Across the river in local election results, Cincinnati voters made some major changes to the City Council in the wake of city and Hamilton County employees taking major budget cuts over the last year.
Voters ousted four incumbent Republicans from Cincinnati City Council on Tuesday night, choosing instead seven Democrats, a majority of African-Americans, the first openly gay candidate and enough support to move forward with the streetcar project.
The outcome clearly was the result of the turnout generated by Issue 2, the measure to repeal the collective bargaining reforms of Senate Bill 5. The issue was expected to draw a lot of Democrats and union supporters to the polls.
Issue 2 lost in Hamilton County big, the Nos getting nearly 60% of the vote, and it was a bloodbath for Republicans on the ballot, but they’re blaming Issue 2 for their crushing loss and rightfully so.
Ousted: Chris Bortz, Leslie Ghiz, Amy Murray and Wayne Lippert.
“Issue 2 seems to be dragging the Republican Party down,” said Lippert. “This is transformational, but not in a positive way for the city.”
Hamilton County Republican chairman Alex Triantafilou said the results left him “concerned for the future of the city.”
“No question that Issue 2 played a significant role in this,” he added.
The new council means Cincy’s streetcar project can finally move forward unimpeded by Republicans and that the city can now take steps to fix the city budget without sacrificing police, firefighters, and teachers. It’s a start. We’ll see what Mayor Mark Mallory can do with the kind of support he’s always wanted, like from Cincy’s first openly gay council member, Chris Seelbach.
He worked for former Vice Mayor David Crowley and modeled his candidacy after the lessons Crowley taught him. He promises to carry on the goals of his mentor, who died early this year of cancer. Crowley taught him to look for “issues of justice in everything you do.”
All he hears out of City Hall, he says, is what should be cut and not cut. He wants to turn the debate more toward what council can do to make Cincinnati more of a place sought out by young professionals and young families. He worked in 2004 to help defeat Article XII, which banned naming gay people as a protected class. He wants to make public transportation the top priority and move toward a fixed-rail system connecting all neighborhoods.
He’s 31, vice president and chief financial officer of The Seidewitz Group, a marketing and consulting firm. He lives in Over-the-Rhine, is an endorsed Democrat, and is the city’s first openly gay council candidate.
And that’s just how big of a disaster Issue 2 was for Ohio Republicans last night. Expanding on what Kay was saying below, Kasich is toast, folks. The failure of Republicans to coalesce around this issue not only backfired miserably, it had the completely opposite effect, creating an off-year grassroots surge that knocked the blocks out from under Cincy conservatives. He cannot be jettisoned fast enough in the Buckeye State and Republicans in Ohio are now in a deep hole. The network to bring Ohio back into the blue column next year is already in place. The overreach was brutal, and a significant number of Ohio GOP voters jumped ship on this measure and mobilized Democrats to boot.
The coattails on the Issue 2 No vote completely reworked the government of one of the more conservative cities in the state and made it overwhelmingly progressive, not to mention creating a majority African-American council to back Mayor Mallory. Between this and Dems rolling to wins in Kentucky as mistermix mentioned, yeah, Tuesday was a pretty good day for our side ’round my neck of the woods.
Also, the latest PPP numbers in Ohio are looking really good for the President, but I’m waiting to hear how the Issue 2 vote was meaningless because TEH YOONYUN THUGZ created tens of thousands of fake cardboard standee voters after raiding every Office Depot and Staples in the tri-state over the weekend for art supplies…
Villago Delenda Est
Agreed, it was a great day for Dems, and a terrible night for Rethugs.
The Village, of course, will ignore all this. Look, it’s Herman Cain making a total ass of himself! Over there!
Reality Check
We won on issue 3, which shows how unpopular Obamacare is and took back the State Senate in a swing state. If anything this split decision forecasts a close, competitive, down-to-the-wire 2012.
The Moar You Know
Republicans losing nationally – VICTORY!
Because kicking Reality Check when it’s down feels so right that it can’t be wrong.
Violet
Can’t wait watch the Republican Presidential candidate try to campaign in Ohio. With Governor Kasich? Without Governor Kasich? No good choice there.
Congrats to everyone who worked so hard on the “No on 2” issue and all the great coattails it created. Good for Ohio.
Reality Check
@The Moar You Know:
We won big on issue 3 and won in Virginia.
I feel sorry for Cincinatti residents–they’ll be stuck with a light rail over-budget boondoggle that nobody uses at best, and a mobile crime system at worst.
artem1s
OK, now I am gobsmacked! Thank you again Kay and everyone else who worked so hard on Issue 2. Please, please, please help the citizen’s of Ohio remember this when it comes time to bust up King John’s party pals once and for all!
