Can anyone explain to me how winning with 55% of the vote is a landslide?  Seems a bit overstated.

I can't say that I'm shocked by the results from last night.  Was hoping for the opposite to occur though...

 

I just felt like it would be tough for Yvette to pull off the win and I even had that feeling 10 months ago.  Yvette gave Cranley's campaign several items to attack her on (i.e., Childrens issue) whereas Cranley's campaign seemed to go relatively smooth (except for the big primary loss).

 

At this point, I'd have to imagine 2021 could be a potential PG-Smitherman race for mayor (unless either would elect to run for higher office prior to that time).

Can anyone explain to me how winning with 55% of the vote is a landslide?  Seems a bit overstated.

 

Cranley won 54% and since Yvette only won 46%. 54-46= 8% win.

Farewell guys.  I'm done with following Cincinnati, its too exhausting.  Let you guys fester in your own garbage.

 

We're totally back to the chaos of the Luken years. 

 

We re-elected someone who was given everything he has by his inheritance.  The #1 council candidate has never had a full-time job.  All of the working-class people in this city have been fooled by the aristocracy, once again. 

 

Jake, that is not accurate. He is a West side guy, grew up went to St. William. Father was a blue collar guy. Mother was on the school board. This is not the type of guy who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Yes, he married into a successful family who immigrated to the US in the 60s and is first generation wealth. This is not the picture of a trust fund kid from Indian Hill and your description is not at all true..

Everyone should follow Timmy Broderick, who is helping the Business Courier with their election coverage, on Twitter. He has been going around to polling places and talking to voters.

 

Interestingly, he talked to one voter who had voted for Cranley in the primary, but switched to support Simpson after the Children's Hospital issue. The voter said he knew someone who lost their house due to the Children's expansion. It's just interesting to hear, because even with the "Simpson shakedown" narrative that Cranley and the local media have been pushing, there is another side to that coin.

 

Didn't Children's pay several times the market value for most of those properties? Can you really say you "lost" your house if you sold it for 5X what it's worth? If he's referring to renters, well that's a whole other discussion but not exactly a position most people empathize with.

 

Right, because who cares about renters being kicked out of their homes. They're not even people.

 

This is a bit over the top too. 1) They are renters, which means they can get kicked out for whatever reason the landlord deems appropriate so they don't have the same housing rights that others have. 2) those who live there and own were compensated above market and will be better off. THey can buy a similar house in the same neighborhood if they like or move somewhere else. Yes, it is unfortunate they have to move but it is not like someone is stealing their home from under them. They have recourse.

Can anyone explain to me how winning with 55% of the vote is a landslide?  Seems a bit overstated.

 

Cranley won 54% and since Yvette only won 46%. 54-46= 8% win.

 

LOL, OK.  I do get math.  It just seems like landslide should be a term for more like a 15%+ kind of win.  At least double digit percentage.  Just my $0.02.

Can anyone explain to me how winning with 55% of the vote is a landslide?  Seems a bit overstated.

 

Cranley won 54% and since Yvette only won 46%. 54-46= 8% win.

 

LOL, OK.  I do get math.  It just seems like landslide should be a term for more like a 15%+ kind of win.  At least double digit percentage.  Just my $0.02.

 

Right, I had the same question. How is a single percentage point win a "landslide", especially when Cranley won my a smaller margin this year than he did in 2013?

I noticed that reaction on Reddit too and it's definitely worrisome, but my unscientific observations of where most Cincinnati Reddit users live seems to be places like Westwood and Price Hill, and I really don't think many of them were going to vote Yvette anyway.

 

City subreddits on Reddit are notoriously right-wing/reactionary, like comments on newspaper sites. And Reddit as a whole is trending alt-right. I wouldn't worry too much about what Reddit says.

 

IMO the Cincinnati subreddit is like a more moderate version of this group in a lot of ways with a few more right wingers.  They are surprisingly pro-transit for a reddit group, look at all the complaints over the years about downvoting antistreetcar comments.  Generally I saw an anti-Cranley pro-OTR pro-streetcar bias on it with the out group being people who were anti-otr, pro-Cranley etc.  I saw a change in tone in the last month and that bothered me because I knew something was wrong.

 

I'm going to do a a bit of post-mortem here:

 

1) I think Simpson could have won if the election was at the same time as the primary, or if nothing changed since then politically.

