A Refreshing Election

So I’m pushing my young son in his stroller the other night on a dark Clifton street, easing along with several hundred others in our neighborhood’s annual fall lantern walk. Behind me I hear a voice say, “Hi, how are you doing?”

Thinking he’s addressing me, I turn around and recognize David Pepper, who’s a little startled to see me. He’s carrying a paper lantern like everyone else and is strolling along in the middle of a crowd in the middle of the street on a warm November night without a care in the world — except that his campaign for Cincinnati mayor ends in about 48 hours.

Pepper introduces me to his college friend who’s tagging along, and they move on to chat up little groups of two and three people. When we reach the church parking lot where the walk ends, a TV camera crew shows up to get some footage of the candidate working the crowd, and kids run up next to Pepper to get into the shot. I stand off to the side and talk politics with the kids’ parents.

I suggest to them that no matter your take on the mayor’s race — I like both Pepper and Mark Mallory but I voted for Mallory — you have to be impressed with the overall campaign. Both candidates were serious, earnest and available. There were something like 15 debates, including two that were televised, and numerous neighborhood council meetings, church gatherings and impromptu events where city voters could interact with their next mayor.

At most of the ones I attended, Mallory and Pepper showed up with little fanfare or coterie.

Mallory usually was accompanied by a Columbus staffer, and Pepper often was by himself — both ready to mingle and talk or debate each other.

Observing the campaign, I got the sense that neither Mallory nor Pepper disliked the other. Despite the fact that both camps pushed negative ad messages toward the end attacking the opponent’s positions and records, overall the tone was positive — a real break from the kind of statewide and national campaigns we’re used to now.

Maybe that’s because both candidates are Democrats, which eliminated the kind of partisan crap that passes for “issues” in modern politics. There was no haggling over positions on abortion, gay rights, same sex marriage, the separation of church and state and all that blah, blah, blah that has little to do with being mayor of Cincinnati. Very refreshing.

On the other hand, when it was all over and done with, in spite of Mallory and Pepper’s best efforts, I don’t think the campaigns changed many people’s minds. Most of the undecideds likely were still undecided when they stepped into the voting booth Nov. 8, lending credence to the creeping suspicion that there just wasn’t much difference between the two.

(Check out our Election Day/Night coverage and analysis, particularly of the mayoral race, here.)

With Mallory’s win, Cincinnati is set for a new era after six years of often reluctant leadership from Charlie Luken. And that’s something to get excited about.

As the campaigns wound down, I found myself wondering about a few other election tidbits:

· Where were the polls? I’m shocked that no local media organization sponsored a poll on the mayor’s race. If I remember right, there was a poll out before the primary election that showed a tight race among Mallory, Pepper and Alicia Reece. That didn’t turn out to be correct, as Reece finished fourth, but the poll provided an good snapshot of the race at that point.

With all the money spent on the mayor’s race — the most expensive campaign for Cincinnati mayor ever (of course, it’s just the second such race under the new election format) — you’d think some organization would have authorized a poll. Weird.

· Who replaces Mallory in Columbus now? Mallory will take office as mayor on Dec. 1, meaning he’ll have to resign his State Senate seat. His replacement at the Statehouse will be determined by Mallory’s fellow Democratic Senators, who’ll consider two nominees from the Hamilton County Democratic Party along with anyone else they (and Mallory) suggest.

An aide to Mallory said the legislature usually is in recess in December — although they met up until Christmas last year — so a replacement won’t need to be in place until the first of the year. The aide wouldn’t reveal if potential names had been discussed yet.

· Why is it 1984 again in Ohio? George Orwell’s novel 1984 is famous for its description of a totalitarian state that relies on “newspeak” to confuse and subjugate citizens, and the big-money opponents of Issues 2-5 were good students of the concept. Under the direction of the ad firm that came up with the truth-bending Swift Boat Veterans commercials in last year’s presidential campaign, the anti-reform group — funded by Carl Lindner and other Republican Party heavy hitters — successfully convinced voters that campaign finance reform was “back-room dirty dealing” and the scandal-ridden status quo “keeps government accountable.”

A truism in politics is that, when confused over complicated ballot issues, voters tend to choose to do the least harm and keep things as they are. Thus the Republicans’ efforts to get voters to think the current pay-for-play election system in Ohio is preferable to reform. Sadly, it worked.

This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2005.