Matt, Matt, and how not to make news

I went to Matt Lampke's meet-and-greet this morning, along with S&C. On the way in, the host asked us how we knew Matt, and I told him I ran a website that covered the mayor's race, so I had met him as a candidate.

We got downstairs, poured ourselves coffee, and tried to get C. entertained, during which time the host asked for our attention to make an announcement. This announcement is the focus of this post, but in an attempt to be fair, I will bury the lede, skip ahead, and say that Matt Lampke is an intelligent guy, certainly seems competent, and from the time that he became the first of the eight candidates to announce, I've been impressed with the level at which his campaign has its stuff together. I also, however, have reasons for not personally supporting him given the presence of other credible candidates, which I discussed (here and here) back at the time he announced his mayoral candidacy, which will help give some context here.

See, I wasn't paying much attention as Mr. Lampke discussed the issues facing Bexley, as the first announcement was to call our attention to the presence of Matt Damschroder, resident of Bexley, and "friend and supporter" of Matt Lampke. For those of us who didn't already know, the host told us Mr. Damschroder's title, which is Executive Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections.

So, one of the key figures in the controversies surrounding the 2004 presidential elections, who is also the person in charge of running the Bexley Municipal Elections, including collecting, tabulating, and reporting the votes, is apparently publicly supporting one of the candidates. And not just any candidate, the only registered Republican in the bunch.

Mr. Damschroder is a resident of Bexley, and his position certainly shouldn't be a cause to disenfranchise him, so I would like to say that he certainly should have a personal preference in the Bexley Mayoral race. I would also take the opportunity to point out that Matt D. did not utter a single word during or after this announcement. I doubt it was his idea to publicly endorse a candidate. But as a matter of fact, he did nothing to refute the statement, which was made by someone who knew that there was a blogger in the audience. So I have to assume they wanted y'all to know.

bits

I'm days behind on my news reading, so if there are important issues to discuss that I am ignoring, it is in fact simply due to ignorance. Some things that I am aware of:

The Columbus Messenger printed a voter's guide to the Bexley Mayoral Candidates in the edition that came out this week. I say printed, as despite the new website, I believe it is a print-only feature as of now. The guide contains enough info from the candidates to get you pretty much up to speed. It has everybody's picture but Weinblatt's.

In that same paper a 'correction' is issued on behalf of Hanz Wasserburger, who had his picture inadvertently omitted from the guide to Council candidates. I think the guide may have been the only place I didn't see Mr. Wasserburger's smiling face last week.

And in the final bit of Messenger-sourced info, I was again reminded that I have promised a School Board update, but have not delivered. I've been saved the effort of finding out about Ingrid Emch, as she has dropped out of the race. Before reading this I was also reminded by a reader that I have not done an update on the candidates for the BBE, and that reader expresses some unhappiness at the lack of educational experience among the current board members. The ironic thing about this is that Emch, a professor at Columbus State, is dropping out because of a conflict created by her association with the NEA, one of the major unions representing educators. The commenter, however, is a fan of Michele Kusma, another candidate who apparently does have experience in education.

It's becoming more important that I get to this stuff quickly, as election day is now. Last year, I went down to the Board of Elections on the first day of absentee voting, and voted absentee on the machines. There were some glitches. Despite that, I'm still going to vote absentee on the machines this year, but not so soon. Primarily because I still have no idea whom I'm voting for. I'd like to meet all of the mayoral candidates.

If you're trying to collect all eight yourself, you should know that Matt Lampke has two Meet and Greets coming up: Saturday, Oct. 6, 9:30-11:00 at the Community Room at the Bexley Cup-O-Joe (featuring coffee and pastries), and Monday Oct. 8, 6-8pm at 2751 Fair Ave. (featuring wine and cheese). I'll probably drop by for coffee Saturday Morning, and it looks like everyone is welcome to do so. You might want to let the hosts know if you plan on attending the Monday evening event (I have contact info, or I'm sure the Lampke campaign can forward your regards).

Party Time. Excellent.

My alma mater is playing my wife's alma mater this weekend. I may have helped give our daughter a purple mohawk last week, but Charlotte needs to put that in the past, now, and get back behind Da's team.



After our game (which I must watch, as usual, in hiding) , and before the kickoff of everyone else's, is the first candidate-hosted party I've been invited to: the Robyn Jones Tailgate Party. That's at 6:30pm on Saturday the 29th at her South Bexley residence, 825 Vernon Ave. I'm not special. All Bexley's invited, and I'm sure the rest of y'all would be welcome.