2) Towards the end of the race she tried to get more African American voters on her side by tracking very progressive on racial issues - Native Peoples day and standing up for Avondale against Childrens Hospital

3) These stunts weakened her support among people who should have been allies - whites in more urban parts of the city.

4) The horrible fliers did exactly what they intended to do - push people who were on the fence about Yvettes recent political stunts and play upon their fears of her, pushing a lot of people past the point of no return and gaining a lot of Cranley voters in the process.  Not sure of the Cranley connection with these fliers but they were put out by parties who probably had his interests in mind.

5) Cranley is really good at getting out the vote for his core group.

 

Some quotes from reddit that I'm going to highlight:

 

I wasn't sure who to vote for because I honestly do not like either candidate but Simpson's campaign response has put me firmly on Cranley's side. The fact that she is deflecting instead of admonishing these flyers leads me to believe that her campaign or someone close to her campaign is responsible for it and she knows it. It is a disgusting tactic.

...

same user further down:

 

Northside is evidence to the contrary of what you believe. I see how my neighborhood and Cincinnati has moved forward everyday since I moved to the City. Which happened while Cranley was in office. Northside has become a place where kids are safe to walk to school by themselves or wait alone for the school bus to pick them up. It has become a place where I can walk drunkenly back the 4-5 blocks from the Tavern to my home at 2am with out a worry in the world.

All of this is a major change from when my GF bought her house 6 years ago and there was a drug related murder just 3 houses down from our home only weeks after she moved in. People thought she was crazy but in the last 6 years, four of which were while Cranley was in office, the neighborhood has thrived.

For the 3rd or 4th time I've said it, I don't really like either candidate. Cranley has this overwhelming sleazy vibe and seems to hate public transportation, something that I really care about. Simpson has repeatedly shot herself in the foot by making unforced errors and by completely whiffing on softball opportunities to paint herself as a respectful and honorable opponent, something else that is important to me.

Why would I believe Simpson could accomplish anything when she has repeatedly failed to take advantage of situations that would have improved mine and the populace's image of her? I've seen what we get with Cranley and what Northside has gotten is vast improvements over what was here just 5 years ago. Even if these improvements have nothing to do with him, at the very least, he did not get in the way of them happening.

 

 

Earlier on in reddit land:

One of my biggest concerns about Simpson is inexperience. She's been on council for a few terms now, but as the article discusses - she hasn't done much. Couple that with some very poorly thought out moves during the campaign (body shaming the dancer at Bockfest, letter her campaign staff call Cranley a "stale pale male" on social media, and most of all - the Children's Hospital debacle) and one can see why she's in trouble right now. I went from being a supporter and even a donor to her council campaigns to questioning if I can vote for her.

 

Responding to stale male comment:

She lost my vote the day she said that. I will not stand for that racism and it clearly shows how she talks about white men in her circles.

 

Can you please tell me what her vision is then? I feel like many of her potential voters (myself included until recently) kind of concocted this idea of her as a progressive, urbanist who could lead the city towards a more prosperous urban future. However, when you look at what she actually says on the campaign trail, it has nothing to do with this and is generally just petty us vs them, Seelbach style grandstanding. I don't know what she supports except her own hopes at mayor, and I don't really trust her to run the city, so I'm bailing on her for Cranley, who I think sucks but at least Cincinnati is undeniably improving on his watch, whether it has to do with him or not.

 

In short she had some real problems and Cranley's camp took advantage of that.  Any gains she had were offset by enough voters turned off by her comments.

 

Also UO never seems to predict Cincinnati politics...

 

I never really thought Simpson would win but especially after the Children's thing and what Neil pointed out, it looks like that pushed quite a bit of people over the edge.

 

 

I did hear from some business people to vote for Yvette because Cranley delegates all city business to who he wants (one example was through Harry Black who pushed a ton of work to associates from Baltimore).

 

 

This made me believe even more the rumors about him pushing away out of town developers.  The latter, I had a hard time believing someone would do that, but this kind of confirmed it more for me, even though I still have a tough time believing it.

 

 

That said, there were the instances of the land giveaways to big time donors in Uptown to Kulkarni and Duck Creek Connector and those were just the ones we actually heard about, so there was more obviously.

 

 

My hope now is that, like over in the City Council thread, people can push a more progressive envelope with Landsmann taking the place of Flynn, who I really respected but wasn't particularly progressive.

