Some rank-and-file Democrats — including a few Democratic candidates for Cincinnati City Council — are angry with first-time contender Laure Quinlivan’s campaigning tactics, and are letting the party’s chairman know.
Quinlivan’s detractors dislike her public criticism of other Democratic incumbents on council, as well as her recommendation for voters to use “bullet voting” so their choices have more impact.—-
Bullet voting entails only using some of the nine votes available to people in Cincinnati’s at-large race for City Council. By using the practice, observers say no “spillover votes” are cast for candidates that voters feel less strongly about, which tend to benefit incumbents.
In a recent mass e-mail publicizing her latest TV commercial sent to voters, Quinlivan wrote, “Voting tip: vote for only candidate(s) you really want on council. If you use all 9 votes, incumbents get reelected.”
Critics said it continues a pattern of Quinlivan making negative comments about the party’s other candidates.
They cite a Cincy Chic article in which she criticized fellow candidates Nicholas Hollan and Tony Fischer for receiving endorsements from the local AFL-CIO endorse when she didn’t. Quinlivan later got the endorsement after the union unendorsed Democratic incumbent Jeff Berding.
Also, they point to a recent Cincinnati Enquirer profile where Quinlivan was quoted as saying, “I looked at the people who were being considered and I was disappointed at the list; it was just people who had run for this office or that office before. I knew I had just as much qualifications to run for council as any of them, so I decided to do it.”
She made a similar remark for a CityBeat article.
Furthering their anger is a mass e-mail sent Sunday to local Democrats from party chairman Tim Burke. Referring to Quinlivan’s commercial, Burke wrote, “It describes her remarkable history of accomplishments as an investigative reporter. She is running a terrifically energetic campaign and would be a great asset on City Council.”
Quinlivan is a former reporter for WCPO-TV (Channel 9), where she headed the I-Team. She was fired in November 2007, and is now suing her former employer for discrimination.
