Campaigning 101 - An Unforced Error From the Cranley Camp

When your voting base consists of Westside Democrats and city Republicans, don't put the cellphone number of a non-local born millennial campaign staffer on a mailer for your campaign's launch event.  Why, you ask?  Well, Westside Democrats and City Republicans are less likely to be millennials and understand that cell phone numbers travel with people when they move to town.  That West Price Hill Boomer who has donated to every Cranley campaign is going to be skeptical about calling a Detroit phone number to RSVP for an event.

Also, if anyone is going to this event please take note of the location, the Incline Theater.  That theater is owned by a charitable non-profit and by rule can't be political, so they need to have a separation.  Therefore a few issues come up:

1. This better be a rental of the space by the Cranley campaign that better have an expense entry on their campaign finance reports.
2. The Theater better be open to all candidates for event space rental, not just Cranley or his allies.
3. If the Cranley campaign does more than promotion of the candidate and directly solicit campaign contributions that makes this a fundraiser.  The ethical stance of having a Cranley fundraiser at a charity owned building is not good. It is even worse when you understand that Cranley personally profited from the development of the entire Incline District through a project that included public funds.

If anyone does attended the event and wants to reach out, let me know via email cincyblog@aol.com.

What's Next After the Dennison Fight?

The anti-urbanist forces won a victory with a recent ruling on a last minute court cases, removing the last remotely hopeful effort to block the demolition of the historic Dennison Building.  Some futile efforts are still hanging on to stage protests that will not change minds and may instead turn some people against efforts to preserve the history of the urban core of Cincinnati.  I applaud those who fought a long and passionate fight to save the building, but there comes a time when you must save your strength and channel it towards a new cause or effort that has a real hope of success.

What are those new causes?  This is an election year, so most candidates for Mayor or Council will have issues or causes they are championing.  Most of those causes will best be addressed by supporting that candidate, who then when elected would have power to work toward that cause.

Outside of the candidates, are there other grassroots efforts that can bring out the same passionate people to support?

At this point I don't know of any going on locally, so that leads to the real question: Do you use your time and resources to work with candidates or wait and work independently?  I believe that if you don't have a specific cause with a detailed achievable goal, the only way to affect change is by working with candidates for office.  Waiting for the next cause to come along is not going to help the community. Finding a candidate or candidates to give your time and money to the best way to spend that passion now. I think most of those who were working to save the Dennison understand this and will channel their effort accordingly.  I hope everyone else can see the wisdom in this thinking and find a new way to move the ball down the field.

Hey Chabot, What Federal Funding?

Steve Chabot is in a tizzy about the City of Cincinnati declaring itself a 'Sanctuary City.' He's not sure the City will escape penalty. That's of course just political bullshit.

Immigration was made into a massive political football by Trump and the Republicans. It is a minor issue that has been artificially inflated into an important issue because it creates fear and hate which were effective motivators to get people to vote for Trump and Republicans.

Another surprise here, all of the sudden Chabot wants local officials to do his job and that of Federal officials. He and Trump and their brownshirts (See Richard Jones in Butler County) are foaming at the mouth to round people up they fear and hate, instead of actually effectively fighting crime and providing national security.

Trump and his minions are now so concerned about how local governments enforce laws on immigration, but don't care about any other Federal law. There is an entire constitution that is far more important for the Cincinnati Police to worry about. The next time the Treasury Secretary is in town, Cincinnati Police should inforce federal law and arrest him for his actions while working for Goldman Sachs. Also I am sure Chabot would support the CPD enforcing all Federal Law. I'd also like to have the 14th and 15th Amendment enforced in Cincinnati with the fair redrawing of the 1st Congressional District to be entirely in Hamilton County and included all of the City of Cincinnati, instead of Racial motivated Gerrymandered district Chabot "represents." I'll be looking for that fancy email blast covering the establishment of fair and equal congressional redistricting in Ohio.

Finally, why is Chabot worried about federal funding Trump may use to punish Cincinnati for not being loyal fascists?  Does Chabot just assume Cincinnati gets funding?  I ask that because he has done nothing over the last 20 plus years he has been in office to bring federal dollars to Cincinnati, so we don't have much to loose.  If Trump tries using the Brent Spence Bridge, that will be funny because Kentucky owns that and the current governor there is a Trump supporter. Chabot needs to get Cincinnati some federal funding before he can worry about Cincinnati losing it.

No More Fun From City’s Commissioner of Fun

For an unknown reason back in 2014, Mayor John Cranley created a "Commissioner of Fun" role for the City of Cincinnati and he picked former radio station owner Frank Wood Jr, a man in his 70's, to be that "Commissioner of Fun."

WCPO is reporting that the City is stating there are no more fun events coming from the Commissioner.  Frank Wood has stepped down and admits that this special position was a failure.  He believe it lacked staff to help him.   To me that seems like a cop-out.  Instead the failure should land squarely at Cranley's feet.  Cranley created this thing and allowed a tiny factional amount of money to be spent on it.  He incorrectly looked back to his youth and WEBN radio and thought Frank Wood did stuff magically.  No, it took money.  Having a drunk fest every Labor Day weekend along the river didn't just happen with access to the City Hall copy machine.  It took money. Also Cranley doesn't get is that the craziness of Riverfest Cranley knew ended 25 years ago.

This idea was pointless.  It was Cranley's vain attempt to appear cool, while not actually doing anything and having something he can point to when it fails. I am pointing at Cranley, so he can forget about letting this slide without notice.  Also, I am not sorry to tell John that there is nothing he can do, ever, to be cool.  I know uncool things very well and John Cranley is the modern day prototype.

WCPO is Reporting 70 Arrested at OU Protest

Based on the article Ohio University officials over reacted to a peaceful event and have now invited violent protest instead of peaceful efforts. In this climate most police forces are giving protesters a chance to blow off steam when they don't do anything violent. Some thick-skulled official at OU instead wanted to make a statement. OU is not the place to do that. OU riots when the bars close early on daylight savings weekend. Myopic people far too often just make things worse.

From the Enquirer: Chabot posts image from anti-Semitic site

I am not going to comment on this, just let the Enquirer story speak for itself: Chabot posts image from anti-Semitic site.

Bigotry and Veiled Racism From an Enquirer Guest Column

Anderson Townshop Trump supporter Marilyn Mackenzie wrote a column for the Enquirer and she comes across like a thoughtful bigot and veiled racist. She doesn't like that some groups don't want to instantly adopt her suburbanite way of life and instead cling to their native culture. She invokes growing up as a kid and getting lots of varied foods, but getting along with the different white ethnic groups.

Her ignorance of the past is amaxing. She seems to forget how these ethnic groups were treated by white nativist Americans. The Irish, Germans, Italians, Jews, and Greeks are all examples of groups that held on to their cultures after immigrating to the United States and were discriminated against because of their religion, their culture, and how they looked. It took decades for these groups to be accepted by the majority white culture. Some of them still are not accepted in all areas (Nazi signs on Jewish colleges as an example).

That leads me to a food I grew up with, tacos. I've been eating Tex-Mex food for as long as I remember. Yet, Trump and his followers have attached Mexicans for everything and Hispanics and Latinos overall. Hispanics were here before the English speakers came here and you want them to melt into your pot? We are part of their pot, but you wan to kick out any reminder that someone brown was here before.

Racism, just plain old racism. Cultural bigotry at the max, but racism is the core of this column.