Yvette Simpson just announced her campaign to run for mayor in 2017 to directly challenge John Cranley.

 

Greg Hartmann (former Hamilton County Commissioner) has expressed interest, but hasn't announced he is running.

 

Jim Berns and Sandra Queen Noble will probably run, too.

I wonder if Jim Berns will run, drop out, and ask to re-join again, like he did in 2013.

^ Hopefully he'll be handing out free weed plants in front of Kroger again! (or tomato plants or whatever they were lol)

No doubt Cranley has a few dirty tricks planned for the upcoming year. 

Copying Cranley's style fell flat for Zach Scott here in Columbus last year so Cranley might need to up his game.

I think Cranley will get reelected unless a Republican runs in the primary. There is a sizable percentage of the city that is conservative - look at how close Brad Wenstrup, who was virtually unknown at the time, came to Mallory in 2009.. Cranley will get almost all of those votes, plus a split of the Democrat votes. A strong Republican running in the primary could result in Cranley becoming the ultimate lame duck for most of 2017, as he could theoretically place third and not qualify for the general election. Unfortunately I haven't heard even the slightest hint of any Republican considering a run.

I heard a rumor that Greg Hartman is considering a run.  Cranley has done all kinds of nutty stuff that a republican could attack (the most recent labor union nonsense being an obvious example) that I think Simpson will hesitate to.  It's hard to imagine anyone being a more obnoxious, self-serving mayor than Cranley, so I'd consider voting for Hartman, even though he was appointed to the county commission and hasn't really done anything. 

 

I have heard Yvette give a number of very good off-the-cuff speeches and I think most find her likeable in person.  I think she'd be a very positive personality as mayor.  But I'm worried that she will hesitate to attack Cranley in the way that Qualls did.  Chabot beat Cranley twice by going nuclear on him. 

I heard a rumor that Greg Hartman is considering a run.  Cranley has done all kinds of nutty stuff that a republican could attack (the most recent labor union nonsense being an obvious example) that I think Simpson will hesitate to.  It's hard to imagine anyone being a more obnoxious, self-serving mayor than Cranley, so I'd consider voting for Hartman, even though he was appointed to the county commission and hasn't really done anything. 

 

I have heard Yvette give a number of very good off-the-cuff speeches and I think most find her likeable in person.  I think she'd be a very positive personality as mayor.  But I'm worried that she will hesitate to attack Cranley in the way that Qualls did.  Chabot beat Cranley twice by going nuclear on him.

 

I think Yvette's positive personality gives her the ability to attack Cranley without coming across as "harsh", which is a very delicate (and unfair) line that women politicians have to navigate.

 

If Hartman runs, that would help Yvette a lot, pulling support from Cranley.

As I said in another thread, Yvette should be able to largely court the same demographics that gave Mallory two terms: urban "progressives", and African Americans. Qualls squarely won with the progressives, but Cranley dominated the black vote- something he will not be able to do because of Yvette. The fact that there is a credible black candidate running should have Cranley nervous, and if Hartman was to also run, he should be freaking out. Take away large sections of the black vote and the republican voters who supported Cranley over Qualls, and suddenly Cranley isn't left with much of a base, save for maybe some parts of the West Side. 

As I said in another thread, Yvette should be able to largely court the same demographics that gave Mallory two terms: urban "progressives", and African Americans. Qualls squarely won with the progressives, but Cranley dominated the black vote- something he will not be able to do because of Yvette. The fact that there is a credible black candidate running should have Cranley nervous, and if Hartman was to also run, he should be freaking out. Take away large sections of the black vote and the republican voters who supported Cranley over Qualls, and suddenly Cranley isn't left with much of a base, save for maybe some parts of the West Side. 

 

Sure. If it comes down to Yvette vs. Republican-to-be-named-later, no telling what happens.  Wenstrup was completely new to politics -- they didn't expect him to mount a serious challenge to Mallory.  But Hartman is obviously more experienced, even though he was handed his commission seat. 

 

 

I'll be very surprised if Republicans field a mayoral candidate since I doubt they want to make it easy for Simpson to win.  Besides, Cranley's the kind of Democrat they can live with.  IIRC they didn't run anyone the last time, so why would they this time? 

Maybe they see Cranley as a bigger threat for other races (like the 2nd Congressional District) and would rather see him out to hurt his political career. I suppose Yvette could run for a congressional seat or county commissioner seat, but Cranley will definitely pursue it.

^ Is COA*T still in the business of making fake Facebook accounts? "Markuz" seems too over the top to be real.

They can't start a sentence normally can they? It's always "Let's seeeee," "Welllllllllllll," "Now!" or some other nonsense. Do they think they are Bond villains?

