By Larry Durstin
For a variety of reasons, Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald’s chances of winning the governorship next year have always appeared to be between slim and none. But with the seeming unwillingness of many of the county’s black leaders to support FitzGerald, slim – as the saying goes – just left town.
In the past quarter century, the Democrats have been able to win the Ohio governorship only once, in 2006, when Ted Strickland defeated the terminally inept Ken Blackwell. That was a mid-term election in which President George W. Bush was in the midst of an unpopular second term and there was tremendous energy among Dems to turn out and set the stage for 2008. In 2014 the opposite will be true, with Barack Obama’s popularity likely to be quite low, leaving most of the energy to the Republican side where their voters will storm the polls to make a statement about Obama in general and Democrats on the ballot in particular.
Even if he were a strong candidate with broad and deep support, FitzGerald would have an extremely difficult time getting elected. But FitzGerald is not a particularly strong candidate and his support does not even fit into the “mile wide and inch deep” level that is often used to disparage candidates’ popularity.
The former Lakewood mayor was able to parlay his background in the FBI and his work as a prosecutor to win the county executive election in 2010 in a contest that emphasized cleaning up the sleaze of the Dimora/Russo regime. Well, political corruption will not be an issue in the governor’s race, nor will FitzGerald have the benefit of the incredibly weak field (Matt Dolan, Ken Lanci, good grief) that he toppled three years ago. With the gubernatorial election less than a year away, FitzGerald still has minimal name recognition statewide and isn’t exactly a household word even here in Cuyahoga County.
In order for any Dem to win statewide, the voter turnout in heavily Democratic Cuyahoga County must be high. For example, in 2008 and 2012, county voters cast approximately 650,000 votes, while in 2010 that number was only about 430,000 votes. That 33% drop off was devastating to statewide Democratic candidates such as incumbent governor Ted Strickland, who only lost to Kasich by two points and blamed the low Cuyahoga County turnout for his defeat.
With African Americans consistently supporting Dems at an over 90% clip, FitzGerald desperately needs a massive turnout of black voters in the county to have a shot at winning the governorship. This is especially true against a skilled candidate such as Kasich, a crafty and seasoned pol who – since first being elected to the Ohio Senate in 1978 at the age of 26 and then serving in the U.S. House of Representative for 18 years – has never lost an election. That’s 11 wins and no losses.
But while the cunning Kasich cozies up to Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson and trots out the “I’m a Jack Kemp Republican” line (code for “I like blacks more than the typical GOPer does”), FitzGerald can’t seem to get any love from a number of local African-American leaders. Many have cited FitzGerald’s failure to “reach out” to the black community since his election as a basis for their coolness toward him. Perhaps that’s why Jackson, Congresswoman Marcia Fudge and long-time political advisor Arnold Pinkney, among others, have remained mum on the governor’s race. It’s also perhaps why County Council President C .Ellen Connally – who has battled FitzGerald tooth and nail for the past three years – shows no signs of actively supporting him next fall.
Kasich is most vulnerable in the areas of reproductive rights and labor issues, two constituencies that the Dems must turn out in force in order to have any chance of ousting the generally popular governor in an election in which Republicans are sure to turn out in droves. The unions will be motivated to make Kasich pay for his support of SB 5 and its assault on collective bargaining. Similarly, pro-choice advocates will go after the governor with a vengeance over his signing of legislation which mandates ultrasound tests for pregnant women, defunds Planned Parenthood, makes it harder for abortion providers to work with local hospitals and attacks contraception access.
Another key issue is one that, ideally, FitzGerald could use to pump up minorities in general and African-Americans in particular. Despite his comfy/cozy rhetoric about embracing minority voters, Kasich has backed Secretary of State Jon Husted’s aggressive efforts at voter suppression. Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, who is running against Husted next year, has made voter suppression the centerpiece of her campaign and is a dynamic enough politico to bring plenty of attention to this issue and could generate substantial enthusiasm among minorities to pump up turnout and eventually help FitzGerald, despite the cold shoulder he’s receiving among black leaders at this point.
However, based on history and political common sense, Democrats will struggle to generate significant enough numbers – especially in Cuyahoga County – to make the election even relatively close, let alone put FitzGerald in the governor’s mansion.
Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com