Poopyman
@Reality Check: Yeah! Down 67-0 with a minute remaining and we got a field goal! Suck on that, libtards!
Napoleon
@Reality Check:
What a moron. Yeah, you won big on an issue that is unconstitutional and unenforcable. It tells you something that everytime that even the local newscasters mentioned it they would also mention that it was widely considered to be legally invalid. I’ll give you wins like that every day of the week so long as I am getting wins like Issue 2.
Steve
Kentucky Democrats should be proud of their big night as well. It’s a credit to the state that the GOP’s last-minute appeal to religious bigotry was rejected so overwhelmingly, and Democrats were successful up and down the ticket. And I don’t want to hear any wah wah Beshear’s not a progressive wah wah.
zzyzx
OMG Reality Check is going the LOOT RAIL route. That was the line of an old Usenet troll in (I think it was) the Seattle newsgroup in the mid 90s. Oddly enough, now that we have our light rail line, there’s been no increase in crime in Seattle.
PhoenixRising
Seriously? An openly gay elected official? Majority black council? In Cincinnati?
I left my native land after spending a year in the biggest companies and law firms in the Queen City. Decided that I was not going to raise my family in a place that had carried all kinds of segregation into the 21st century as intact as I found behind the closed (to anyone not white) doors of the Northernmost Southern city.
That is great. Not that I’m headed to U haul, it’s still a tropical summer paradise with icy winter hills surrounded by a protective ring of Republicans, but that’s great.
4tehlulz
Oh to hear the wailing on Cincinnati talk radio. It must be delicious.
Reality Check
@PhoenixRising:
YEAH! Cincy can be the NEW DETROIT! WOOT! Wait, what?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Poopyman:
Now that is down right funny!
Tom Hilton
Romney 28/48 favorable/unfavorable. Maybe–just maaaaaybe–getting involved in Issue 2 (then taking no position then disavowing his lack of a position) wasn’t the smartest thing to do.
I know, it’s crazy–but it’s not impossible.
Southern Beale
Pardon the blogwhore but I need an open thread.
Liberal media strikes again, with extra War On Christmas juicyness.
Redshift
Here in VA, we’re going to have to wait until absentee votes are counted and a probably recount in one state senate race to find out if the results are okay or just over the line into sucky. (In Northern VA, we did quite well.) But I want to engage in a little punditry about what it means for 2012. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to quit my day job.)
I think the Virginia results are very good news for 2012, for Obama and for congressional and senate candidates. My reasoning is this: one thing that is nearly universally true is that Republican voters, even though they are often fewer, are more motivated/easier to motivate. We have more support on the issues, but they have more intensity, are more likely to vote based on their issues, which helps a lot in low-turnout elections.
Virginia has elections every year, which attract different levels of interest. The year that is always the lowest turnout is this one, the year that we elect the legislature and local offices but not president, Congress, or the governor. So if they couldn’t pull off a big win in the lowest of low turnout elections with their usual advantages in that environment, we’re going to kick their asses in a presidential year, the highest turnout year.
You heard it here first.
creature
Glad to see sanity return to the state of my birth. I remember watching the state go Republikkkan, one of my childhood friends’ father was part of the grassroots effort to position the R’s to take over the state, starting back in the 60’s. Another high school pal’s uncle made his bones in that Repugnantikkkan ‘surge’, and went on the be RNC chair. I got the eff outta town, it was pretty much rotted out by then (mid 80’s). Like a schmuck I moved to DC, but that was much better after Ronnie Rayguns left. ‘Bout time, Ohio- welcome back to the real world!
Culture of Truth
This is all good news for the Tea Party, I’m sure of it.
gf120581
Who is this Reality Check guy? Some random Freeper who wandered over here and decided to annoy everyone? (Oh, by the way, the GOP didn’t win the VA state Senate; there’s a recount pending and it’ll be at most a tie, which apparently means a lot of wrangling over power-sharing.)
Kasich’s losing here doesn’t mean he’s finished. I mean, Ahnuld was given up for dead in 2005 after all four of his ballot initiatives got tromped and he bounced back. But then again, Schwarzenegger stopped governing like a right-wing A-hole and tacked to the center. I can’t see Kasich doing that. He’d never live it down back at Faux News.
Morggie
@Reality Check: Hard to take your prognostications seriously when you can’t even spell Cincinnati correctly. Clearly you have a deep knowledge of the city. (In case anyone is wondering the Cincinnati streetcar is the highest rated project in the history of Ohio’s transit evaluation board, called TRAC, which doles out infrastructure monies).
