voluble Patmon in the past, so we do not presume in any way that their failure to report his candidacy represents any sort of bias. Rather it seems to us an arrogance of power and a disdain for its readers, especially those who live within House District 10, an area comprising parts of downtown Cleveland as well as inner-city neighborhoods both east and west.
Sloppy or hurried reporting could have accounted for the initial failure to report Patmon’s candidacy. If the story was reported solely online at the paper’s website, as is happening with greater frequency, then readers should be told what they can no longer expect in the increasingly lightweight print edition.
But consider that three weeks after the filing deadline, and after two calls from Patmon to a reporter, and even several days after interviewing Patmon and his rivals in their editorial suite, the paper has not deigned to provide its readers — many of whom are without online access — an accurate list of the candidates.
We would be interested in knowing if our readers have other instances of significant omissions in coverage.
P.S. At the time of this posting, our call to the reporter had not been returned [o.k., it was only a few minutes ago.] If we get a reply, we’ll let you know.
Friday, March 05, 2010
County Transition: Choosing the Messenger Sends a Message [Updated]
Burges & Burges has withdrawn from consideration from the competition for the communications consultant contract. See the story here: http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga-county/index.ssf/2010/03/burges_burges_withdraws_its_bid_for_cuyahoga_county_tra
County Transition: Choosing the Messenger Sends a Message
The biggest question surrounding the new form of county government is this: will anything really be different? Will the new government be more honest? More efficient? More inclusive? More imaginative? More effective? More attuned to the 21st century? Of better service to its constituents? More able to attract new residents, new jobs? Will it be a new form of the status quo, going to the same insiders to repackage the same approaches to the same problems and obtain the same results?
The old political structure is being swept away by a decisive electorate that wanted something new. But a new political structure does not preordain a new political culture. Whether a new culture emerges will depend in large measure on the extent that same electorate wants it badly enough to help create it.
One early measure of whether a new political culture is developing is the work of the various volunteer groups that are participating in planning for the transition. Earlier this week I attended a meeting of the Public Engagement Workgroup. The group’s membership includes several familiar names representing such well-known civic players as the League of Women Voters, Cleveland AFL-CIO, COSE [Council of Smaller Enterprises], RPM International, First Energy, and ThompsonHine.
Cuyahoga’s establishment power is often wielded in public settings by its law firms, public utilities, foundations and large corporations. If change is truly in the air, it will be reflected in new outcomes influenced by these establishment representatives.
Thanks to public attention and outcry, the work of these groups is public in unprecedented ways. Thus there were about fifteen members of the public, including this scribe, in attendance as the Workgroup heard presentations from three companies seeking to provide communication consulting services to the County’s Transition Advisory Group.
Briefly put, the work to switch from a two-century old commissioner structure to the new executive-council form ratified by the voters is an enormously complex operation. Cuyahoga County is a billion dollar plus government operation with roughly 8,000 employees providing vital services to more than one million people every day. It is about to undergo radical neurosurgery as it shifts to an all new management team that at present is wholly unidentified, unselected, and collectively may have zero experience in working together.
The idea of public engagement, it would seem, is to establish a two-way line of communication that will attract the public’s best ideas about how to go forward, and to keep the public apprised as much as possible about just what the heck is going on. Or, if you are a cynic about the whole process, public engagement will be about meaningless participation and opaque transparency: volunteers will be kept busy and feel involved, and information will be shared, but the real decisions will continue to be made offsite and out-of-sight.
Either way, the communications professionals who participate in shaping and broadcasting the transition process will themselves be central. Five companies submitted written proposals to the County. These proposals were evaluated and rated, and three teams were selected for further consideration. [When the team of Lesic & Camper Communications/ Cleveland State University decided to drop out, the fourth-ranked team — GAP/365 moved up and got a second chance.]
Tuesday afternoon’s meeting took place in a large second-floor room at COSE headquarters in the former Higbee/Dillard department store on Public Square. Each team was given 10-15 minutes to introduce itself and make its pitch, followed by a Q&A from the workgroup, with each member asking one of ten scripted questions to the team over the next 30-45 minutes.
All presenters came politically correct, with appropriate nods to race, ethnicity and gender. In fact, the majority of presenters were women, although men led or co-led every team. Every team featured people of color, with the first two teams emphasizing that their joint venture partners were longtime collaborators and not just accessories put on for the occasion. The third team, comprising two black-owned companies, had no need to offer such reassurance.
