Cranley Comes Through

Several mayoral contests were settled Tuesday, including Cincinnati, where John Cranley was able to win re-election defeating Yvette Simpson.  The Enquirer's Jason Williams has Cranley's keys:

1. He humbled himself and did something he's never done before. 

Actually, Simpson humbled him in that woeful-turnout primary. That woke the bear, and the next day Cranley began overhauling his campaign. The two weeks afterward were rough. He had to make the tough decision to remove long-time friend and right-hand man Jay Kincaid as campaign manager. Kincaid is a masterful political strategist, the brains behind Cranley's decisive win over Roxanne Qualls in 2013. 

But Kincaid's strength is media messaging, and Cranley needed someone to run a robust door-knocking operation after spending nearly $1 million on TV and radio ads in the primary. The ground game and connecting directly with voters became chic again after Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders did it in the presidential race.

And he did.  Cranley's not a bad guy, even for a moderate Dem, but he understood the issue was turnout, and he turned out the voters.

2. Cranley used one issue to expose Simpson's flaws and define the race. 

Simpson's momentum came to a screeching halt on Aug. 7, the day she surprisingly introduced a motion demanding Children's Hospital hand over millions of dollars to Avondale in exchange for her support of a zoning change on a mega-expansion project.

The skilled politician, Cranley went to work doing what he does best – exploiting his political foes' mistakes. He repeatedly hammered Simpson on the Children's issue all the way until Election Day. Simpson's campaign spiraled downward. She allowed Cranley to define her and the race with the Children's issue.

Cincinnati is pretty proud of Children's Hospital, it's a world-class facility.  But Simpson got smoked on this.  Yes, she was fighting for much-needed neighborhood improvement in Avondale, but it came at the expense of grabbing onto a third rail, voltage be damned.  This is where she really lost the race.

3. Real people had their say.

Cincinnati doesn't live in the Over-the-Rhine bubble. This election proved the so-called progressives remain in the political minority in this town, despite all the hubbub about the streetcar and noise they make in the Facebook echo chamber. 

That vocal minority would have you believe that Simpson was loved and Cranley loathed across the city. Turns out, Simpson's support is probably an inch wide and a mile deep. Meanwhile, Cranley's is a mile wide and an inch deep. 

Overall, Cranley has done more for the everyday citizen. Politics Extra believes this is where his focus on basic government services, keeping the streets safe and giving city union workers raises paid off. More people care about having their streets paved and garbage picked up on time than whether the city has a spiffy Downtown streetcar.

I think Williams is far less correct here.  Cranley did do a lot to piss people off over four years.  He ran specifically on trashing the streetcar project four years ago and won, then ran into Simpson and City Council and the "real people" of Cincinnati, who have made the project a success so far. He picked a lot of stupid fights with City Council and lost them, and was at best neutral in the Ray Tensing trial that saw Sam DuBose's killer go free earlier this year, and he was way in over his head with the mess over Cincy's new police chief.  There was a reason he lost the primary to Simpson in the spring.

Cranley frankly should have lost yesterday too, but Simpson buried herself with the Children's Hospital issue.  That was a fatal mistake, and it gave Cranley the win.

So we'll have a decent mayor instead of a great one.  Cincinnati's seen worse.