Quick clarification for Zandar, this result means cuts to police are more likely in Cinci, not less. Many of the returning members of the council have pointed out that police spending has increased significantly in the past few years, while spending in every other area of the city has decreased and refused to take a “no cuts to police” stand. One council member, a former cop, refused to seek the local FoP endorsement because he would not take a no cut to cops pledge.
PeakVT
Cincy is still losing population at a good clip. Hopefully the new council makeup can find a way to halt that finally. A bleeding tax base is hard to deal with even in good times.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@gf120581: he’s just some fuckhead
Zifnab
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yes. Nothing will redeem the Republican Party’s reputation like focusing on their top-polling GOP nominee crashing and burning in a sex scandal. :-p
I think the party is up shit creek this year. There are not a lot of silver linings going in to 2012.
Mike in NC
So will this asshole Kasich now announce his resignation “to spend more time with
my familyhis masters at FOX News”?David in NY
We pause for a moment for this important announcement:
Michael Kinsley is stupid or a prick. Of course, you needn’t really choose, since “all of the above” seems appropriate.
We now return you to your regular programming.
JenJen
This is one Cincinnatian who is still hung over from last night’s victory parties. I can assure you I am not the only one.
WHAT A NIGHT!!
@4tehlulz:
Actually, one of the biggest “No on 2” supporters in Cincinnati has been the most popular right-wing talker in town, Bill Cunningham. I honestly think his ceaseless rants against Kasich’s arrogance helped move some votes to the good side, I really do.
Culture of Truth
There’s one silver lining for the GOP. Mitt was always their best bet going in the general election, and just as he’s been showing he’s got the money, organization, debate skills and message discipline, his looney primary opponents are cracking up all around him. Mitt is not without his flaws, but the GOP may luck into nominating him by default.
catclub
@Napoleon: Um… the _win_ on 2 gets Ohio all the way back to the status quo ante. It is an important win. It may be the start of the a rollback of other GOP trends. But it cannot be considered a progressive milestone. You could have lots of similar victories and only be standing in place.
I do hope that it is a start, not a holding action.
Villago Delenda Est
Reality Check in Berlin, 1945:
“Well, we did beat back the Bolshevik horde in this skirmish over a playground in Pankow”.
Reality Check
@gf120581:
A tie means the Lt. Governor gets the deciding vote, and he’s a REPUBLICAN.
David in NY
@Reality Check:
Nobody asked you how you felt.
Reality Check
@PeakVT:
Like I said, Cincy is now on its way to being Detroit South, and last nights election results will only further that trend.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Charlotte is the Queen City.
Martin
If 100% of registered voters turned out, you’d never see a Republican president again, and there’d be damn few states with Republican governors and legislatures.
Turnout is everything.
JenJen
@Martin: Turnout is absolutely everything!
In fact, turnout in Ohio was so staggering yesterday, that when all the votes were counted, over 200,000 more Ohioans voted no on Issue 2 than voted for John Kasich in 2010. Those numbers have to be hitting Kasich hard this morning.
cooptimo
The question is, will Mitt be able to bring the base in for the General? The GOP has pandered to regular fundamentalist bigotry for so long, will the true believers really be able to swallow hard and vote for a LDS member?
Maybe it won’t make a difference that the anti-mormon sentiment is greatest in the reddest of states, but I think it will be a factor.
Of course if it’s not Mitt, the the only one left the big money boys might be willing to waste cash on is Newt. But I don’t think he’s much more viable than Cain at this point.
Yutsano
@Reality Check: Dogwhistling? Per thang. Got your clocks cleaned but there are STILL no tanks in Baghdad!
Chyron HR
@Reality Check:
WINNINGVICTORYJenJen
@Yutsano: I heart you. :-)
Oh, and just in case Cole is reading, the next victory for Ohio and Cincinnati is scheduled for this Sunday, when the Steelers come to town. WHO DEY!!
Legalize
Proud to be a Cincy resident this morning. Once in a while we get it NOT bumble-fuck backwards.
xian
love how the Koch brothers are “getting the band* back together”
* the old labor-liberal-left Democratic coalition
xian
@Reality Check: your bitter tears of delusion are DELICIOUS
Amir Khalid
Help me out here. I understand that the “yes” vote on Issue 3 in Ohio is moot because, in the US, federal law trumps state law. So why was it allowed on the ballot in the first place?
Judas Escargot
@Reality Check:
Now, our friends in Virginia will get an unfiltered taste of unfettered Republican rule, just as Ohioans did after 2010.
Wonder what mood they’ll be in next November?
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
Because John Kaisch and the Ohio GOP said shut up, that’s why.