But this is only partly about color and race and ethnicity, which are always in play, because we are human, and we live in America. It is also, and more importantly, about our political culture.
All of the teams are qualified in a competition like this. There is no test with an objectively marked grade. There are submissions, track records, auditions, and oftentimes winks and nods. But this process is about the public’s business, transparent to perhaps an unprecedented degree, and we submit, a likely harbinger of what is to come over the next year.
The first presenter was the team of Burges & Burges in tandem with Brenda Terrell & Associates. Burges is the heavyweight of local political consultants. They have been around over a quarter of a century, they have been in lots of high-profile campaigns, they are super-connected. They know exactly what they are doing and how to do it. They have run, often simultaneously, levy campaigns, issues campaigns, and candidate campaigns. And, by the way, they were the hired gun for the Issue 6 campaign that stomped the opposition. So they know what to say, when to say it, who and where to say it.
Burges has such a big local footprint that they will not commit to avoiding representing candidates for either county executive or county council during the term of the contract.
And that’s pretty much what they said in their presentation. ‘We know what we’re doing, we’re the best around, we just got finished doing this stuff, and we are the safest, surest choice.’ Team leader Bill Burges was so laid back he was practically avuncular. His team answered all the Workgroup questions as if they had written them last week and donated them to the group.
Next up was Landau Public Relations. Principal Howard Landau had assembled a formidable team, including former Citizens League exec Jan Purdy, onetime East Ohio Gas man Terry Uhl, and the well educated, highly talented, broadly experienced and extraordinarily lovely Montrie Rucker Adams.
[Correspondent disclosure: Montrie is a friend of longstanding, as are the aforementioned Brenda Terrell and the soon-to-be-discussed Alexandria Johnson (“I prefer to be called ‘Alex’) Boone.]
Landau was earnestness personified. His background is public relations, not political intrigue. His clients are mostly corporate or nonprofit, and he seemed drawn to this assignment out of a sincere desire to serve and participate. He appeared easy to work with and had a diverse and capable team. He would have been my second choice.
Last on the meeting agenda was the team of Gap Communications Group and Cleveland365.com. Alex Boone, who has been around at least as long as Burges and Landau, heads Gap. As a black woman, her opportunities have been restricted, her challenges more severe. But she didn’t present that way, because, well, this is 2010, folks, Obama is president, and there will be no reparations.
What she did bring was energy, humor, confidence, and excitement. She brought a tight, no-name team that has worked together for most of this century. She brought handouts. She brought a power point presentation. And she brought interactive, as presented and demonstrated by Terry Thomas of Cleveland365.
All of the teams talked about social media as a key part of the communications mix. All seemed to understand that you couldn’t rely on it totally in a community with large pockets of technophobes, the unwired, and the impoverished. But Thomas clearly had an edge when it comes to social media. He articulated a vision of transparent and instantaneous two-way communication, and he demonstrated it hands on with his audience.
The Gap/Cleveland365 presentation had the least polish and the most sizzle. It was the best prepared, the best orchestrated, and the most hopeful. Boone and Thomas have the fewest establishment credentials, but they are the most Cleveland. They presented with the most energy, verve, and imagination. You can bet that if they win the contract they will assuredly treat it as the best opportunity they have ever earned, as it surely will be. And it will be a signal that this community is ready to be open, bold, adventurous, and interactive.
One final note. In summer 2008, I attended a Cleveland365 event at the Botanical Garden in University Circle. The topic was regionalism and the speakers included representatives from Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown. The joint was packed. I was astonished because in my four decades of attending local civic events of this type, I had never witnessed such a diverse crowd: an extraordinary mix of generations, geography, color, ethnicity, and attitude.
Local civic and political leaders like to talk about our diversity as if it were an accomplished fact. People who hear that talk might believe it if they have never been to Washington, DC, New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. We remain a very segregated and stratified community. It is rare when an event takes place in this community that is so democratic in tone, tenor, and style that you wonder who put it together. Cleveland365 has done it, and they have done it more than once.
Burges is the safe choice. GAP/Cleveland365 is the best choice. If they are selected, you can believe that a groundswell is afoot, and that a new political culture might just be on the way to accompany the new political structure.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Past as Prologue
It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy,
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution.
