Ground zero. Provisional ballots. 527s. Flip-flop Hall of Fame. Reporting for duty.

With 99.44 percent of precincts reporting (and a polling place in Warren County where people may still be waiting in line), it's time to assess the Longest ... Campaign ... Ever.

So, after sleeping on it for a while, we can now pronounce the nominees for the biggest winner and the sorriest loser of Cincinnati's 2004 campaign.

Vote for not more than one. Or write in a candidate on the line below.

But remember this....

Vote or die.

Winners:

J. Kenneth Blackwell

Expectations were so low for the Ohio Secretary of State that he actually appeared "magnanimous" (Wolf Blitzer's word, not ours) by promising to count every vote. That's his job, but the fact he didn't screw it up somehow put his career back on the fast track after a decade stuck on the ground floor of statewide elective office. The old news: Blackwell is the Katherine Harris of 2004. The new news: Blackwell is the Jim Rhodes of 2006. When was the last time Attorney General (and gubernatorial rival) Jim Petro pulled a hat trick of live network television interviews in one night?

John Boehner

If you had to trace an exact place and time where President Bush turned the tide in Ohio, the Sept. 27 rally in West Chester is as good a spot as any. Boehner, the 8th district congressman, introduced the president to a throng of supporters estimated at more than 40,000 in what would become the largest event of either campaign, anywhere. He's got juice in the White House for pushing through the No Child Left Behind Act. And after hitching his wagon to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's now-fallen star in 1994, he's managed to survive and thrive in the Dennis Hastert era. What's next? Majority Leader? Secretary of Education?

Fanon Rucker

Sometimes, even winners are losers and losers are winners. By running as a write-in candidate in a high-profile campaign for county prosecutor, the Democratic lawyer's name recognition went from zero to 100 in two months. Rucker got 50,470 votes in the city of Cincinnati - more than Charlie Luken got for mayor in 2001. Sure, it was a high turnout, but Rucker was a write-in candidate. That kind of performance would make him a near-lock in a race for City Council - if he's interested.

Leslie Ghiz

The former Cincinnati City Council candidate showed up at every Bush-Cheney campaign appearance in Cincinnati, doing the kind of grunt work most aspiring politicians would see as beneath them. That could put her in good stead when Councilman Sam Malone appoints a party-picked replacement for Pat DeWine, who's leaving Cincinnati City Council to take John Dowlin's seat on the county commission. Even her main rival for the council seat, Price Hill Republican Peter G. Witte, calls her "the front runner." "She did a lot in the campaign to deserve it," he said. Another plus for Ghiz: She works for Randy Freking, the employment lawyer who has Hamilton County Prosecutor Michael K. Allen over a barrel in the Rebecca Collins suit.

Greg Hartmann

The Hamilton County Clerk of Courts pulled himself away from his busy job signing death warrants long enough to run the Bush-Cheney campaign in Hamilton County, arranging a big Halloween event at Great American Ball Park to give the president a boost in the home stretch. In doing so, he boosted his own stock in GOP Inc. and put himself in line to someday succeed Joseph T. Deters as county prosecutor. And why not? With his workhorse sidekick Alex Triantafilou, he managed to keep the number of police calls to the 108 E. Seventh St. headquarters down to no more than a dozen. Crime-fighter, indeed.

Donald & Marian Spencer

The first family of Cincinnati's civil rights movement cemented their place in the history books with a principled stand against Republican "challengers" at the polling place. Though the challengers were completely legal under Ohio law, the Spencers and their lawyer, Alphonse Gerhardstein, argued that the practice smacked of Jim Crow intimidation tactics - and got even Blackwell to agree. Working independently of the Democratic Party, they set a precedent when U.S. District Judge Susan K. Dlott found the practice unconstitutional. Even though the decision was reversed on appeal, the Spencers' suit intimidated the alleged GOP intimidators.

Losers:

Phil Heimlich

Countless full-page newspaper ads and radio commercials failed to sway voters on two issues that Heimlich opposed: The Drake Hospital levy and the repeal of Cincinnati's Article XII. His fiscally conservative clan of Republicans still can't figure out why Cincinnati and Hamilton County voters turned down several good opportunities to lower their property taxes.

On the bright side, Heimlich now has two former City Council colleagues on the county commission, and Pat DeWine's election should make it easier for him to cut pork in county government.

Larry Householder

The Ohio House speaker's descent to obscurity has become as rapid as his rise to power. With 423 provisional ballots yet to be counted, the scandal-plagued speaker is winning his election campaign by just 212 votes - for Perry County auditor. We're talking about a county the same size as Delhi Township, which should give him plenty of time to come up with a new 109-page plan to destroy the seemingly invincible J. Kenneth Blackwell.

Fred Shuttlesworth

No question, Rev. Shuttlesworth is one of the greatest living Cincinnatians. His courageous and heroic fight for civil rights - even at considerable risk to his own life - will forever be remembered. Still, many of his former friends and allies in the civil rights movement would like to forget his opposition to the repeal of Article XII. In a slick, 30-second television spot, Shuttlesworth approved this message: that the repeal of Article XII would amount to "special rights" for gays and lesbians. Shuttlesworth was right that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was opposed to homosexuality. But two people who also were there - the Rev. Jesse Jackson and widow Coretta Scott King -- say King would have fought for equal protection of the law for everyone.

Pat South

The president of the Warren County Board of Commissioners defended her decision to close the county building on Election Night, excluding the public and the press from watching the ballot-counting going on inside. "We were trying to protect security," she said, weakly blaming the secrecy on some vague threat of terrorism in Lebanon. The commission also has to bear some responsibility for the Board of Elections' inability to deal with the huge demographic shifts in Mason and Hamilton Township that led to record turnout and long lines on Election Day, with some voters not casting a ballot until 10 p.m. Buy some voting machines. Butler County did it right, spending $400,000 on more voting booths, adding 400 poll workers and 35 part-time staffers.

Steve Bouchard

The Ohio director of America Coming Together had never been to Ohio before the George Soros-backed "527" group sent the 36-year-old Democratic field organizer to help get out the vote for Kerry. The $15 million effort, funded by wealthy Ohioans like insurance man Peter B. Lewis of Cleveland and arts patron Dick Rosenthal of Cincinnati, was no match for the more traditional, volunteer-driven efforts of both parties. Note to future GOTV strategists: Anyone can register people to vote. Getting their vote to register is what counts.

Brendon Cull

Mayor Charlie Luken's former spokesman was speechless when he was spinning for the mayor, a former news anchor who liked to do all the talking himself. But when he took a leave of absence to work for the Democratic campaign in Ohio, he became a hit with political scribes looking for pithy comments, like this quote in the Boston Globe: "Four years ago, Republicans got caught with their pants down," Cull said of GOP get-out-the-vote efforts. "This year, they're going to be caught standing stark naked." He was wrong, of course - and with Kerry's loss, his non-refundable ticket to Washington has been canceled. Point is, he's got a future in flacking. Meanwhile, he's going back to work for Luken, and the only thing worse than being a lame duck mayor is a lame-duck mayor's aide.