There is now some speculation that Charlie Winburn might run. 

CityBeat posted an interview with Yvette Simpson where she mentions some of her views on the streetcar and the wider question of regional transit:

 

My frame now is around, let’s talk about regional, multi-modal transportation. I don’t want to talk about the streetcar anymore. We have a streetcar. The original vision, from my perspective, started with that Metro Moves proposal. And I’m still really jazzed about that potential. I know the city I’m in, I know the limitations, but I’m not going to let that stop me. This is one of those big vision things.

 

Now we have rail in our city. How do we begin to change the conversation to be about how we have a connectivity issue, one that even the Chamber is talking about now? How do we get everyone on the same page saying, yeah, it’s big, but if we don’t get started on it now it’s never going to happen? I’d like to not be 90 years old and this region still not be connected.

 

http://www.citybeat.com/news/blog/20830673/why-councilwoman-yvette-simpson-wants-to-be-mayor

Cincinnati's charter was changed in the late 1990s to create face-offs between Democrat mayoral candidates in the general election.  This was a back-door way for Republicans to maintain control of the city since demographics virtually dictated that no Republican could ever defeat a Democrat head-to-head.  As a result, we've elected fake Democrat Charlie Luken and fake Democrat John Cranley.  In the middle, true Democrat Mark Mallory snuck in there because he attracted the majority of the black vote and split the white vote with challenger David Pepper (and later Brad Wenstrup). 

 

What's crazy is that California voters fell for this trick in a 2010 voter referendum.  So now their Senate races will always be D-vs-D, but the winner will be the one who better panders to Republicans: 

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/2016-california-senate-harris-sanchez-jungle-open-primary-reform-214429

 

 

So far Yvette Simpson is the only announced challenger to John Cranley.  If no one else runs, then there will be no primary, and it will be real Democrat Simpson vs. fake Democrat Cranley.  For 15 years Cranley has busied himself paying off black community leaders with the Anthem Demutualization and tried to repeat the strategy with his failed parks tax.  There is no way to know how effective his efforts to split the black vote will be until it happens. 

 

 

I don't think Simpson can win unless a popular Republican runs in the primary (who she would then likely beat in the general). Cranley could come in third place in the primary in such a scenario, leaving him with a very, very long lame-duck period. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans try to prevent any candidates from running for this reason.

There are rumors Rob Richardson Jr. and Charlie Winburn will run.

There are rumors Rob Richardson Jr. and Charlie Winburn will run.

 

If all four run, the results in the primary would be totally unpredictable.  Obviously, Charlie Winburn is a fake Republican and a total disaster of a human being.  His autobiography is fake, he has no loyalties, he performs exorcisms at his church, and he wrote some sort of crazy book around 2003 which nobody has a copy of but will resurface when others gear up to smear him. 

 

I used to work with a guy who went to Winburn's church service once when his family moved here, and he said it was totally nuts.  Like snake-handling nuts. 

Simpson can easily win if she gets the turnout. In the last race, Cranley's strength was the black community and the conservative areas of the city. That is part of the reason why he beat Qualls.

I want to remind everyone posting on this thread that this forum is watched by people on both sides of this race. Please consider this when posting ideas and strategies that could help or hinder any of the candidates in this race.

 

Thank you.

I want to remind everyone posting on this thread that this forum is watched by people on both sides of this race. Please consider this when posting ideas and strategies that could help or hinder any of the candidates in this race.

 

Thank you.

 

I don't live in the city so I don't get a vote. If a campaign wants to use a strategy or idea I might post, good for them. I don't even need the credit. If a campaign person leaks ideas, that is their own issue. If you are working on a campaign and want to keep "strategic" ideas about your candidate from getting out, then manage your own house better. Don't shame people on an open forum.

Columbus got forced D vs. D for 2015. I personally don't like the system since you do wind up with a bunch of DINOs and Center-Rights running. The furthest-left candidate that had a chance of winning (the one that I liked) got 3rd in the non-partisan primary... and you're not allowed to vote for 3rd in the general election except as a write-in. So I wrote him in.

Yeah, I don't get the harm of discussing the upcoming election, and possible paths to victory for different candidates. There was a high degree of paranoia surrounding the Qualls campaign, and I really think that guarded echo chamber did far more harm than good for her. I still think the election is Simpson's to lose, considering she's got both progressive and black. Winburn is truly foolish, and it astounds me that he's gotten as far as he has in city politics, but I think he has a fairly strong base of religious, socially conservative black church goers. Even though technically he is a Republican, I think actual Republicans in the city would vote for Cranley over him. Richardson could be a threat to Simpson, but I have to think Yvette would have a considerable edge just given her name recognition from being on council. Really though, Cincinnati local politics can be a real mystery sometimes, and outcomes can defy logic or predictions.