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfillment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning.…
—T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
Today is the halfway mark of African American History Month. Last February, there was spirited debate among many Americans, some of whom — in the wake of the Barack Obama’s election as president — questioned the need for continuing an annual four-week Black History observance.
Most of the discussion, though entertaining, was silly, as if the perfect convergence of circumstances resulting in Obama’s victory proved that we had entered a post-racial era in America.
We Americans tend to be spectacularly ahistoric. This trait has worked to our advantage as the nation was built. We focused on the practical as our nation was built. We explored, we cleared, we built, we invented, our eyes focused always on the possibilities of the present or the promise of the future.
The country had no history to study at first. We were once the world’s newest nation, in a hurry to achieve our manifest destiny in the most bountiful and expansive land known to civilized man. History was what Americans left behind in Europe, where folks were mired in a past of religious, royal and feudal castles and tunnels. We had frontiers to tame.
Our most energetic tamers were often people who disdained tradition. They blazed new paths. When they encountered failure, they shrugged it off, moved west, and started anew.
Having subdued much of the continent until there was no more west, we moved overseas, proselytizing, conquering, annexing. The first President Roosevelt established and pursued an expansionist policy with a clear eye. We became an imperial nation as a matter of presumed birthright, though our national fable of exceptionalism still blinds most contemporary Americans to that reality. But you could look it up.
We are not casting blame or pointing fingers here. Readers of this column have probably already supplied some missing pieces in our two-paragraph condensation of U. S. foreign and domestic policy: the all but complete eradication of Native Americans; the dispatch of Mexican Americans back to earlier points of origin; and the theft of Africans from their original homelands, cultures, languages, families, and histories.
Whether we understand it or not, our past catches up with us. As the Eliot passage suggests, if we look back at where we have been and what we have done, we often see a pattern different from what we thought we were doing at the time.
[Real Deal Confession: I wouldn’t know any other T.S. Eliot passage from a hieroglyphic. I know this one as a frontispiece to the memoirs of former Under Secretary of State George W. Ball.]
Acting locally, if we understand the pattern of our past as a community, it can help us make better decisions moving forward. It can help us to make sense of otherwise incomprehensible situations, such as the current plan of Cleveland schools ceo Eugene Sanders to close nearly a score of schools, many of which had recently received hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovation and repair expenditures, or last year’s near-unanimous opposition of black political leaders to the new form of county government.
We have a tendency here in Cuyahoga to reduce all discourse on public policy issues to personality-driven motivations. But while it is true that for many public officials, as for most people in general, where they stand depends upon where they sit, it is also true that human motivation is seldom linear, and that governing is complex. It may be helpful to keep this in mind as we begin to assess chief executive and council candidates for our new county government.
That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence—
Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy,
Encouraged by superficial notions of evolution.
Which becomes, in the popular mind, a means of disowning the past.
The moments of happiness—not the sense of well-being,
Fruition, fulfillment, security or affection,
Or even a very good dinner, but the sudden illumination—
We had the experience but missed the meaning.…
—T. S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
Today is the halfway mark of African American History Month. Last February, there was spirited debate among many Americans, some of whom — in the wake of the Barack Obama’s election as president — questioned the need for continuing an annual four-week Black History observance.
Most of the discussion, though entertaining, was silly, as if the perfect convergence of circumstances resulting in Obama’s victory proved that we had entered a post-racial era in America.
We Americans tend to be spectacularly ahistoric. This trait has worked to our advantage as the nation was built. We focused on the practical as our nation was built. We explored, we cleared, we built, we invented, our eyes focused always on the possibilities of the present or the promise of the future.
The country had no history to study at first. We were once the world’s newest nation, in a hurry to achieve our manifest destiny in the most bountiful and expansive land known to civilized man. History was what Americans left behind in Europe, where folks were mired in a past of religious, royal and feudal castles and tunnels. We had frontiers to tame.
Our most energetic tamers were often people who disdained tradition. They blazed new paths. When they encountered failure, they shrugged it off, moved west, and started anew.
Having subdued much of the continent until there was no more west, we moved overseas, proselytizing, conquering, annexing. The first President Roosevelt established and pursued an expansionist policy with a clear eye. We became an imperial nation as a matter of presumed birthright, though our national fable of exceptionalism still blinds most contemporary Americans to that reality. But you could look it up.