Then on Sunday the 30th, while my (legitimately shameful) pro team is getting thrashed by my wife's pro team, Travis Irvine will be holding the second such party I've been invited to. The "Social" will take place from 1-4pm at his family's South Bexley residence, 729 College Ave. Mr. Irvine's campaign is asking for RSVPs at americanmayor@yahoo.com but I would doubt that spontaneous attendance decisions will be dealt with harshly.

Interestingly (at least to me) both candidates have explicitly used the sectional qualifier in their campaign materials. For those of you outside the area, a friend of mine who's lived on the east side much longer slipped the other day and referred to South Bexley as the "poor part of Bexley*." When I laughed at that, she explained that that was how her acquaintances in Bexley thought of South Bexley. Then she paused, amused, and stated that none of them lived in Bexley nowadays anyway.

That series of statements fits pretty well with my impressions and intuitions. I do feel some SoBe solidarity, and I have a bit of a tendency toward class agitation, so the candidates are probably gaining some small amount of ground with me by self-identifying. But does it help overall? I'm curious, and I guess we shall see.

*A rough look at real estate listings yields a current median asking price for single-family homes of about $499k in Central Bexley and about $209k in South Bexley. A considerable and noticeable difference, to be sure, but for someone who has lived in a wide range of circumstances over the lifecourse, it's funny** to me to think of a place like South Bexley as "poor," even in a relative sense.

** In case you were wondering, that's sometimes funny in the sense of 'ha-ha', but other times funny in the sense of 'strange', and under the right circumstances, funny in the sense of 'seething with righteous indignation at the complete lack of understanding of actual poverty.' Given the context, this time was actually just funny-ha-ha, mixed with funny-strange.

Credit Where Due

I said I was going to be paying attention to Pat Tiberi's vote on the extension and expansion of SCHIP, the popular governmental health insurance program that seeks to make sure lower income kids have access to health insurance. Mr. Tiberi's primary stated objections had been addressed as the bill was modified in the Senate, but I admit I was dubious that it would make a difference. Local and state media had been mentioning three 'moderate' Ohio Republicans who were considered likely to vote for the compromise bill, and not too surprisingly, Tiberi wasn't one of them.

In the end, however, six Ohio Republicans were among the 45 GOP house members to vote for the bill. Pat Tiberi was one of the six. Bush's opposition will keep the expansion from happening for now, but it was the right vote to make. For this day, as a constituent, I've got one thing to say:

Thanks.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Finally, a name in OH-12

Jerid at BSB is reporting that Columbus City Councilman Kevin Boyce is being encouraged to run against Pat Tiberi next year in the 12th district race. Interestingly, Jerid is not saying that Mr. Boyce has expressed any interest in the race. He's not saying that anyone has spoken directly with Mr. Boyce about running. As a matter of fact, Jerid says that a) the Dems have been looking for a candidate in the 12th, and that b) Dems like 12th-district resident Boyce's future, leaving the reader to connect some dots.

I like Kevin Boyce. I would certainly support his run were he to undertake one. But I don't think he can win in 2008. People keep saying, and they are correct, that the right candidate, running the right campaign, in the right context, would have a better than even shot at knocking off Pat T. Unfortunately, my idea of the right candidate, as I've said repeatedly, is a suburban female, someone like Marilee Chinnici-Zuercher or a (carpet-bagging) Paula Brooks. A big chunk of the 12th sits in urban Franklin County. The Dem candidate always wins that part of the district. A candidate like Ed Brown with no money and a Libertarian-style platform still pulls better than 33% when he runs because of straight ticket urban and inner ring voters. A candidate like Bob Shamansky, with 1000 times the financing gets less than 45% of the vote, because of Delaware and Western Licking County straight ticket R voters. The only way to win the district, as it is currently drawn, is to win over at least some independents in Delaware and Licking, and unfortunately being a male Columbus City Councilman is about the worst bio one can have if that's your objective.

Jerid says that there is a long line of potential candidates in the 12th. It's certainly possible. The DCCC has never returned any of my emails, and none of the people I have cornered have ever admitted knowing of any names under consideration for recruitment. People tell Jerid things, though, so I'll trust him. The thing is, I'm a bit worried that we are giving up on '08 and even '10 here in the 12th, and waiting for redistricting to split Delaware off from eastern Franklin County, at which point a still very young Boyce would make an ideal candidate.

Of course, I'd be more than happy to retrospectively mock my stupidity 14 months from now.