Thursday, November 04, 1999
Luken still has magic
For Reece, hard work got results
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
He may have been gone from City Hall politics for a decade, but Cincinnati's once and future mayor, Democrat Charlie Luken, did not miss a beat in Tuesday's election.
Mr. Luken's showing as the top vote-getter in Tuesday's City Council election was a mirror image of the last time he was on a council ballot — in 1989, when 63 percent of those who went to the polls gave him a vote.
Tuesday, 63 percent of the 66,901 who voted in Cincinnati picked him again.
Some Democratic Party leaders had worried that the strong numbers that Mr. Luken used to get in the African-American neighborhoods in the 1980s would drop off this year, but he finished in the top five in all of them and led the ticket in some parts of the black community.
But the key to Mr. Luken's success, as in the 1980s, was his ability to draw Republican votes.
Mr. Luken finished first in some of the most heavily Republican parts of the city — neighborhoods like Covedale, Westwood and Price Hill.
The former mayor, congressman and TV news anchor
was the first-place finisher in an astonishing 19 of the city's 26 wards.
The only other candidates to finish first in individual wards were Democratic incumbent Minette Cooper, who won in four predominantly black wards; Democrat Todd Portune, who won in Mohawk/Clifton Heights; Democratic challenger Alicia Reece, who ran first in Evanston; and Charterite incumbent Jim Tarbell, who was the first choice of Mount Lookout voters.
While Mr. Luken's dominance of the 20-candidate field was a case of political deja vu, the election of Ms. Reece, a 28-year-old political newcomer who finished a strong fifth, had even her fellow Democrats scratching their heads in wonder.
Ms. Reece, a WCIN radio producer and businesswoman from Bond Hill, emerged from her first run for political office as perhaps the strongest African-American in city politics.
Ms. Cooper was expected to be the leading vote-getter in Cincinnati's heavily African-American wards, but Ms. Reece ended up running neck-and-neck with Ms. Cooper among black voters, finishing first in Ward 3 (Evanston).
Ms. Reece also ran strong in areas of the city that are considered “swing” wards. She ran fourth in Pleasant Ridge and sixth in Ward 23 (College Hill and Mount Airy).
With a campaign budget of about $60,000, Ms. Reece spent only a fraction of what was spent by the other first-time candidate who won Tuesday, Republican Pat DeWine, who spent about six times that much and finished just behind Ms. Reece.
Ms. Reece said her win was the result of “strong grass-roots organizing. We just worked hard.”
Every week since March, Ms. Reece spent time with campaign volunteers standing at busy intersections in strategically selected neighborhoods, waving at motorists and talking to voters.
“We said we would live or die by the street corner approach,” Ms. Reece said.
Her TV advertising was minimal, but, on black-oriented radio stations, her campaign ran a series of ads with testimonials from Jesse Jackson, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, former Councilwoman Marian Spencer and the pastor of Ms. Reece's church.
Hamilton County Democratic Party Co-chair Tim Burke said part of the reason Ms. Reece won was that “she impressed everyone she met. She could walk into the newspaper editorial boards and knock everybody's socks off.”
Ms. Reece's low-budget, grass roots campaign was ideally suited to a low turnout election like the one held Tuesday, said Gene Beaupre, a Xavier University political scientist.
“The people who took the time to vote were pretty serious voters; and they had seen her on a street corner or heard her at a community council,” Mr. Beaupre said. “She got her name out there.”
While Democrats were celebrating Ms. Reece's surprise win Tuesday night, Republicans were suffering the loss of their best chance in 30 years for a majority on the nine-member council.
One of the GOP's three incumbents, Jeanette Cissell, was defeated, finishing 10th, while challenger Diane Goldsmith, who many believed had a strong chance, came in 11th.
A close look at the election results shows that both Mrs. Cissell and Ms. Goldsmith suffered from a lack of support in the most heavily Republican areas of the city, mostly on Cincinnati's west side.
Mrs. Cissell ran only sixth in heavily Republican areas like Ward 25 (Covedale) and Ward 26 (Westwood), and disappeared from the top nine in many east-side Democratic wards. Ms. Goldsmith barely made it in the top nine in areas like Covedale and Westwood.
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