There are rumors Rob Richardson Jr. and Charlie Winburn will run.

 

If all four run, the results in the primary would be totally unpredictable.  Obviously, Charlie Winburn is a fake Republican and a total disaster of a human being.  His autobiography is fake, he has no loyalties, he performs exorcisms at his church, and he wrote some sort of crazy book around 2003 which nobody has a copy of but will resurface when others gear up to smear him. 

 

I used to work with a guy who went to Winburn's church service once when his family moved here, and he said it was totally nuts.  Like snake-handling nuts. 

 

These words should never be used together like this in a sentence. Sorry!

These words should never be used together like this in a sentence. Sorry!

 

Good catch.

 

 

Yeah, I don't get the harm of discussing the upcoming election, and possible paths to victory for different candidates. There was a high degree of paranoia surrounding the Qualls campaign, and I really think that guarded echo chamber did far more harm than good for her. I still think the election is Simpson's to lose, considering she's got both progressive and black.

 

There are a variety of reasons why Qualls lost.  The echo chamber you mention is one of the prime reasons, and Simpson is part of that. 

 

The fact is that nobody in local politics can get as many people to march down a street with them as Charlie Winburn.  The guy literally leads 200 people down Hamilton Ave. every 4th of July.  He and a half dozen other guys on horseback followed by multiple dancing troops.  Meanwhile Qualls and Simpson might get 30 people who are all chatting with each other on Twitter all day, every day, year after year. 

 

 

 

 

The internet can really drag smart people down sometimes.

I want to remind everyone posting on this thread that this forum is watched by people on both sides of this race. Please consider this when posting ideas and strategies that could help or hinder any of the candidates in this race.

 

Thank you.

 

I don't live in the city so I don't get a vote. If a campaign wants to use a strategy or idea I might post, good for them. I don't even need the credit. If a campaign person leaks ideas, that is their own issue. If you are working on a campaign and want to keep "strategic" ideas about your candidate from getting out, then manage your own house better. Don't shame people on an open forum.

 

I was posting this as a general reminder that some people have used this forum to strategize for an issue (like the streetcar) only to have the opposition reading and planning for it. That's the general risk of any public forum, sure, and each forum member will make their own judgement on that. Sometimes we get too comfortable with the echo chamber of like minded voices. My intent was to remind people of that early on. But post whatever you want to regarding the topic. It's your own call.

 

People will take what they want from the forum. I would hope that if they are working on a campaign they would be intelligent enough to know what information is confidential and what is not and if they still want to leak it, there is nothing wrong with it, they can answer for themselves.

I still think the election is Simpson's to lose, considering she's got both progressive and black.

 

I think it would be naive to believe that just because Yvette is black that "the black vote" will be all hers. John Cranley has been working with segments of the black community (Alicia Reese, Dwight Tillery) for 15 years and has a lot of goodwill built up there. He can tout the major improvement in city spending with MBE over the course of his four years as well.

 

This is still Cranley's race to lose. Hard to beat when he can pull moderate democrats and all conservative voters in a citywide election. What's the coalition to beat that for Yvette? Because "the black vote" + progressives isn't enough.

A lot of black people don't like Steve or Alicia Reece.  They know Cranley's been paying off Steve Reece and others for 15 years and the shadiness surrounding a lot of those projects near the Cincinnati Gardens.   

The firing of Blackwell is turning into the biggest scandal of the scandalous Cranley years:

http://wvxu.org/post/council-members-want-blackwell-firing-investigated-mayor-calls-move-political#stream/0

 

Obviously Cranley's support among black Cincinnatians has been damaged -- the extent of which we don't know.  At one extreme Cranley might be forced to resign, and David Mann would become mayor (again).  If that's the case, or even if Cranley is merely wounded, Charlie Winburn no doubt smells blood and just might jump into the race.  In such a situation, the spring 2017 primary would involve the following people:

 

Charlie Winburn ®

John Cranley (D)

Yvette Simpson (D)

Rob Richardson (D)

 

If that is the field, then it becomes very difficult to predict who advances to November.  Obviously, there is a chance that Cranley could get dispatched and he's a lame duck for six months.  But it's also unlikely that both Richardson and Simpson would win a primary that also involves Winburn.  And a Mayor Winburn is no improvement over a Mayor Cranley. 

 

 

^ It would be interesting to see how Winburn does in a race like the mayoral primary. He consistently does very well in council elections, but voters get to pick 9 people there. I get the feeling he is not very many peoples first choice - I'd guess he is a whole lot of people's second or third or even lower choice. So he gets 28,000 votes but maybe 25,000 of those voters would pick someone else over him if they only got one selection.