 

 

I was really disappointed when Jeff Pastor won the last seat at the very end, I just dont' understand why he would appeal to anyone really.  That said, he doesn't seem like a person that will be super tight on his principals in regards to things like bike lanes, etc. since he is very much about improving transportation in the city.  Maybe some of the other members can push his buttons, but it seems like we will have 6 on the progressive side most of the time even not including Pastor.

 

 

Also and I know wrong thread, but I really like the inclusion of Tamaya Dennard, I have high hopes for her, really impressed with her videos, etc. and I think she can take the place of Yvette on council and possibly even push an agenda further, I'm excited for her and the next 4 years.  All hope is not lost!!!

I don't like to make assumptions about people's sexuality, but I think it's pretty safe to say Tamaya is in the LBGT community. So we now have two gay council members! That's kind of an accomplishment for a conservative town like Cincinnati!

I don't like to make assumptions about people's sexuality, but I think it's pretty safe to say Tamaya is in the LBGT community. So we now have two gay council members! That's kind of an accomplishment for a conservative town like Cincinnati!

 

That's correct, she is an openly gay woman.

I'm disappointed that Yvette lost, but not surprised, as I think she ran a pretty bad campaign. She repeatedly came off as unpolished and naive, and she simply made too many mistakes along the way to be taken seriously by many voters. The Children's situation was a total blunder, and was totally unnecessary. That issue actually could have sealed the deal in her favor, if she had approached the situation a bit differently. Rather than attempting to do a last minute shakedown of Children's, which ultimately resulted in nothing new for Avondale and cost her untold political points, she could have worked with Children's to get some very modest concessions for the community. This would have allowed her to frame herself as the politician who is able to both facilitate the expansion of one of the region's economic drivers, while also looking out for 'the neighborhoods'. Her bumbling of this pretty easy political issue made me really question if she was ready for primetime.

 

Ultimately, I wish PG would have run for mayor. He no doubt would have easily beat Cranley, and then we would still have Simpson on council. I think his aim is for higher office, but I think Mayor is the next logical step for him, and I honestly think he would be a pretty great mayor.

 

Finally (apologies for the scatter brained post) I wonder what effect Blink had on this election. From everything I heard, it was a rousing success, and left a very good impression of the city in basically everyone who attended. That, coupled with the announcements of projects going forward (Skyhouse, Kroger tower) probably left a lot of people thinking that the city was in pretty good hands with Cranley. It seems like most people forgot about how villainous Cranley was during the streetcar cancellation saga.

Jake, that is not accurate. He is a West side guy, grew up went to St. William. Father was a blue collar guy. Mother was on the school board. This is not the type of guy who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Yes, he married into a successful family who immigrated to the US in the 60s and is first generation wealth. This is not the picture of a trust fund kid from Indian Hill and your description is not at all true..

 

That's totally incorrect.  He did grow up with a ton of money and is a trust-funder.  The family trust just sold their vacation home in Naples, FL for $10 million this past spring, a few months before Hurricane Irma. 

 

When he was at St. X he went on the Dominican Republic mission trip.  Those extravagant mission trips cost thousands of dollars (there was also an annual one to Peru) -- nearly as much as the annual tuition at the time. 

 

Cranley still walks around talking about that damn mission trip to the Dominican Republic.  It's on his bio.  I'm surprised he hasn't embellished the story -- that he paid for it by shining shoes or something.

 

I'm disappointed that Yvette lost, but not surprised, as I think she ran a pretty bad campaign. She repeatedly came off as unpolished and naive, and she simply made too many mistakes along the way to be taken seriously by many voters. The Children's situation was a total blunder, and was totally unnecessary. That issue actually could have sealed the deal in her favor, if she had approached the situation a bit differently. Rather than attempting to do a last minute shakedown of Children's, which ultimately resulted in nothing new for Avondale and cost her untold political points, she could have worked with Children's to get some very modest concessions for the community. This would have allowed her to frame herself as the politician who is able to both facilitate the expansion of one of the region's economic drivers, while also looking out for 'the neighborhoods'. Her bumbling of this pretty easy political issue made me really question if she was ready for primetime.

 

There was a vote coming up to sell the ROW, rezone all of the property, and allow for this huge expansion to go forward. She didn't have the support to postpone, so why would Children's negotiate with her? I think this vote is the reason she lost, but pretending that she could have played her cards differently and Children's would have conceded anything isn't very realistic IMO.

^-I read rumors that Childrens just got a new head who was a former P&G exec, was this true?

