Election Night Parties!

Campaigns like to celebrate or commiserate their efforts on election night.  Here's a list where candidates and their campaign staff and supports plan on meeting up:

Chris Smitherman - Jim and Jacks on the River (3456 River Road)
Henry Frondorf - West Side Brewing
Yvette Simpson  - Queen City Radio
Tamaya Dennard - The Vestry
Michelle Dillingham - Pendleton Arts Center
Mike Moroski - Arnold's
Hamilton County Republican Party - The Capital Grille
David Mann - The Woodburn Brewery
Brian Garry - Tillie’s Lounge
P.G. Sittenfeld- Eighth & English (O’Bryonville)
Chris Seelbach - Milton's
Derek Bauman - Milton's
Charter Committee - Arnold's
John Cranley - Americano

If there are more, I'll update as I find out about them.

Solid Analysis on the Mayor's Race from Chris Wetterich

There have been no polls made public, but the Business Courier's Chris Wetterich has an a very solid analysis of the mayor's race.

Who wins will depend on turnout.  There is no magic to know the victors.  The only signs that point to Cranley having fear are:

1. No internal polls have been reported, if they were good for Cranley we would have been hearing about them.
2. Cranley has gone full born negative.  His media blitz and campaign supporters are all about tearing down Simpson and not delivering a positive message about Cranley.  Not a good sign.

This could mean it is a dead heat and the negative attacks make a marginal difference.  These negative attacks I believe have had a marginal effect, but only keeping some voters at home on election day.

Cranley will get the vast majority of the Republican votes.  His key question is will they turn out.  His other concerns are if he keeps enough of the Winburn/Tillery votes and if he's got enough old school loyal Democrats who value the State Party on his side.

Simpson's game rests on two fronts, turn out the vote and attract those spurned by Cranley and his allies.  She should get the majority of the African-American vote, but how big of a percentage will that be?  Will she also get the progressive vote to turn out?

Council Race Heats Up

Only just over a week to go before the election and my mailbox is starting to fill up. I am disappointed seeing the State Democratic party dumping money into the Mayor's race with multiple mailers for Cranley. Even under new leadership they continue to make mistakes. Instead of trying to build a party to win in the upcoming elections, they handpicked candidates they think could have won prior elections they hope repeat in the future.

We are closer to start making some more predictions about the race. Haha! What I really mean is that I am getting closer to making some wild guesses based on conventional wisdom.  Council races are a mix of predictable and surprising.  It should be easy to predict 4 to 6 candidates.  The 4 Democratic incumbents are heavy CW favorites and the 2 Republicans (including Smitherman) have clear advantages.  What holds the 2 Republicans back is the most unpredictable element, voter turnout.  One of the most common CW tropes about Cincinnati elections is that the GOP votes more consistently in off year elections than the Dems.  Therefore the higher the turnout, the better Democratic candidates do.

I have updated my list below creating some new groups and shifting a few candidates around.  Those whom I am giving advantage is based on the campaign and a repeat turnout from 2013.  If turnout rises, look for candidates like Smitherman and Murray to fall and potentially be out of the top 9.

Lock
P.G. Sittenfeld* (D, FOP, PWR endorsed)

Likely
David Mann* (D,C, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Chris Seelbach* (D endorsed)

Some advantage:
Wendell Young* (D endorsed)
Amy Murray* (R,C, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Christopher Smitherman* (R but pretending to be I, FOP, PWR and for some reason G endorsed)
Derek Bauman (C endorsed) (D)
Tamaya Dennard (D,C, PWR endorsed)
Greg Landsman (D, FOP, PWR endorsed)

In the Mix:
Ozie Davis III (D, FOP, PWRendorsed)
Michelle Dillingham (D endorsed)
Leslie Jones (D endorsed)
Jeff Pastor (R, FOP endorsed)
Laure Quinlivan (D)

Outside Chance
Henry Frondorf (C, PWR endorsed) (D)
Seth Maney (R, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Tamie Sullivan (G, FOP endorsed) (R)

Chances Dropping
Tonya Dumas (D)
Manuel Foggie

Also Ran
Erica Black-Johnson (I)
Cristina Burcica (I)
Brian Garry (G endorsed) (D)
Kelli Prather (D)
Dadrien Washington (Write-In)


Candidate Twitter List: I have created a list of candidates on Twitter. Here is the actual list Twitter handles for the candidates.