A third candidate jumps into the Cincinnati mayor’s race today

 

 

Labor leader and former University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees chairman Rob Richardson Jr. will announce his candidacy for Cincinnati mayor today in Corryville at UC’s Niehoff Urban Studio.

 

Richardson enters a mayoral field with two well-known, political veterans: incumbent first-term Mayor John Cranley and Councilwoman Yvette Simpson, who is serving her second council term. All three are Democrats.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/01/03/a-third-candidate-jumps-into-the-cincinnati-mayor.html

Ugh, this will split the progressive vote...

It doesn't matter if it splits the progressive vote.  It is a non-partisan primary and only those two with the highest number of votes goes on to November.

Well it does split the campaign donations of the progressive vote, so there won't be as many big donations until after the primary.  But people are forgetting that 2013 was a super-low turnout in part because there wasn't a black candidate.  2017 is unpredictable at this point. 

I wonder how it will affect campaign contributions before the primary... Cranley is expected to receive way more than Simpson, I imagine, so this may in fact hurt Cranley's pre-primary campaign donations. But who knows...

It doesn't matter if it splits the progressive vote.  It is a non-partisan primary and only those two with the highest number of votes goes on to November.

 

I'd rather see Yvette win in this case, as she'd probably be stronger against Cranley and seems to have a better grasp of urbanist issues from what I see (though I could be proven wrong).

Now while I may be more of a cranley supporter based on politics, I have known the other two contenders over the years. Now, I typically disagree on almost all political things with Yvette, I have always found her to be very nice and had lunch with her on numerous occasions while we were in school together. She is a good person and beyond disagreeing with her on almost all aspects of politics, I cannot say a bad thing about her.

 

As for Richardson, I always found him to be a jerk and very unfriendly. He has no business running for mayor

As for Richardson, I always found him to be a jerk and very unfriendly. He has no business running for mayor

Isn't that usually the guy who wins in politics?

I shook his hand once and I think talked to him for about a minute another time.  This was 5+ years ago so I can't even remember where it was (Arnold's?).  But he seemed pretty normal to me.  Like, from Planet Earth, not Planet Smitherman or the Cranley Worm Hole.     

As for Richardson, I always found him to be a jerk and very unfriendly. He has no business running for mayor

Isn't that usually the guy who wins in politics?

 

That's also a good description of Cranley.

I shook his hand once and I think talked to him for about a minute another time.  This was 5+ years ago so I can't even remember where it was (Arnold's?).  But he seemed pretty normal to me.  Like, from Planet Earth, not Planet Smitherman or the Cranley Worm Hole.     

 

He always had a chip on his shoulder whenever I saw him both inside and outside of class. My friends and I would always attempt to be friendly and he just came across very much as just an angry man who did not care to be friendly with others unless you had something to offer him (this was my take). Yvette was always nice and very friendly.

 

She also had to work for everything she has received instead of having things handed to her. Now, as mentioned, I am not voting for her either, but she is someone whom I highly respect.

It doesn't matter if it splits the progressive vote.  It is a non-partisan primary and only those two with the highest number of votes goes on to November.

 

I'd rather see Yvette win in this case, as she'd probably be stronger against Cranley and seems to have a better grasp of urbanist issues from what I see (though I could be proven wrong).

 

Well, Richardson is holding his campaign announcement at the Niehoff Urban Studio. And he was one of the chairs of Cincinnatians for Progress who defeated the anti-streetcar ballot initiative. So I think he has a pretty good grasp of urban issues.

As another foe enters mayor's race, Cranley asks, ‘Who really is the Democrat?’

 

 

Sending a signal that he won’t be afraid to throw a sharp elbow during this year’s mayoral campaign, Mayor John Cranley announced several key labor union endorsements on Tuesday, the same day labor leader Rob Richardson Jr., who has strong ties to private-sector labor unions, is set to announce his bid against Cranley.

 

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 212, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 8, Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 392 and the local asbestos workers announced they are backing Cranley. Together, AFSCME and IBEW represent more than 3,000 labor union members.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/01/03/as-another-foe-enters-mayors-race-cranley-asks.html

He looks so little in that photo. 

It doesn't matter if it splits the progressive vote.  It is a non-partisan primary and only those two with the highest number of votes goes on to November.

 

I'd rather see Yvette win in this case, as she'd probably be stronger against Cranley and seems to have a better grasp of urbanist issues from what I see (though I could be proven wrong).

 

Well, Richardson is holding his campaign announcement at the Niehoff Urban Studio. And he was one of the chairs of Cincinnatians for Progress who defeated the anti-streetcar ballot initiative. So I think he has a pretty good grasp of urban issues.

 

But everything he has done in his career is the result of his father in my opinion