The worst kept secret of this Mayoral campaign is that John Cranley is the candidate of the Republicans and the Tea Party. Cranley has a long tradition of getting backing from Republicans and he is the 'wink candidate' for the Right Wing. The Hamilton County GOP knows that the Republican endorsement will hurt with the Smitherman vote, the third and unpredictable leg of Cranley's trilateral hope to win. So they wink at him, letting the Republicans in the City know who to vote for, but avoiding giving the media the means even an editor can't deny to label Cranley the Republican candidate and thus hurting his chances to get elected.
John Cranley's hopes for winning are based on deception, ignorance and Republican money. That's the kind of character who creates a public revenue source and then joins a private company to take advantage of that public money to finance a private development. Yeah, we call that a shady character.