Key
* = Incumbent
D= Democratic Party
R= Republican Party
C= Charter Committee (aka Charter Party)
G= Green Party
I= Independent
FOP= Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police (Union) Endorsement
PWR = Partnership of Westside Residence PAC Endorsement

Illegally Placed or Legally Placed Political Signs?

Saw this on twitter this morning from Republican City Council candidate Seth Maney.

#GOPsigns in good company with @JudgeKissinger @ElectAmyMurray #sethmaney pic.twitter.com/9usrUnBh5E

— Seth Maney (@SethManey) October 15, 2017

The problem I have are the political signs along the side of the road.

Picture from Seth Maney Twitter post 10-16-2017

If that land is private land, I hope they got permission to do that. If that is public land that is not right and should be illegal and subject to a fine. Hamilton County Republicans won't let it come to a fine. They won't do anything because they protect their own.

If this was a Democratic candidate making a clear rookie mistake of publishing a picture of campaign violations, you can be sure it would be fodder for 'PX' in the Enquirer the next issue, including a veiled threat to charge a crime from the GOP county prosecutor. Instead, we'll get silence of this minor issue that goes on (both sides place signs all over the place) every year. It is just galling that a candidate has someone operating the campgin twitter account that green, but other than this tired old blogger, no one will point out that incompetence. Instead, the small band of Republicans will vote for the unknown candidate because he has a Republican Party Endorsement. Hell, the local FOP endorsed the guy with no track record on anything police or public safety related, but ignored a candidate who recently was forced to retire as a police officer because of an injury he received on the job and who has worked very hard for police officers, especially for the family of slain Cincinnati Police Officer Sonny Kim.

To make sure people are clear, the real issue is not about the signs.  This stuff happens.  Campaign volunteers don't know what they are doing and do this all the time.  The same person likely placed all three.  If it was the land owner, all is well, but likely, since they are placed well so all are seen, it was done by a campaign volunteer with a little bit of knowledge.  Some campaigns may even do this intentionally, with full knowledge it is wrong, but everyone on the campaigns turn a blind eye to it, as long as their party is Republican.

Instead the issue is that someone tweeted a picture of this.  I replied with a question on twitter on this.  I probably won't get a response.  No seasoned candidate would give two fucks about the signs, unless they could get some good PR about it.  It is an indication of a candidate or campaign not prepared.  Maney got into this late and I don't know how much organization backing he has, but this incident indicates that they make big mistakes like this.  Twitter mistakes run in the party.

Cranley Administration Cancels Riverfront Bike Trail and Fails to Notify Anyone

In the Cincinnati Enquirer's article: Ohio River bike trail hits dead end as money woes force Cincinnati out you don't see Mayor John Cranley's name, but you should. Former Mayor Mallory agreed to the project and if was still the Mayor the article would have at least included a phrase saying the Mayor's office had no comment.  That would be enough to connect the Mayor to the issue.  Instead the transportation and planning director was thrown under the bus (sorry) for this in-action.

The Anderson Township trustee who is prominently quoted in the article, was not given a quote calling anyone out, just one calling out the city in general for failing to notify anyone they are pulling out of the project and losing the Federal funds that were to be included with it.  The reporter should have gotten a comment from Cranley's office, even if they refereed them to the City Manager or the Transportation Department.  This failure rests at Cranley's feet and in case anyone forgot, WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A MAYORAL CAMPAIGN.  This should be another scandal for Cranley.  He and his administration failed and the Enquirer should have reported that, not let their political team deal with it and likely let it pass, unoticed

The whole Wasson way project is funded and was a pet project of CRANLEY and the article mentioned this, but didn't include Cranley's name with it.  He was it's champion.  It ran through the heart of his East side political support.  Cranley supports bike trails but let this one fail, but funded another.  The story damn near writes itself. Cranley favors pet Eastside project over regional project that could attract more revenue.  If Cranley ever runs for Congress in the 2nd district, the riverfront trail he 'Crancelled' runs through suburban areas of the 2nd district and I am sure those voters in Anderson Township will blame a Conservative Democratic Mayor for doing what a Republican would do.

