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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.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > April > 18
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Editorial: Fisher has credentials that Brunner doesn’t
2010 ELECTION
To some people, the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seems like a fight between an old guy who has been around forever, mainly losing elections, and a fresh young female face.
A few, however, might remember Lee Fisher as the 38-year-old hot shot who came out of the legislature to get elected attorney general over the better known Paul Pfeifer in 1990, which wasn’t any great Democratic year.
At 58, he’s opposed by Jennifer Brunner, 53, who announced for the Senate only halfway through her first term as Ohio’s secretary of state.
(Only Democrats have a choice to make. There is no Republican primary for the Senate contest.)
Their race is the sort that can end up revolving around trivia, because the candidates agree on the big stuff. The trivia shouldn’t obscure the fact that both have a lot to offer.
Lt. Gov. Fisher knows Ohio’s issues as well as anybody could. Besides having been attorney general, he’s been in the state legislature, the director of a wide range of community-service programs as head of the Center for Families and Children in Cleveland, and head of the state development department, while serving as lieutenant governor.
In the latter job, he has, as he notes, traveled to every corner of the state trying to bring and retain jobs.
Republicans enjoy pointing out that some of the these high-profile efforts have ended badly. (It’s not a point his Democratic opponent has been pushing, at least until now.) Think DHL, NCR and General Motors around here.
Wherever the blame should go for that, Lt. Gov. Fisher has come to intimately know the specific and general problems that businesses, community leaders and workers (and laid-off workers) are confronting everyplace.
When Ted Strickland chose him as his running mate in 2006, it wasn’t because Mr. Fisher was seen as a vote-getter. On the contrary, he had lost his last two elections and was, therefore, languishing in political banishment. Candidate Strickland chose him because he has an incisive, organized and practical mind, on top of all that experience. Having served only in Washington, Mr. Strickland needed somebody who knew state issues.
That he couldn’t have done better than Lee Fisher was the common judgment in Columbus.
Ms. Brunner doesn’t have the on-paper qualifications of Mr. Fisher, his command of a wide range of issues, his standing within the party or his financial support. But she has an edgy, upstart appeal that suits at least some in the current political atmosphere.
Jennifer Brunner is a pot stirrer. She brings energy and imagination to whatever she tackles.
One sequence typifies her style: When most elections officials around the state were exhausted after a period of turmoil and changes in voting equipment, she pushed for a study of the high-tech voting machines. That study concluded the computers can’t be trusted. She wanted to move away from them quickly. Many of Ohio’s local boards of elections stuck with them anyway. So she ruled that counties must offer voters a low-tech option, too.
She’s been involved in more controversies than can be counted, partly because that’s the nature of the secretary of state’s job these days. Most typically, she has a good case for what she does. That’s true of her recent decision to require all counties to challenge all voters who want to switch parties in the primary. (The law is murky, but there’s something to be said for statewide consistency.)
But the decision was made inexcusably close to the primary.
(This is the only issue on which Mr. Fisher criticizes her performance as secretary. He objects to both the timing and the decision itself.)
Ms. Brunner’s decision to run for the Senate is typical of her go-for-it style. The decision distressed Democrats who hoped to avoid a primary and who wanted her to keep the secretary’s job for the party. The secretary has a crucial seat on the board that draws state legislative districts after the national Census, which is occurring this year.
In the campaign, she’s been making charges that don’t stick, complaining, for instance, that Mr. Fisher “quit” his job as economic development director for reasons having to do with campaign contributions. Not true.
These sorts of attacks are fairly common for someone who’s running behind in the polls and who’s short on money. But they’re not confidence-inducing.
Philosophically, Secretary Brunner, at a certain point, seemed to be trying to get to Lt. Gov. Fisher’s left, highlighting her support for gay marriage, for example. But in a meeting with the Dayton Daily News editorial board, both candidates played down their issue differences.
(Both support the recently enacted health care law. Both would have liked it better with a “public option” — an insurance plan offered by the government. And she would like to consider extending Medicare to everyone.)