We are not casting blame or pointing fingers here. Readers of this column have probably already supplied some missing pieces in our two-paragraph condensation of U. S. foreign and domestic policy: the all but complete eradication of Native Americans; the dispatch of Mexican Americans back to earlier points of origin; and the theft of Africans from their original homelands, cultures, languages, families, and histories.
Whether we understand it or not, our past catches up with us. As the Eliot passage suggests, if we look back at where we have been and what we have done, we often see a pattern different from what we thought we were doing at the time.
[Real Deal Confession: I wouldn’t know any other T.S. Eliot passage from a hieroglyphic. I know this one as a frontispiece to the memoirs of former Under Secretary of State George W. Ball.]
Acting locally, if we understand the pattern of our past as a community, it can help us make better decisions moving forward. It can help us to make sense of otherwise incomprehensible situations, such as the current plan of Cleveland schools ceo Eugene Sanders to close nearly a score of schools, many of which had recently received hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovation and repair expenditures, or last year’s near-unanimous opposition of black political leaders to the new form of county government.
We have a tendency here in Cuyahoga to reduce all discourse on public policy issues to personality-driven motivations. But while it is true that for many public officials, as for most people in general, where they stand depends upon where they sit, it is also true that human motivation is seldom linear, and that governing is complex. It may be helpful to keep this in mind as we begin to assess chief executive and council candidates for our new county government.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Cavs on a roll!!!
Don’t look now but the Cleveland Cavaliers are clearly the best team in the NBA: they have not only the best home record [22-3] in the league, they also boast the best road record [19-8]. They have moved to the top of the heap even though two of their best players — Mo Williams and Delonte West — are injured. [West returned last night.]
Regular season dominance is no guarantor of posts-season success, but we like the makeup of this team from top to bottom. Coach Mike Brown has done a good job of experimenting with the team’s pieces and parts, while obviously looking ahead to the “second season”, i.e., the playoffs. We’ll have more to say on this later, but these Cavs can play fast or slow, big or quick. And they almost always will defend tough.
Regular season dominance is no guarantor of posts-season success, but we like the makeup of this team from top to bottom. Coach Mike Brown has done a good job of experimenting with the team’s pieces and parts, while obviously looking ahead to the “second season”, i.e., the playoffs. We’ll have more to say on this later, but these Cavs can play fast or slow, big or quick. And they almost always will defend tough.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Undeclared Ronayne impresses with low key, high energy speech
He may not have been auditioning for the job, but Chris Ronayne offered a vision last night to the Cleveland Heights Democratic Club of just what an effective county executive would look like. With a manner that was folksy but not phony, affable but analytical, and practical yet almost poetic, the former Cleveland planning director persuaded an audience peppered with skeptics that Cuyahoga’s new charter government could facilitate a promising new era of cooperation and prosperity.
Ronayne spoke directly but optimistically about tough challenges facing Cuyahoga and its new leaders. Embedded in his discussion of job loss, parochial attitudes, urban sprawl, the state government’s anti-urban attitude no matter which party was in control, the inefficiencies of 59 political entities within the county, and other daunting issues was a sense that workable solutions existed.
Ronayne, president of University Circle, Inc., conveyed an easy familiarity with the political process although he disavowed being “an insider’s insider”. He spoke of smart-growth policies and shared service networks as tools to build a better region. But he emphasized more than once that “personnel is policy”, stressing how critical it was for citizens to evaluate candidates for both county executive and the county council with extreme care.
It was only a brief talk but long enough to display a keen and supple intellect, an appreciation of Cuyahoga’s diversity, a practical but dynamic approach to problem solving, and a “yes we can” spirit.
Two declared candidates for county executive — Democratic mayors Ed Fitzgerald of Lakewood and Georgine Welo of South Euclid — were in attendance. They and several judicial candidates spoke to the club before Ronayne’s talk.
Following a brief Q&A, a retired public official from an old and distinguished political family seemed to speak for many when she said that, although she had voted against Issue 6 and for Issue 5, she was beginning to think the new county government could turn out to be a good thing.
Ronayne spoke directly but optimistically about tough challenges facing Cuyahoga and its new leaders. Embedded in his discussion of job loss, parochial attitudes, urban sprawl, the state government’s anti-urban attitude no matter which party was in control, the inefficiencies of 59 political entities within the county, and other daunting issues was a sense that workable solutions existed.