 

 

if so it kind of ties neatly into Cincinnati's elite class screwing over a neighborhood...

I'm disappointed that Yvette lost, but not surprised, as I think she ran a pretty bad campaign. She repeatedly came off as unpolished and naive, and she simply made too many mistakes along the way to be taken seriously by many voters. The Children's situation was a total blunder, and was totally unnecessary. That issue actually could have sealed the deal in her favor, if she had approached the situation a bit differently. Rather than attempting to do a last minute shakedown of Children's, which ultimately resulted in nothing new for Avondale and cost her untold political points, she could have worked with Children's to get some very modest concessions for the community. This would have allowed her to frame herself as the politician who is able to both facilitate the expansion of one of the region's economic drivers, while also looking out for 'the neighborhoods'. Her bumbling of this pretty easy political issue made me really question if she was ready for primetime.

 

There was a vote coming up to sell the ROW, rezone all of the property, and allow for this huge expansion to go forward. She didn't have the support to postpone, so why would Children's negotiate with her? I think this vote is the reason she lost, but pretending that she could have played her cards differently and Children's would have conceded anything isn't very realistic IMO.

 

 

These items don't come up for votes in a vacuum, you know. Waiting to attempt to do something at the last minute when this issue was up for a vote was precisely the problem. A seasoned politician would have been able to see that there was friction between the community and Children's, and would have taken that opportunity to paint him/herself as the mediator and leader who can make the project work for all involved. Get the media stirred up about this issue, work with community leadership to get them placated or at least agreeable, and then tell any and every media outlet about how your behind the scenes work resulted in both an expanded hospital and whatever community benefits were agreed upon. It's as much about creating and selling a narrative than actually getting things out of Children's. They don't want the bad publicity of being the bully kicking around the poor black neighborhood its in. So you seize on that (particularly as a black politician) and paint yourself as the adult in the room.

Jake, that is not accurate. He is a West side guy, grew up went to St. William. Father was a blue collar guy. Mother was on the school board. This is not the type of guy who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Yes, he married into a successful family who immigrated to the US in the 60s and is first generation wealth. This is not the picture of a trust fund kid from Indian Hill and your description is not at all true..

 

That's totally incorrect.  He did grow up with a ton of money and is a trust-funder.  The family trust just sold their vacation home in Naples, FL for $10 million this past spring, a few months before Hurricane Irma. 

 

When he was at St. X he went on the Dominican Republic mission trip.  Those extravagant mission trips cost thousands of dollars (there was also an annual one to Peru) -- nearly as much as the annual tuition at the time. 

 

Cranley still walks around talking about that damn mission trip to the Dominican Republic.  It's on his bio.  I'm surprised he hasn't embellished the story -- that he paid for it by shining shoes or something.

 

 

jmecklenborg[/member]  - people can pay for their mission trip a variety of ways. We don't know how he paid for his, he could have saved his own money or paid for it by soliciting family and friends. we don't know and you never overlapped with him in high school since he graduated in 92 and you in 96

 

Also the fact the family had a $10 million vacation home in Naples does not really say much. How long have they owned it? If they had it for 30+ years, they could have bought when prices were low and rode it up. IF they bought recently, they could have come into money in the last 10 years which, while good for him, does not necessarily qualify him as a trust fund baby.

he could have saved his own money

 

 

 

Yeah from selling ginsu knives. 

I'm disappointed that Yvette lost, but not surprised, as I think she ran a pretty bad campaign. She repeatedly came off as unpolished and naive, and she simply made too many mistakes along the way to be taken seriously by many voters. The Children's situation was a total blunder, and was totally unnecessary. That issue actually could have sealed the deal in her favor, if she had approached the situation a bit differently. Rather than attempting to do a last minute shakedown of Children's, which ultimately resulted in nothing new for Avondale and cost her untold political points, she could have worked with Children's to get some very modest concessions for the community. This would have allowed her to frame herself as the politician who is able to both facilitate the expansion of one of the region's economic drivers, while also looking out for 'the neighborhoods'. Her bumbling of this pretty easy political issue made me really question if she was ready for primetime.

 

Ultimately, I wish PG would have run for mayor. He no doubt would have easily beat Cranley, and then we would still have Simpson on council. I think his aim is for higher office, but I think Mayor is the next logical step for him, and I honestly think he would be a pretty great mayor.

