Sunday, November 07, 1999
GOP majority on city council: fading mirage
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
When it comes to Cincinnati City Council elections, they dream big down at Republican Party headquarters. The problem is, though, those darn voters are always there to wake them up.
This council election was supposed to be the Republicans' best hope of winning a majority on Cincinnati City Council in 30 years, but once again, the voters made the GOP the minority party in city politics.
Odds are, they will stay that way for a long time.
For the last year or so, Republican Party leaders had a sweet dream dancing in their heads each night, which went like this:
Two seats were open on council in 1999, thanks to the term limits law (which, need we remind you, was a Republican production). Three Republican incumbents would be up for re-election — Phil Heimlich, Charlie Winburn and Jeanette Cissell.
All three would be re-elected, and two GOP challengers would win — Pat DeWine, because he has a famous name and more money than most Third World armies, and Diane Goldsmith, because she came close the last time and just needed a higher profile to win.
So, while Mr. DeWine won, Mrs. Cissell lost, mainly because the GOP's core voters abandoned her. Ms. Goldsmith failed mainly because she couldn't warm up to those same voters.
And the party alignment at City Hall remained the same as it was before the election — five Democrats, three Republicans and a Charterite.
The GOP leadership didn't seem to particularly care one way or the other whether Democrat Charlie Luken won the mayor's job. It has been proven, after all, that a determined majority can pretty much ignore a popular Democratic mayor. Ask Roxanne Qualls.
One problem both the GOP and the Democrats had to contend with is the top vote-getter system for electing the mayor, which has been around 12 years and will finally be gone two years from now, when there is a direct election for mayor.
The Republicans blew any chance they had of picking up the mayor's office because Mr. Winburn and Mr. Heimlich spent most of the campaign season jamming elbows into each other's ribs and dividing the Republican faithful into Heimlich and Winburn camps.
It made one wonder what good a Republican majority on Cincinnati City Council would have been to the party and its allies in the business community, given the bad blood between the Heimlich and Winburn camps.
A similar act took place on the Democratic side, where Democratic incumbent Todd Portune went way out of the basepath in trying to up-end Mr. Luken and get to the mayor's office himself.
Between now and Dec. 1, when the new council is sworn in, the five Democrats elected Tuesday will have to come up with a reorganization plan, divvying up committee assignments and the like. They all signed a pre-election pledge to work together, but it hard to imagine that the Democratic caucus meetings between now and Dec. 1 will be very pleasant affairs.
But the Democrats have had a majority through the last three elections and have failed to do anything with it. The Republicans, on the other hand, believed this was their chance. They were wrong.
Worse yet for the Republicans, in 2001 the Grim Reaper of term limits that seemed like such a good idea to the GOP eight years ago will come for Mr. Heimlich and Mr. Winburn, who can keep their parking spaces outside City Hall only by running in the separate election for mayor.
Indeed they might.
The result would be a nonpartisan primary for mayor in which two Republican candidates maul each other, split the vote and guarantee that Charlie Luken will be mayor well into the next century.
Mr. Winburn, that shrinking violet, announced humbly on election night that, with his third-place finish, he considers himself to be the “hope” and “future” of the Republican Party in Cincinnati.
Somehow, we don't think many down at GOP headquarters are consoled by that.
Howard Wilkinson's column runs Sundays. Call him at 768-8388 or e-mail at hwilkinson@enquirer.com
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