Secretary Brunner might be a more interesting senator. But she also could tick off a lot of people in ways that would undercut her effectiveness. She hasn’t served in a legislative body or in an executive office that needs to get legislation through a legislative body.
Which of the two would be the stronger candidate is not clear: the smoother, more credentialed one (to run against the smooth, well-credentialed Republican, Rob Portman), or the rough-edged upstart in what might be a good year for upstarts. What’s clear is that Lee Fisher is more ready for prime time.
(Letters the candidates submitted in their support are here.)
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: 2010 endorsements, Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, Ohio politics
TweetEllen Belcher: River’s power hasn’t been tapped
Do all good things have to end, especially if they’re getting better?
On Thursday, April 15, the University of Dayton held another River Summit, a confab about leveraging the Great Miami River. Having gone to the previous two, I can attest that the growing number of attendees — upward of 200 this year — aren’t burnt out.
Quite the opposite. They’re still pumped, but they’re wrestling with what’s next.
If the event is ever going to rise above just being a morning briefing where people learn about the impressive, independent things that are popping up on the Great Miami from Troy to Dayton to Hamilton, the crowd needs to get organized.
Besides the participants’ reluctance to commit to another meeting, or to creating yet another regional something or other, there’s this complication:
Projects from amphitheaters and parks, to restaurants and liveries, to kayak races and canoe floats are happening without a strategic plan. Why mess with success?
Last year, the organizers, without asking anyone’s permission or calling a vote, decided to dub the 98-mile swath of the Great Miami River from Sidney to Fairfield as Ohio’s “Great Corridor.”
They argued that the soon-to-be-finished 100 miles of bike paths on the riverbanks, the downtowns along the way, and the existing community events and festivals add up to something bigger than the individual parts.
But the only people who know about that self-proclaimed designation and the things to do in the dozen river towns on this stretch are those who went to last year’s meeting.
No one is connecting the dots — not in the public’s mind, not even in the minds of the public officials and government employees whose job it is to know these things. And if no one’s telling the story, it’s hard to pick up momentum.
The University of Dayton deserves immense credit for bringing so many people and groups together. Its Rivers Institute has used a leadership vacuum as an opportunity to challenge its students to organize the grown-ups.
Its so-called “river stewards” — undergraduate students who spend three years learning about the river and its potential as an economic development asset, a recreational resource and more — have seen firsthand just how much energy it takes and how fun it can be to herd a community’s cats.
At this year’s summit, eight graduating seniors in the river steward program stole the show. They spoke about the science they learned. They talked about the transformative experience of getting out on the river. They preached about the Dayton region’s amenities. And they said we’re foolish not to point people to the water.
The students’ experiential learning — with the river as their focal point — had given them something they couldn’t get from textbooks.
Gene Krebs, co-director of Greater Ohio, was the perfect follow to the students.
A former Republican state legislator who is associated with the “smart growth” movement, he said that when workers only have a high school diploma, they go where the jobs are.
“When you have letters after your name,” he said speaking to the students, “companies will go where you (young people) want to live.”
Krebs jabbed at a recent Dayton Daily News headline, “Interstate 75 becomes area’s new Main Street.” He argued that the community better hope that’s not the case.
If it is, Dayton will be “Generica,” he said — precisely when the next generation of workers and entrepreneurs wants cafes, walkable communities, public transit and authentic urban experiences.
The future can’t be highways, he said, because their existence is predicated on lots of cheap gas being sold and taxed at low rates. Gasoline isn’t going to be inexpensive forever.
Krebs also said Ohio has to come up with incentives to reduce the levels and costs of local government if it expects to compete globally. Balkanized, redundant, expensive local governments are holding back regions like Dayton.
As evidence: Ohio’s state tax burden ranks 34th highest in the country, he said. But it’s 9th highest for local governments.
A “river corridor” that succeeds only if everyone along it succeeds — where development isn’t a zero-sum game — looks like a good meeting place.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment | Categories: Columns, Ellen Belcher, Rural Communities, Sports and Recreation, Suburban Communities
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