Ronayne, president of University Circle, Inc., conveyed an easy familiarity with the political process although he disavowed being “an insider’s insider”. He spoke of smart-growth policies and shared service networks as tools to build a better region. But he emphasized more than once that “personnel is policy”, stressing how critical it was for citizens to evaluate candidates for both county executive and the county council with extreme care.
It was only a brief talk but long enough to display a keen and supple intellect, an appreciation of Cuyahoga’s diversity, a practical but dynamic approach to problem solving, and a “yes we can” spirit.
Two declared candidates for county executive — Democratic mayors Ed Fitzgerald of Lakewood and Georgine Welo of South Euclid — were in attendance. They and several judicial candidates spoke to the club before Ronayne’s talk.
Following a brief Q&A, a retired public official from an old and distinguished political family seemed to speak for many when she said that, although she had voted against Issue 6 and for Issue 5, she was beginning to think the new county government could turn out to be a good thing.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Teachable Moment in Harry Reid’s Candid Comments
Perhaps the best thing to come out of the hypocritical and out-sized attacks upon U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may be the sober realization of just how far the country is from entering a post-racial era.
Appraising Barack Obama’s electoral chances a private conversation during the presidential campaign, Reid is reported to have essentially acknowledged what has been confirmed countless times by social science research: light-skinned African Americans who speak what is widely accepted as standard American English are less likely to be negatively prejudged by white Americans by surface criteria and thus stand a better chance of success in society.
For stating what is basically a matter of fact documented by historians, social scientists, and the life experiences of most African Americans, In short order, Reid was vilified as a racist and called upon to relinquish his post as majority leader. The story dominated the Sunday talk shows and has been pretty much been pontificated to death by pundits of every stripe.
The partisan attacks are understandable to the degree that they are in large measure related to the understated and under-rated way that Reid has deftly guided much of President Obama’s agenda through the Senate. But these have gained no traction in the wake of Reid’s quick apology for his remark and the “no problem” acceptance of his apology by President Obama, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and other representatives of the supposedly offended group.
The Republican assault upon Reid is simultaneously comical and offensive, with both reactions arising from the transparent hypocrisy of those who choose to acknowledge race only when it can be used as a wedge to divide or distract.
What this latest dust up does reveal however, is just how far away we are as a nation from having honest dialogue about the past, present, and future of race in America. Jeremiah Wright, Henry Louis Gates, Eric Holder, Harry Reid: each of these names is now part of a recurring pattern where an heartfelt observation about America’s racial record or its structural consequences results in lots of heat but little light.
Pain, fear, and mistrust combine to turn most public attempts at racial understanding into grandstanding. We have no common vocabulary to talk about race. I wish that instead of apologizing, Senator Reid had instead elaborated. It could have been like one of those moments when Jesse Jackson talked about a heightened level of apprehension on possible engagement with a congregation of young black men. Who didn’t identify with that unexpected moment of candor?
Too often, the anguish of the nation’s festering racial wounds gets a brutal sanitization. If we can’t put a Band-Aid on the cancer, we just shut the door and hold our noses. [Greater Clevelanders, think Imperial Avenue].
Reid’s apology just added to the confusion. What was he apologizing for? For being politically incorrect in his politically correct observation? Who was he apologizing to? Was he apologizing to dark-skinned black people for the prejudices that white people carry that limit opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and political success? Was he apologizing to all black people for a private comment that may now lead to the outing of intra-racial color prejudice? Was he apologizing because that outing may give comfort to white people who can perversely find justification for their prejudices in the prejudice of others? Or maybe he was apologizing to white people for his having dared to acknowledge that they really aren’t as color-blind as they like to pretend?
I read a lot of online commentary and watched a lot of the television coverage of Reid’s statement in an attempt to get some kind of grasp on these issues. Much of what I read and heard was singularly unimpressive. But I did encounter one or two commentators who offered a special vantage. Jonathan Walton offered this observation:
“If anyone should be offended it should be the critical mass of Americans, of all racial, ethnic and political perspectives, who are so informed by the logic of white supremacy that they fail to interrogate the correlations between dark skin tone and negativity or lightness and positive attributes.”
