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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > November > 03
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Editorial: McLin couldn’t beat the times, and Leitzell
The mayoral election in Dayton looks like one of those that comes along once a decade or so to put the so-called experts in their place and show just how unpredictable democracy can be.
From the beginning, even the experts could see that it was a bad year for any mayor to be seeking re-election. With the local economy doing even worse than the national economy, with a Democratic president falling in the polls and disappointment with him rising, and with the incumbent having her own weaknesses as a candidate, it was the kind of year that could upset all patterns.
And yet the city is overwhelmingly Democratic. The Democrats had all the money. The challenger was a low-profile, first-time candidate with no polish in the business of politics and no identifiable issue, except what everybody knew: the city is hurting.
Challenger Gary Leitzell had one other major force working for him. But it also worked against him. That force is race. The white challenger and black incumbent each went into the contest with much better chances in some neighborhoods than others.
Fortunately, however, the campaign itself was not much about race, at least until some late mailings by the Democrats that focused on obscure quotes allegedly from Mr. Leitzell about race. Waiting until the last minute to attack undercuts the possibility of any useful discussion. At any rate, the mailings don’t seem to have done much good.
Give Mr. Leitzell credit for taking the plunge into the contest, for putting himself out there for everybody to judge. It’s not easy. And he did give voters a choice, which they should have. And he did improve as a candidate — figuring out how amateurish some of his ideas were — as the campaign progressed.
Unfortunately, however, he did not give much reason to believe he could handle the problems of the city any better than the incumbent. He had not studied the issues enough to present a critique that made Rhine McLin the city’s problem, as opposed to the times being the problem.
He might have been helped by a televised debate. Conventional political wisdom holds that only a challenger can be helped by a debate, and that all a challenger must do is hold his own, which he did.
Mayor McLin has defeated two men who were better qualified than Mr. Leitzell: then-Mayor Mike Turner and community activist Dave Bohardt. But the years were different.
She deserves credit for having done a credible job in handling the multiple problems that the times threw her way. But when the times got worse and worse, her personal limitations seemed to be held against her more than when the times were better. That’s the way in politics.
Gary Leitzell is an unknown quantity. There’s an awful lot he doesn’t know about government and politics that he should know. The fact that he was struck by political lightning doesn’t change that. He will need a lot of good advice.
The voters — those who showed up — seem to be saying that they think somebody can do better than the incumbent. He will not find that easy.
Permalink | Comments (32) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Editorials, Elections, Martin Gottlieb, Miami Valley Politics
Editorial: Get ready to be disappointed by casinos
The casinos are coming.
Voters on Tuesday reversed the decision they made on four earlier occasions and said they’d allow casino gambling in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo. The vote was a reflection of just how receptive people have become to any promise of new jobs, however dubious the numbers.
The decision is especially sad for people in and around Columbus.
It’s hard to imagine how a casino will make that city’s new Arena District — where the casino will be built — a more inviting place. The crowds the gambling will draw likely will be holed up inside, off the streets and not in the bars and restaurants that have created a bustling entertainment zone.
In time, many other Ohioans are going to be disappointed, too. There’s no way the casinos can deliver all they’ve promised — certainly not the 34,000 new jobs that were promised in the relentless television commercials; most likely not even the tax money that’s being projected.
Gambling profits and tax proceeds are down, partly because of the recession. In addition and more important for the long term, there are so many casinos elsewhere nowadays that the money is being spread over an increasingly large number of spots.
In this environment, not many people from outside Ohio are going to come here to gamble; they can stay at home in Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia and Pennsylvania and spend what they would have spent on gas on tokens.
Quite simply, the days of using gambling to promote tourism or create a destination are over. Casinos today have all the uniqueness of outlet malls.
Yes, Ohioans will be more likely to gamble at home, but their money is going to make gambling interests richer before it solves any great financial problems for governments.
Remember, the casino backers wrote their own tax rates and established their own licensing fees.
Not shockingly, they took good care of themselves.
Even though Dayton won’t have a casino, the decision to allow the new gambling is not without ramifications for the region. People have a finite amount of money to spend on entertainment, and some of the money that is now being spent in Dayton on the arts, at restaurants and at events will be lost at the blackjack tables or in the slots.
The outflow will be hard to quantify, but it will be real.
Meanwhile, many people will believe that so much money is being raised at the casinos that the resulting tax proceeds should go a long way toward solving local governments’ and schools’ financial needs.
They’ll wonder — just like they did after the Lottery was passed — why they’re still being asked to approve tax increases, especially for schools.
One newspaper columnist calculates that schools will get about 69 cents per day per student if the money rolls in as projected. That’s hardly even pencil money.
While the decision to have the casinos has been settled, new and other important debates begin. The developers and operators will be subject to laws implementing the amendment.
You can bet that, starting now, the pro-casino forces will be spreading around money in the legislature just like they did to former public officials who became their spokespeople; to labor who shilled for them; and to police who backed the idea in exchange for a cut of proceeds going to training for law enforcement.
The coming laws and rules the casinos have to abide by will be the only way to keep a greedy industry in check.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Elections, Ellen Belcher, Ohio government, Ohio politics
Editorial: Ohio can end ACORN-like voter-registration flaps
Voter registration has long been a fairly odd, largely American custom.
It is all about letting authorities who run elections know where you live, even though the people who give you your driver’s license already know. As do tax and Social Security authorities and probably many others.
Yet potential voters are required to do file more paperwork. Some don’t take the trouble, for whatever reasons. This leads some well motivated and/or politically motivated groups to reach out to them.
What results is registration paperwork that has to be processed by government employees; sometimes there are problems with the paperwork.
Does the word “ACORN” ring a bell? Last year saw a big flap about that well-meaning, but decidedly flawed, operation registering the likes of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse.
That’s not as big a problem, since nobody is likely to show up to vote and declare himself to be Mr. Mouse. Moreover, ACORN insisted that it uncovered those who were playing games and reported their abuses.
At any rate, big flap. Lots of anguish. Lots of work.
And it was all largely pointless.
For many years, a lot of people who are knowledgeable about election management have said that the registration process can be eliminated, or at least combined with the voting process. Other states, not to mention other countries, have combined the processes. Their efforts have worked fine.
But this approach has been a tough sell in Ohio.
Now, however, comes along another idea that might be easier to sell, thanks to the arrival of the online age: automatic voter registration.
The idea is that, when the state gets information from you about where you live, in the process of giving you a driver’s license, the information is passed on to election boards, and — voila! — you are registered.
And when you move, and update your license info — voila! — you are re-registered. That practice wouldn’t get everybody registered, of course, but darn near. And there are other ways to reach most others in the same way: through their interaction with government.
Less hassle for voters. Less government bureaucracy. Fewer fights about how to prevent fraudulent registrations. Less involvement by the likes of ACORN. The idea hasn’t percolated long in Ohio, which is a problem, given how long it takes here to enact common-sense reforms.
But Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is behind the idea. She has the support of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. That operation has also helped her run a couple of “summits” of election administrators and others after the 2008 election, with the goal of creating consensus on modern reforms.
Several proposals have resulted from the summits about early voting, voter identification, disputed ballots and more. However, automatic voter registration really didn’t get much attention at those sessions.
It deserves attention. Ohio should be eager to take advantage of the easy links between government agencies that result from the digital age. Many in the state want us to be seen as heavily into the new age of technology. Let’s see if the legislature agrees.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Elections, Martin Gottlieb