 

Finally (apologies for the scatter brained post) I wonder what effect Blink had on this election. From everything I heard, it was a rousing success, and left a very good impression of the city in basically everyone who attended. That, coupled with the announcements of projects going forward (Skyhouse, Kroger tower) probably left a lot of people thinking that the city was in pretty good hands with Cranley. It seems like most people forgot about how villainous Cranley was during the streetcar cancellation saga.

 

I'm hoping that Skyhouse will be a huge success and it will show him how great it is to have out of town developers come in instead of just local ones (though I think some local ones have done well ex. Kroger tower). I would like to see all of the giant parking lots in CBD be turned into multi story apartment/ condo towers, but idk how realistic that could be seeing a big donor of his owns most of them.

he could have saved his own money

 

 

 

Yeah from selling ginsu knives. 

 

 

His dad was a financial planner, his mom was a librarian, his grandmother was a school teacher who emigrated from Ireland. He grew up in Price Hill. There may be doctors in the family and such but that does not necessarily speak ot the profile of a trust fund kid. I do not know this for a fact, and I am speculating some on this.

 

I guess what I am curious is how you know this about his background?

^That's not blue-collar.

 

I never believe it when someone says a politician comes from a blue-collar background until I can find out for myself.

^its not necessarily trust fund either.

Nobody with a trust fund is going to become a financial planner. Having to sit in your basement and call people from a list all day for years and getting rejected by 98% of them is for hungry people, not trust funders.

 

Conveniently a day after Cranley's re-election, the Enquirer gets this story about his hand-picked City Manager:

 

 

FOP President Dan Hils says Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black threatened DOJ investigation

 

 

Cincinnati police union President Dan Hils said City Manager Harry Black, in a late-night phone call, threatened to have him investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice and the ACLU.

 

 

Hils said Black, who as city manager supervises all police officers, appeared to be angry about how Hils advocated for two officers accused of racial profiling and using excessive force. Among Black's accusations was that Hils had been "obstructing the process."

 

 

Hils recorded the call, which he said was made late the night of Friday, Oct. 27. On Wednesday morning, Hils said he reported the 11:42 p.m. call as harassment to the Loveland Police Department. Hils said he was in Loveland when Black called.

 

 

Cont

 

 

 

 

Hils was seen at Cranley's party last night... "Hils said he waited to make the complaint until after Tuesday's mayoral election because he "feared it could affect the election unfairly.

Didn't Cranley's father own downtown real estate until very recently.  Hard to believe he wasn't wealthy if he owned a multi-story building in the Central Business District.

I guess what I am curious is how you know this about his background?

 

Google "Cranley Collier County, FL" and this comes up:

 

http://www.enaplesflorida.com/market-values/14002240003.html

 

You will see that "Cranley Family LLC" sold the house for $10 million to "Tenth Ave. South LLC".  I know that some people investigated Tenth Ave., which apparently is from Chicago, to try to find a connection to Rahm Emanuel or any Chicago developers seeking to do projects in Cincinnati.  A realtor noted that this LLC significantly overpaid for the Cranley family house, which looks suspiciously like a kickback for a free city-built parking garage or some-such. 

 

"Its only $10 million."  I'm sure you've gotten a small 10 million dollar loan there Brutis? ;)  Unless we're talking about San Francisco I don't see an upper middle class home of 100-200k in Cincinnati automatically appreciating to 10 mil dollars.  That would have been one hell of an investment if that happened, which IMO it probably didn't.

 

 

Even inflating the initial value to a hotter home market of 200-400K really doesn't make sense to appreciate that much...

I guess what I am curious is how you know this about his background?

 

Google "Cranley Collier County, FL" and this comes up:

 

http://www.enaplesflorida.com/market-values/14002240003.html

 

You will see that "Cranley Family LLC" sold the house for $10 million to "Tenth Ave. South LLC".  I know that some people investigated Tenth Ave., which apparently is from Chicago, to try to find a connection to Rahm Emanuel or any Chicago developers seeking to do projects in Cincinnati.  A realtor noted that this LLC significantly overpaid for the Cranley family house, which looks suspiciously like a kickback for a free city-built parking garage or some-such. 

 

 

Cranley and Rahm talk quite a bit, which pisses me off IMO because he's giving terrible advice to my mayor, on how to manage racial unrest of all things...  (Rahm, btw for all his faults is super progressive on urbanist causes :P ).