And this:
“There is one major problem that I do have with Senator Reid’s statement, however. For him to contend that President Obama has “no Negro dialect” reveals a parochial comprehension of the breadth and artistic beauty of black vernacular culture. President Obama is most lauded for his gifted rhetorical ability. His persuasive use of narrative, rhythmic timing, and common employment of alliteration and assonance are all creative staples of the African American homiletic tradition.” http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/mediaculture/2181/
Speaking of black preachers, next week the nation observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Perhaps instead of recalling King’s wonderful rhetoric and soaring phrases, we might reflect on how much listening he must have done before he could articulate a vision so compelling that it helped to galvanize a national movement. Perhaps we could honor his memory this year by listening to others with his spirit of understanding and reconciliation, and then by following up, as he did, with some action.
Appraising Barack Obama’s electoral chances a private conversation during the presidential campaign, Reid is reported to have essentially acknowledged what has been confirmed countless times by social science research: light-skinned African Americans who speak what is widely accepted as standard American English are less likely to be negatively prejudged by white Americans by surface criteria and thus stand a better chance of success in society.
For stating what is basically a matter of fact documented by historians, social scientists, and the life experiences of most African Americans, In short order, Reid was vilified as a racist and called upon to relinquish his post as majority leader. The story dominated the Sunday talk shows and has been pretty much been pontificated to death by pundits of every stripe.
The partisan attacks are understandable to the degree that they are in large measure related to the understated and under-rated way that Reid has deftly guided much of President Obama’s agenda through the Senate. But these have gained no traction in the wake of Reid’s quick apology for his remark and the “no problem” acceptance of his apology by President Obama, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, and other representatives of the supposedly offended group.
The Republican assault upon Reid is simultaneously comical and offensive, with both reactions arising from the transparent hypocrisy of those who choose to acknowledge race only when it can be used as a wedge to divide or distract.
What this latest dust up does reveal however, is just how far away we are as a nation from having honest dialogue about the past, present, and future of race in America. Jeremiah Wright, Henry Louis Gates, Eric Holder, Harry Reid: each of these names is now part of a recurring pattern where an heartfelt observation about America’s racial record or its structural consequences results in lots of heat but little light.
Pain, fear, and mistrust combine to turn most public attempts at racial understanding into grandstanding. We have no common vocabulary to talk about race. I wish that instead of apologizing, Senator Reid had instead elaborated. It could have been like one of those moments when Jesse Jackson talked about a heightened level of apprehension on possible engagement with a congregation of young black men. Who didn’t identify with that unexpected moment of candor?
Too often, the anguish of the nation’s festering racial wounds gets a brutal sanitization. If we can’t put a Band-Aid on the cancer, we just shut the door and hold our noses. [Greater Clevelanders, think Imperial Avenue].
Reid’s apology just added to the confusion. What was he apologizing for? For being politically incorrect in his politically correct observation? Who was he apologizing to? Was he apologizing to dark-skinned black people for the prejudices that white people carry that limit opportunities for jobs, education, housing, and political success? Was he apologizing to all black people for a private comment that may now lead to the outing of intra-racial color prejudice? Was he apologizing because that outing may give comfort to white people who can perversely find justification for their prejudices in the prejudice of others? Or maybe he was apologizing to white people for his having dared to acknowledge that they really aren’t as color-blind as they like to pretend?
I read a lot of online commentary and watched a lot of the television coverage of Reid’s statement in an attempt to get some kind of grasp on these issues. Much of what I read and heard was singularly unimpressive. But I did encounter one or two commentators who offered a special vantage. Jonathan Walton offered this observation:
“If anyone should be offended it should be the critical mass of Americans, of all racial, ethnic and political perspectives, who are so informed by the logic of white supremacy that they fail to interrogate the correlations between dark skin tone and negativity or lightness and positive attributes.”
And this:
“There is one major problem that I do have with Senator Reid’s statement, however. For him to contend that President Obama has “no Negro dialect” reveals a parochial comprehension of the breadth and artistic beauty of black vernacular culture. President Obama is most lauded for his gifted rhetorical ability. His persuasive use of narrative, rhythmic timing, and common employment of alliteration and assonance are all creative staples of the African American homiletic tradition.” http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/mediaculture/2181/
Speaking of black preachers, next week the nation observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Perhaps instead of recalling King’s wonderful rhetoric and soaring phrases, we might reflect on how much listening he must have done before he could articulate a vision so compelling that it helped to galvanize a national movement. Perhaps we could honor his memory this year by listening to others with his spirit of understanding and reconciliation, and then by following up, as he did, with some action.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
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.
• • •
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.
• • •
Sunday, December 20, 2009
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.
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