Yutsano
@JenJen: Less than three right back.
This felt good the whole way round. Even the supposed “victory” in Virginia is hollow since committees will be divided.
gene108
@Martin:
Educating voters is also important.
I don’t know squat about my local elected officials and don’t feel like I have as much of a stake in state assembly and local elections.
If information can be provided to voters, they’ll probably be more likely to turn out.
amk
@Reality Check: You do know that your ‘tribe’ is shrinking, dontcha ? Better all your tribe move to one of those red states and secede.
4tehlulz
@JenJen: For real? Bill Cunningham is one of the last people I would expect to go No on 2.
Nothing makes any sense anymore.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@amk: that ain’t all that’s shrinking
JenJen
@4tehlulz: Yep. He even recorded a video where he said “The best Americans I know are cops, firefighters and teachers.”
I couldn’t believe it either!
amk
@Martin: Egg.sack.lee. The fucking voter apathy is a fucking vicious circle.
scav
Possibly Chex_Mix got that robo-call about voting today, believed it (of course) and is counting on all those votes being the deciding ones for VICTORY! ? I mean, seriously, everybody knows Tinkerbell is off this week and there’s simply no way she’d hear his frantic clapping as she vacations in the Maldives.
ETA: Might be Christmas Island this year. Must be fussy about details like these.
Yutsano
@JenJen: Planning to jump ship? Attempting to gain sanity back from the wingnuts? JenJen reports, Lord Stanley decides!
BGK
In my jerkwater home town, feeding the public safety people to the wood chipper proved equally popular as in Ohio. No doubt some of the new blood will turn out to be stooges, but it was good to see how they not only got off the couch to vote, but actually ran for office as well.
Someguy
It’s clear the Republican wave has crested. We’ve beaten it back. 2012 is going to be a good year.
JenJen
@Yutsano: Lord Stanley got extra treats last night. Everyone should share in the victory!
JenJen
@Someguy:
I’m feeling that, too. And I can’t express how impressed I was by the GOTV efforts in Ohio. My door was knocked on three times by No On 2 volunteers, and the last time that happened, Senator Obama won Ohio.
pete
Serious question: How do I implement a pie filter or any kind of poster suppression, on an iMac running Safari under OS 10.6.8?
Until very recently, I’ve always been willing to scroll past the trolls and idiots, but this person who posts too much and uses all caps and bold is just too much for me. Detailed instructions would be much appreciated.
scav
@Someguy:
Might be. I don’t think anything is written in stone or a given at the moment, although those writing off 2012 as doomed doomed doomed ! ! ! because of the economy can probably now be safely ignored. Choppy seas, variable winds (to continue with the image) and All Hands are still needed on deck. Oh, there’s still a possibility of lurking sea-monsters but that may just be me.
MikeJ
@pete: Cleek’s pie filter should run under greasekit on safari.
Greasekit you can find by googling.
Cleek’s web site is on the sidebar.
Humanities Grad
@ Amir Khalid
Issue 3 could get onto the Ohio ballot because if you get enough petition signatures you can put just about anything onto a state ballot, no matter how blatantly stupid or clearly unconstitutional.
Rulings on constitutionality are a matter for the courts, and the courts don’t have jurisdiction until a case is actually brought before them. There’s no way to “pre-screen” state ballot initiatives for constitutionality.
Nobody with two brain cells to rub together believes that Issue 3 will actually stand up to a court challenge. As Kay and a couple of others have pointed out, it was put on the ballot as part of an effort to get more voters to the polls to support Issue 2.
amk
@MikeJ: Is there any such pie filter for firefox?
PeakVT
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Which reminds me: whatever happened to Just Some Fuckhead?
tkogrumpy
Feeling good today. So good I think I’ll deliver some more fire wood to the guys at occupy Bangor.
soonergrunt
@Amir Khalid: Because the state of Ohio is (with limits) a sovereign in its own right. They can decide whatever they want their state laws to be, and whatever decision they make has no bearing outside the borders of Ohio.
Having said that, the US Constitution has something called the Supremacy Clause, which states, essentially, that acts of the US Congress that are in furtherance of duties given to Congress by the US Constitution have supremacy over state constitutions or acts of state legislatures. It also states that Judges at every level are bound by federal supremacy.
The specific Constitutional duty upon Congress that is furthered by the Health Care Act is Congress’ duty to regulate interstate commerce. Congress carefully crafted the HCA to specifically fall well inside the boundaries of that requirement as understood by 224 years of jurisprudence and study of Congress’ duty to regulate interstate commerce because they knew there would be so many bullshit attempts to undermine it.