You will see that "Cranley Family LLC" sold the house for $10 million to "Tenth Ave. South LLC".  I know that some people investigated Tenth Ave., which apparently is from Chicago, to try to find a connection to Rahm Emanuel or any Chicago developers seeking to do projects in Cincinnati.  A realtor noted that this LLC significantly overpaid for the Cranley family house, which looks suspiciously like a kickback for a free city-built parking garage or some-such. 

 

 

1. It is oceanfront property in Naples. Looking at comps in the area $10 million seems high but not far-fetched.

 

 

2. It looks like the Cranley family bought it for around $250,000 in the 1970s, which is what, almost $1 million in today's dollars? Obviously his father was successful. I have no issue with this. It is for others to dispute any narratives about growing up blue collar. He went to St. X which isn't exactly blue collar, but again, who actually cares?

 

 

3. If there turns out to be a connection between the Chicago LLC and a city incentive, then that is a criminal kickback. Sounds like no one has found a connection, yet. I don't think Cranley would be stupid enough to let himself be done in by something like this. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to admit it.

Fair enough Jake. I still say that his father made some good money real estate investing over the lifetime. I am more curious as to what they paid for the lot and I wish the site had more info on that. 

 

Just out of curiosity, how what made you think to look for this house?

Chicago politicians do it all the time and only get caught now and then :/

"Its only $10 million." 

 

Also, check out Harvard Law's current fees:

http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/sfs/financial-aid-policy-overview/student-financial-aid-budget/

 

Here is Harvard Divinity School:

https://hds.harvard.edu/admissions-aid/financial-aid/tuition-and-fees

 

And an undergrad at John Carroll University:

http://sites.jcu.edu/aid/pages/billing-and-payment/tuition-and-fees/

 

Obviously these costs in the 1990s were about half of what they are now, but nevertheless, Cranley attended 8~ years of very expensive schools (conservatively, $150,000 in tuition and living expenses) and apparently had zero student loan debt to worry about.  It's simply inconceivable for someone with significant student loan debt to campaign for an office of the level of Cincinnati City Council or Ohio's first HR district, but there he was at ages 23-25 doing just that. 

 

 

 

Just out of curiosity, how what made you think to look for this house?

 

I didn't have any knowledge of it until someone spotted the listing back in the spring.  It is now amazingly easy to look up property records all around the country since everything is online.  If you go on that county's auditor's site, it has the paperwork with signatures from various Cranleys.  I posted all of this on the Enquirer's politics Facebook page back in August as Hurricane Irma bounced off Cuba and set a course for Naples.

 

^ Not disagreeing with your conclusion Jake, but let even though tuition to those schools is expensive, he probably got significant scholarship money to John Carroll which made the freight much more affordable. Most private undergrad schools offer money especially for in state students to attend for less than sticker prices. He was clearly a high achiever there given his record as a 2 time student body president. We don't know if he also received money to Harvard. For grad school, if he did very well, he probably would have received grants and scholarship money to the divinity school. He may have even received money to law school too depending on how he did on the tests and his grades and other background. So we cant necessarily base things on the cost of tuition to those schools.

 

 

More analysis:

 

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/11/08/analysis-why-cranley-rolled-to-victory.html

 

 

Also UO never seems to predict Cincinnati politics...

 

You know, we don't! We're always like, "Only buffoons will succumb to this candidate's myriad swindles." Then said candidate walks away with a decisive victory.

Rumor has it that the polling has it within the margin of error. It's been said a thousand times already, but it's all about who shows up to vote. Tell your friends.

 

So I'm assuming your source was on the Yvette side?  I heard an interview yesterday on WLW with Jason Williams, and he had mentioned that the Cranley team had hired a guy who was the "sabremetrics" of elections to get a feel on where they stood.  This guy told them Cranley was ahead by 10% +/-, and that's basically where things wound up.  I'm wondering how truly confident Cranley was heading into election day?

Rumor has it that the polling has it within the margin of error. It's been said a thousand times already, but it's all about who shows up to vote. Tell your friends.

 

So I'm assuming your source was on the Yvette side?  I heard an interview yesterday on WLW with Jason Williams, and he had mentioned that the Cranley team had hired a guy who was the "sabremetrics" of elections to get a feel on where they stood.  This guy told them Cranley was ahead by 10% +/-, and that's basically where things wound up.  I'm wondering how truly confident Cranley was heading into election day?

