Winburn Looks to Stay in Public Eye

Here’s how the public can tell that last week’s press conference about adult services ads in CityBeat had more to do with politics than with any genuine concern for women who might be mistreated. Let’s follow the trail.

The high-profile June 9 press conference at City Hall was organized by former Cincinnati City Councilman and failed mayoral candidate Charlie Winburn, a conservative Republican preacher who also bills himself as an exorcist. Winburn was able to use space at City Hall for the media spectacle by getting current Councilman Chris Monzel, a fellow Republican, to make the request for him.

Winburn then moderated the press conference that featured the increasingly marginalized Citizens for Community Values (CCV), which has stumbled badly and lost clout in the past few years since failing in most of its recent battles against pornography and being shunned by John McCain’s presidential campaign.

As a result, CCV got to use taxpayer-funded space for its press conference. Because CCV’s letter demanding that CityBeat pull its adult ads was signed by Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. and Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis — and with the prime City Hall locale as a backdrop — the whole sordid affair was given the mark of official sanction.

In his editorial last week (“Publicity Stunt Targets CityBeat,” issue of June 11) John Fox aptly dissected the gaps in CCV’s logic about the effect — if any — pulling the ads would have on alleged prostitution around casinos in southeastern Indiana. Aside from the substantive issue, though, there remain important questions about the press conference’s genesis.

Since leaving city council due to term limits in 2000, Winburn has twice tried unsuccessfully to return to public office.

The first time, he finished a distant third in the 2005 mayoral primary, capturing just 21 percent of the vote. Last year he fared better, placing 10th in an effort to return to the nine-member city council. Winburn lost to Monzel, the ninth-place finisher, by 1,500 votes.

With three current council members facing term limits in 2009, Winburn could be a shoo-in if he decides to run next year, as most political observers expect. And Monzel owes him some favors: It was Winburn who had Monzel appointed to his seat when the preacher left eight years ago.

Winburn has spent some of that free time performing exorcisms in which he’s allegedly purged demons from possessed people and then — conveniently — distributed photocopied bio sheets describing the individual demon he just cast out, which he just happened to have handy.

When Winburn isn’t selling salvation at his College Hill church, he keeps busy selling himself to the public — and he occasionally changes the packaging. Now a conservative Republican, Winburn once was a Democrat and worked for then-Gov. Dick Celeste in the 1980s, when Dems had a hold on most state offices. Once the Reagan Revolution reached Ohio, Charlie saw the handwriting on the wall and was born again politically. Amen!

As Winburn positions himself for another run, it’s good to remember his unique views about politics and women. He’s written to his flock that only Christians should be allowed to hold elective office and that a wife “must be taught what her boundaries are.”

Lord help us.

This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2008.