Local politics and its media coverage are both like a bike trip along the riverfront, at a certain point it hits a dirt path and stops.

No Westside Increases to Parking Meter Rates, Only Up in Central and Eastern Neighborhoods

This has Cranley's finger prints on it. The City is raising parking meter rates this month on selective neighborhoods:

Clifton
Corryville
The Heights
CUF
East Walnut Hills
Hyde Park
Mount Lookout
Northside
Oakley
College Hill
O'Bryonville
Pleasant Ridge
Walnut Hills
Downtown
Over-the-Rhine

There is already excessive enforcement of parking in Downtown and mos especially in OTR, now only certain neighborhoods get the parking rate increase. This does not appear to be an equitable distribution of the tax burden. The GOP should be pissed, unless you are a GOP living in Mt. Washington, Price Hill, Westwood, Columbia-Tusculum, or Saylor Park, to name a few GOP strongholds.

Sept 4th Update to the 2017 City of Cincinnati Council Candidates

Today is Labor Day, the traditional start of the full campaign season.  Today I am also posting what should be the finalized candidate list.  Four candidates that turned in signatures did not have them verified and failed to make the ballot.  One new write in candidate was added on.  Write in candidates have a much lower threshold to meet, but they don't have their name on the ballot.  If a voter writes them in, they will be counted.  If a voter writes in anyone else not on the ballot, that vote will not count.

Now we get into who might win.  Based on my analysis this year, there are currently four candidates likely to win. That leaves fives seats really up for grabs.  This analysis is based on a key element: enthusiasm is higher with the  Democratic base.  Getting out your base is a requirement for Council wins.  With a wide field of Dems (endorsed and not) that puts a second requirement of being a known credible candidate.  Incumbents generally get that automatically.  Endorsements, money, media attention, and name recognition make up the other common ways of being credible.  I have never seen a non-credible candidate win.

I've added referenced to a couple of conservative leaning endorsement groups, the FOP and PWR PAC, that announced their endorsements recently.

Lock
P.G. Sittenfeld* (D, FOP, PWR endorsed)

Likely
David Mann* (D,C, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Chris Seelbach* (D endorsed)
Wendell Young* (D endorsed)

In the Mix:
Derek Bauman (C endorsed) (D)
Ozie Davis III (D, FOP, PWRendorsed)
Tamaya Dennard (D,C, PWR endorsed)
Michelle Dillingham (D endorsed)
Leslie Jones (D endorsed)
Greg Landsman (D, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Amy Murray* (R,C, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Jeff Pastor (R, FOP endorsed)
Laure Quinlivan (D)
Christopher Smitherman* (R but pretending to be I, FOP, PWR and for some reason G endorsed)


Outside Chance
Tonya Dumas (D)
Manuel Foggie
Henry Frondorf (C, PWR endorsed) (D)
Seth Maney (R, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Tamie Sullivan (G, FOP endorsed) (R)

Also Ran
Erica Black-Johnson (I)
Cristina Burcica (I)
Brian Garry (G endorsed) (D)
Kelli Prather (D)
Dadrien Washington (Write-In)


Candidate Twitter List: I have created a list of candidates on Twitter. Here is the actual list Twitter handles for the candidates.

Key
* = Incumbent
D= Democratic Party
R= Republican Party
C= Charter Committee (aka Charter Party)
G= Green Party
I= Independent
FOP= Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police (Union) Endorsement
PWR = Partnership of Westside Residence PAC Endorsement