Sunday, March 21, 1999
Luken undercuts GOP's optimism
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Somebody just stuffed a potato in the tailpipe at Hamilton County Republican Party headquarters.
A few weeks ago, the Republicans' chances of electing a majority on Cincinnati City Council for the first time in 28 years looked pretty good.
They have three incumbent council members — Charlie Winburn, Phil Heimlich and Jeanette Cissell — busy raising money and running for re-election.
And, with the seats of term-limited Roxanne Qualls and Tyrone Yates up for grabs, they have two challengers who have to be considered serious. One is Pat DeWine, a first-time candidate who is the son of U.S. Sen Mike DeWine and will be swimming in campaign cash. The other is Diane Goldsmith, who has been building support since her unsuccessful run two years ago.
Elect those two, and suddenly the Republicans are in charge of a Democratic city.
Then, the Democrats came along with their potato, and there was the distinct possibility that the Republican engine wouldn't turn over.
Charlie Luken — ex-Democratic mayor, ex-congressman and maybe soon to be ex-TV anchorman — may run for council again.
Democratic Party officials are convinced he will. Mr. Luken is keeping his own counsel on the subject. After all, he is still a working journalist, under contract to WLWT (Channel 5).
Mr. Luken has not been on a ballot since 1990, when he ran for and won the congressional seat his father, Thomas Luken, had held for eight terms.
But he has not exactly been out of sight. WLWT may have had its ratings problems lately, but a fair number of Cincinnati voters see him on television most days of the week.
In the 1980s, when Mr. Luken was running at or near the top of the pack in city council races, the Republican Party tried again and again to sweet-talk him into switching parties.
Mr. Luken never had to; he ran campaigns where he raked in Republican money and Democratic votes. He could have run on the Natural Law Party ticket and won a council seat.
All during Mr. Luken's tenure as Channel 5's anchorman — a job once held by another former Cincinnati mayor, Jerry Springer — we had a feeling that some day he might be back in politics. TV news is a funny business; it is not the place to be if job security is your goal. You can walk into work one morning and find out that some media consultant has strapped wires to the heads of a roomful of test subjects and found out that 67 percent of them think your ears are too big. Next thing you know, you're looking for a job.
A career in politics, though, is probably a safe bet, especially if your name is Luken and you live in Cincinnati.
It could be particularly appealing if Cincinnati voters go to the polls May 4 and approve a charter amendment calling for a directly elected mayor with considerable power and a much better paycheck.
That charter amendment wouldn't go into effect until 2001, but — if and when such a mayoral election comes along — Mr. Luken would be a force to be reckoned with.
It is not just Republican Party officials who are in a dither over the prospect of Mr. Luken being a council candidate this year. It is some of the current council members, Republican and Democrat, as well.
If he runs, he would be a serious contender for top vote-getter, which is how we pick our mayors in Cincinnati these days. Republicans such as Mr. Winburn and Democrats like Todd Portune and Minette Cooper, who believe that, in the current field, one of them could be mayor, cannot be welcoming the competition.
Mr. Luken would almost certainly win a council seat at least, and that would make it doubly difficult for the Republicans to win a majority on the nine-member council.
They sincerely wish that Mr. Luken's TV news career is a long and fruitful one.
And, if they're smart, they'll send a mailing out to Cincinnati Republicans begging them to watch the Channel 5 news during the May sweeps week.
Howard Wilkinson's column runs Sundays. E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com
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