In a debate one week before the most important election in his life — and, possibly, the city's history — Charlie Luken was allowed a three-minute closing statement.

Mayor Charlie Luken (right) talks with his father, Tom, in council chambers Thursday. The elder Luken was a Cincinnati councilman and mayor and a congressman. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        It was perhaps his last message to voters before Election Day. But he didn't show off his intricate knowledge of City Hall, or tell his vision for the city, or give his political resume.

        Instead, Mr. Luken, 50, talked about his Cincinnati roots.

        “When I was 12, I caddied at Cincinnati Country Club and I'd take the $2 or so I made and go over to Avon Field — I'd hitch a ride or bum a ride — and play golf.

        “I went to Purcell. I worked in a graveyard. I worked in a warehouse. I worked in a concrete plant.

        “I won a scholarship to Notre Dame. It wasn't enough to pay the full freight. My parents sacrificed to send me there — not because we were poor, but because there were eight of us. I came back and went to UC Law School, and I've always been proud to be a Cavalier, a Fighting Irishman and a Bearcat.”

        It was quintessentially Cincinnati. Middle America. Middle Class. Mundane. Catholic.

        And it was delivered in a quintessential Luken way. He pointed as if motioning toward Purcell, and the golf course. He spoke in short sentences, off-the-cuff.

        The point, he said later, was that these early experiences shape who we are.

        Mr. Luken has been shaped by his father, a tough, argumentative — and some would say abrasive — Democrat who served on City Council and in Congress. He was shaped by his mother, Shirley, the one Luken that everyone likes.

        He was shaped by the family's staunchly Democratic, civil rights background — by his father's trip to Selma, Ala., and the oft-told story of how the 9-year-old Charlie helped campaign for John F. Kennedy in Madeira only to have a man throw his fliers in a pile of burning leaves.

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        “I think Charlie is very much a reflection of what we view as Cincinnati,” said former Mayor Jerry Springer, a friend. “He's never going to be very out of step with the mainstream — to the left or to the right of it.

        “But if Cincinnati is out of step with the times, then he's going to pay for that. And that's the question of April. Did the times catch up with Cincinnati?”

First run for office

        Charlie Luken began his political life in 1979, running to succeed his uncle on City Council.

        He ran on familiar issues: against the influx of subsidized housing in Westwood, for better city services such as street-cleaning. And he pushed for direct election of the mayor.

        He finished just out of the running, losing by 167 votes.

        But he won in 1981, and then again in 1983 and 1985.

        And although he was elected mayor by City Council in 1984, the defining moment came in 1985, when Mr. Luken would show his independent streak and move out of his father's shadow.

        The 1985 election left City Council split, with four Democrats, four Republicans and a Charterite. The practice had been for Democrats and Charterites to form a majority coalition, which would then choose a mayor from among their ranks.

        But in 1985, Mr. Luken reached across party lines to form a conservative coalition with Democrat Jim Cissell and Republicans Ken Blackwell, John Mirlisena and Steve Chabot.

        The majority soon became known as the “Gang of Five.” Guy Guckenberger, a liberal Republican, called it the “unholy coalition.”

        “It was awful. The first day wasn't a swearing-in, it was a swearing at,” Mr. Luken said this week.

        Still, he has no regrets about crossing party lines to form alliances. He said those two years were among the most effective in City Council's history.

        “I really thought it was good government,” he said. “I put the city above the party.”
       

"Battle of Conservatives'

        When Mr. Luken ran to succeed his father in Congress in 1990, he ran against one of his former allies — Mr. Blackwell.

        It was dubbed a “Battle of the Conservatives.” Mr. Luken ran so much like a Republican, in fact, that Mr. Blackwell kept demanding that his opponent “own up” to being a Democrat.

        It was the only other time Mr. Luken ever ran in a head-to-head race. He once described it as “the worst eight months of his life.”

        That was before this year.

        Mr. Luken won the race, 51 percent to 49 percent.

        Black voters were the decisive factor. Among whites, the two candidates ran even. Among blacks — and running against an African-American opponent — Mr. Luken got 57 percent of the vote.

        Once in Congress, Mr. Luken again differentiated himself from his father with a more conservative voting record.

        On recorded votes, he bucked his party 50 percent of the time. (His father did so only 14 percent of the time in the previous term.)

        He voted to support President Bush in the Persian Gulf War, and he voted to give him fast-track trade authority.

        But whereas the elder Luken started as a conservative to keep his conservative district and started becoming more liberal as the seat became safe, the younger Luken voted conservative because he was conservative.

        “My dad, in his gut, is a pretty liberal guy. I've always considered myself a conservative Democrat.”

        After a single term in Congress, Mr. Luken made the surprise announcement that he would not seek re-election. Some more derisive critics say he came home “with his tail between his legs.”

        “I hear so many things about why I left Congress, and people won't accept the fact that I just didn't like the job,” he said. “It was so unproductive. All those endless debates drove me crazy. I just wanted to get on a plane and come home.”

        Mr. Luken became the news anchor for WLWT-TV. But he didn't exactly succeed Mr. Springer, as many people think.

        In between Mr. Springer and Mr. Luken, Channel 5 filled in with a couple of temporary anchors: Jim Watkins and a young reporter named Courtis Fuller.

        Six years later, Mr. Luken left the anchor desk and a comfortable $200,000-plus salary to go back to politics.

        He easily became the top vote-getter — elected mayor for the last time under the top vote-getter system.

        He got divorced, ending a long and somewhat high-profile separation, and bought an 8-year-old, $128,500 tax-abated row house in the West End.

        He also returned to a job with Keating, Muething & Klekamp, an old-guard Republican law firm, working as an economic development consultant for other cities.

        It was a comfortable role for Mr. Luken, who had been mayor for seven years.

        But then — just as he appeared to be breezing toward a nearly uncontested bid to become the city's first directly elected, stronger mayor in 76 years — April happened.

        Officer Stephen Roach shot Timothy Thomas in a dark alley, and riots erupted.

        Mr. Luken called a curfew, but it was too late.
       

Resignation demanded

        The Fraternal Order of Police, the Black Panthers and a white separatist group all demanded his resignation.

        “One of the hardest things about this year for me has been the criticism I've gotten from many African-Americans. And I've always felt bad about that — first because I think I've been fair and sympathetic, and second because I've always had their support before,” he said.

        He said he does not see April as a defining moment in his political career, and he has refused to frame the election as a referendum on his performance in April.

        Mr. Luken said he's become more optimistic about his chances for re-election — and the city's future — in recent weeks.

        And when a judge acquitted Officer Roach and unrest again broke out in Over-the-Rhine, Mr. Luken looked confident and somewhat more relaxed as he called a curfew.

        Though he looks like he's aged 10 years in the last two, he's become more like the Charlie Luken of old.

        Publicly, he shows the polish that comes with 20 years of politics and television news. He's as comfortable at a west side church festival as he is in a corporate boardroom.

        Privately, he can be short-tempered, impatient and profane. He can be quick to grind an ax and just as quick to bury it.

        But he's also devoted to his three children — Sam, 24; Lauren, 22; and Molly, 18. Sam and Lauren have worked on the campaign; Molly is at the University of Dayton.

        Mr. Luken said he hopes to serve as the city's first strong mayor for one more term — maybe two — and then hang it up.

        “If I'm 60 and still on the campaign trail, shoot me,” he said.

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