The Issue 3 which was passed by voters in Ohio isn’t worth the paper its printed on, except as a “sense of the population” resolution. The teabagger right wing got it on the ballot to help drive turnout of the teabagger vote to support their position on Issue 2. It didn’t work.
The Other Bob
Too bad Issue 2 wasn’t on the ballot in 2012.
RalfW
@Amir Khalid:
I’d think that it would take a court case to strike an item from a ballot. It’s highly likely that it’s not up to Ohio’s Secretary of State or other official to have a say in this.
It’s similar to the situations where prairie state legislatures have passed laws that clearly go past Constitutional muster on abortion restrictions. The law passes, then goes to court.
Seems silly and wasteful, but prior restraint is not looked well upon in our separation of powers nation.
ETA: What soonergrunt said, a few seconds b4 me.
soonergrunt
@amk: Hell yeah, there is!
You need Greasemonkey to make it work.
artem1s
@Amir Khalid:
pretty much only to boost turn out of the Teahaddist base. Obviously it backfired.
RalfW
@scav:
You’re a lurking sea monster?
amk
@soonergrunt: cool. will try it out. thanks
Blue Galangal
@PhoenixRising:
“Seriously? An openly gay elected official? Majority black council? In Cincinnati?”
Seriously, right? I expected PG to win but I was SO pleased and happy that Amy Murray f***ing tanked. Then when the rest of it hit me, just wow. Go Republicans: you managed to turn Cincinnati city council Democratic and gay. Think Kasich can run on that? Nice campaign ad, doncha think?
quannlace
That’s not saying much.
Woodrowfan
yeah, but the Reds still need a reliable closer and a leadoff batter…
scav
@RalfW: On my good days, yes. :)
The Republic of Stupidity
Anyone point out that truly execrable Russell Pierce is out on his Cheney in AZ?
And in the Bay Area, the majority of financial measures – sales taxes, parcel taxes, bonds – passed…
reflectionephemeral
Maybe this has already been said around here… but in light of this election, & the recall in Arizona…
Have we reached Peak Wingnut?
RalfW
To add to the chex_mix LOOSERY!
…
Scott apparently supported the law to allow the MI governor to take over, at will, any municipality he wants, at his whim.
I’m sure Crossroads GPS will be happy to outspend and loose 2:1 next year, too.
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2011/11/rep_paul_scott_says_he_lost_by.html
jsfox
@Reality Check: Are you really this clueless? What did you actually win on issue 3? It does not block ACA. All it does is forbid the state from coming up with a healthcare plan of it’s own. And as a side “benefit” it will also probably block schools from requiring children be immunized before attending.
Good grief what a maroon.
keith G
Sorry, but even though Dems have shown that they can win, the party (to the extent it is a party) has not shown such good nights can be built upon.
The top and middle of the organization seem a bit clueless.
Mnemosyne
@jsfox:
Well, you have to admit, letting people skip immunizations is working out great here in California. I don’t know why people think it would be a bad idea to let Ohio do the same thing.
(heavy snark, for those who don’t follow links)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Blue Galangal: I confess I wasn’t too unhappy to see Leslie Ghiz leave. Did you note what a gracious loser Wayne Lippert is:
said Lippert, after getting ousted.
jprfrog
Isn’t Boehner’s district near or in Cincinnati too? I wonder what his innards are doing today.
Ohio Mom
Boehner’s in the northern exurbs, and the next county. I don’t think what happens in City Council affects him much.
City Council used to be a reliably liberal body, until fairly recently. Term Limits pushed out a lot of very sensible and effective people. I wish someone would mount a campaign to get rid of them (don’t say me, I don’t live in the city).
MikeinCincy
@Reality Check: Since most voters are low information voters, it is not suprising that they voted for a ballot measure misleadingly titled “TO PRESERVE THE FREEDOM OF OHIOANS TO CHOOSE THEIR HEALTH CARE
AND HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.” In addition, there was no organized opposition to the measure because it has no teeth. This issue will be decided in the Supreme Court. Do not read anything into the vote on Issue 3.
rikryah
didn’t know about this. thank you so much for this news
kefauver
A big shout-out to my boy Ben Frech, who managed PG Sittenfeld’s city council campaign and ended up with the second largest number of votes among all candidates! Way to go fellas!
xian
@jsfox: it’s actually instructive that the troll’s tribe considers a win anything the “libs” don’t want, even if it furthers not their cause.
I tend to agree with Stuck for instance, that Obama has McConnell now trying to outthink “what Obama really wants” with the supercommittee, casting him as Wallace Shawn in the “never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line” scene from the Princess Bride.