 

LOL. There's no such thing as "sabremetrics" in local elections. You can do polling, but it's extremely hard to get reliable data on who will turn out on election day. I suspect both campaigns knew it was close enough that the results could go either way on election.

LOL. There's no such thing as "sabremetrics" in local elections. You can do polling, but it's extremely hard to get reliable data on who will turn out on election day. I suspect both campaigns knew it was close enough that the results could go either way on election.

 

In theory why would it be any different than for national elections? Lack of money to do that stuff, OK, I get that, but polling is polling.

LOL. There's no such thing as "sabremetrics" in local elections. You can do polling, but it's extremely hard to get reliable data on who will turn out on election day. I suspect both campaigns knew it was close enough that the results could go either way on election.

 

In theory why would it be any different than for national elections? Lack of money to do that stuff, OK, I get that, but polling is polling.

 

I just laughed at the hackneyed "sabermetrics". There really isn't any direct corollary to sabermetrics in politics (at any level), though I suppose you could see similarities with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtargeting">microtargeting</a>. Local elections aren't fundamentally different than national elections, but whenever you're dealing with smaller populations, a small polling variation can make a huge difference. Get Out The Vote groundgame efforts make a huge difference, but that isn't "sabermetrics". It's hard to predict total turnout and hard to know which populations are going to show up on election day. If you're super confident going in to election day, your data team is probably delusional. You can see the variation in total turnout over the past 5 elections, showing the votes earned by the winner (with vote difference):

-2017: 32,617 (+4,772)

-2013: 33,438 (+9,140)

-2009: 38,645 (+6,221)

-2005: 36,200 (+2,536)

-2001: 47,755 (+9,261)

 

 

 

 

 

Also UO never seems to predict Cincinnati politics...

 

You know, we don't! We're always like, "Only buffoons will succumb to this candidate's myriad swindles." Then said candidate walks away with a decisive victory.

 

Fewer than 5% of professional traders beat the market over their lifetime.  They're around it all the time -- they know way more -- but there is too much chance for almost anyone to consistently beat the market. 

 

 

If either candidate had internal polling that showed they were way ahead, they would have intentionally leaked it. The fact that no internal polling leaked shows that it was too close for comfort for both candidates.

I always feel like we are purposely left in the dark here, many local papers commission polls to inform people about local politics, yet I never see anything like that from the Enquirer.

They have no way of knowing WHO will go out and vote. 

 

The big problem with the way our elections work is that because local affairs are now dominated by one political party, the challengers are hesitant to really attack incumbents of the same party.  So Roxanne Qualls and now Yvette Simpson didn't get anywhere mean enough to fight someone who has played dirty since he entered the scene back in 2000 or so. 

I think Simpson did get mean enough, its just that Cranley had the media apparatus at his back and Yvette was unable to frame the narrative  as she didn't have people providing counter narratives to the ones Cranley was feeding to the Enquirer.  I think this was her biggest failing too as she did very bad at managing PR every time she tried to bite at Cranley/Cincinnati's aristocracy - every time she did they tore her to shreds.

 

Mallory was most effective because he was quiet.  I'm starting to think his behind the scenes approach is the only way Cincinnati can get sensible politics (that and possibly another crisis at the level of the riots and post-riots boycott/crime wave).  Even then Mallory only won by a slim margin the first time around.  Cincy has a real nasty streak of being a stick in the mud.

John Cranley will announce his Vice Mayor and all of the Committee Chairs today at 1 p.m.  Does Cranley replace Mann with Chris Smitherman, setting him up for a 2021 mayoral run? Will anti-streetcar Amy Murray remain Chair of the Transportation Committee?

I personally see him giving Smitherman the Vice Mayor spot, and bumping Murray from any leadership positions. He has to play nice with Democrats if he wants to seek statewide elections, but I think he promised Smitherman something, which he can sell as being an "independent". Not 100% sure he will bump Mann from Vice Mayor, though.

Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman

I hope people really understand how nasty of a person John Cranley truly is.

 

Lawyer: Mayor John Cranley said he would ‘destroy’ Park Board chair in the press

 

A lawyer, who said he was talking to Cranley as a friend, testified last week that he and Cranley had a conversation in December in which the mayor "said elections have consequences, Dianne backed Yvette Simpson and she should have offered her resignation after the election."

Yvette Simpson will lead PAC:

https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/hamilton-county/cincinnati/former-councilwoman-yvette-simpson-to-lead-democracy-for-america-pac