Back in 1999 when Marcia Fudge first ran for mayor of Warrensville Heights, I wrote what, in my opinion, was the best line of my nascent journalistic career — at least to that point. Fudge’s opponent was a guy name Bill Peagues, a black dude that everyone in town knew was running as a proxy for the former white mayor Ray Grabow, who had kept an iron grip on the suburb even after it had turned more than 90% black. The only way he was gotten rid of — booted out of the job — was via the threat of indictment. He’d been caught having the cops illegally use the department’s computers to access information on his political opponents.
Prosecutors, however, allowed him to quietly leave office in lieu of any charges being filed. All of us were of the same opinion: If he had been a black elected official his ass would have ended up UNDER the jail.
But I digress.
I had particular interest in Warrensville Heights since my then-wife and I purchased our first home there on Wickfield back in 1964. I was soon getting involved in city politics to the extent I was about to run for city council at age 21. But I also soon learned that to be successful out in the world, things have to be going smoothly at home; and my home life wasn’t smooth.
So I knew Peagues and didn’t think much of him; he was a kind of embarrassment to the race. While campaigning he was fond of quoting Dr. King, Carl Stokes, and even a Frederick Douglass quote or two thrown in. In the urban weekly I was the editor of at the time I wrote, “Bill Peagues quotes so many dead people it’s hard to know if he’s running for mayor or if he’s running for undertaker.” The line struck like lightening and stuck like glue. I was on him like a cheap suit.
The articles I continued to write helped to make him into a laughingstock, while helping Marcia win handily. It was the first time I truly realized how much power the pen could possess. By the time Marcia got through kicking his ass, he had a hump in his back.
Now my congresswoman, who has served the district admirably in Washington for the past 12 years, is under consideration for the post of Secretary of Agriculture in the incoming Biden administration. She has the backing of South Carolina’s Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking black member of Congress, who, more importantly, is known throughout the country as the current kingmaker. Without Clyburn’s moving, eloquent and ringing endorsement of Biden when he sorely needed a champion, one of the other candidates would most likely have ended up being the Democratic nominee. And the fact is, it’s doubtful if either Sanders or Warren could have beaten tRump; we’d all still be stuck in the nightmare. Thank God we’re not.
So the president-elect — as well as the entire nation — owes Con. Clyburn big-time. He singlehandedly changed the course of history.
But, according to the New York Times’ Jonathon Martin, Marcia’s pathway to being nominated for the position is not completely smooth, in spite of Clyburn’s strong support. There are a couple of names surfacing. Both Heidi Heitkamp, a former senator from North Dakota, and Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who served as agriculture secretary for President Barack Obama, are being brought up for the job primarily because they would maintain the status quo at the department. The primary focus would remain on the farmers, both large and small.
But Secretary of Agriculture Fudge would refocus the department’s efforts towards the needs of urban areas and the expanding of programs that solve poverty and hunger issues in this country. I could see her even focusing the department’s attention on the scourge of homelessness, which is an international embarrassment we can’t seem to solve, considering there’s not one homeless person in all of Russia.
What tips the scale in Marcia’s direction — besides Clyburn’s endorsement — is the fact both Heitkamp, a former senator from North Dakota, and Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa, are from states that trend more red than blue. However, the farming lobby — which probably isn’t too keen on a black female running the show — is still strong in Washington.
If indeed Marcia is nominated and approved by the Senate, her seat in Congress is probably not going to be filled as smoothly as it was when she took the baton from Stephanie Tubb-Jones without opposition. Perhaps a dozen or more candidates of serious mind will step forth and make their cases as to why we should support them and their vision.
Long considered safe, both in terms of party as well as race, Ohio’s 11th Congressional District has been redrawn with the result being more majority white areas and voters have been added to the district’s roles over the last few years. So, while the district will no doubt remain in the hands of Democrats, that democratic representative won’t necessarily be a person of color as presently the case.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: Marcia’s Replacement”
Timothy Michael O'Neill
Who will replace her in Congress?