By Roldo Bartimole
The problem with “Believe in Cleveland” is that the real message is “Believe in our leadership.” Sorry, no sale.
Coming, as it does, in the midst of a mayoral campaign and inseminated, as it was, by Alex “The Snakeman” Machaskee. One has to look upon it as a clumsy form of propaganda for the candidate chosen by the Plain Dealer.
“Believe in Cleveland” is Machaskee’s plagiarized promo of Tom Vail’s 1980s “Cleveland is a Plum.” It did not work then and it will not work now. It comes as the Pee Dee pushes for Campbell’s re-election, now a real long shot.
“Believe in Cleveland” presumably is an “answer” to the city’s decline. Yet, it is more reflective of the desperation and depletion of our leaders’ mental capacity. What, we can’t build another new stadium? What to do? (Well, Mayor Campbell has birthed the idea of building a new practice Cavs court and some pretty condominiums for multi-millionaire basketball players and their richer owner.)
The campaign – even done by the same Plum hucksters - was hatched over lunch with Machaskee, according to Bill Stern of Stern Advertising. Wow, these guys can really come up with community-building solutions fast and easy.
The campaign is designed to sell Cleveland to Clevelanders.
I thought that was just what the Pee Dee wasn’t doing with its journalistic/academic programming of “The Quiet Crisis.” Maybe it’s been too convincing.
You know it’s always so much easier to try to convince people something is working than to make it work. Hasn’t that been the position of those in power since the 1950s when Cleveland started its decline? From urban renewal to tax abatement, the answers have always escaped the elites’ front groups - GrowthAssociationClevelandTomorrowDowntownClevelandPartnership - grasp.
A good example of elite confusion can be seen in the backing of Council President Frank Jackson by some top business people. It includes Al Ratner, who desires the city and other levels of government to build a convention center in his backyard.
A letter to the editor of the Pee Dee by four leading executives “endorsing” Frank Jackson for mayor reveals our elites' confusion, or their deceitfulness, or both. It follows a similar letter sent to “Friends” on Jackson’s behalf on August 8.
“We have had the opportunity to work directly with Frank on issues that directly impact our area. We have found Frank to be a person of integrity who is honest and fair. Frank asks the right questions and listens to all sides,” said the letter.
The intention is to fight what the corporate leaders know is a fear among some of them that Jackson is anti-business.
Among the signers of both letters is Al Ratner, top executive at Forest City Enterprises. Al and Forest City want a new convention center built next to and connected to their Tower City development. (That would possibly make Tower City more sellable when Forest City decides to skip town.)
What is interesting about Ratner’s backing of Jackson in August and again now in October were his and 17 members of the Forest City family’s contributions to – ta da - Mayor Jane Campbell. Each Forest City contribution was for $1,000 for $18,000 total.
Is that Ratner hedging at least one of his bets?
This mayoral campaign has been (writing Friday, Oct. 28) the most lackluster I’ve ever watched, even if from the sidelines. The Pee Dee, as I have said before, essentially ignores the day-to-day campaigning of the candidates. At a crucial time for the city, the coverage of this campaign has been uninspired and unimaginative. (Coverage by both alternative papers has also been remiss and after a good start, the emerging bloggers have slowed down and let go of an opportunity to show up the mainstream media.)
Neither candidate, of course, has stirred any excitement; probably because neither Jackson nor Campbell seems to have any vision of what it is they eagerly want to do for Cleveland. Nor do they seem to be able to build a campaign. After spending years watching Cleveland politicians of the verbal stature of Carl Stokes and Michael White, and the political bluster of George Forbes, Dennis Kucinich and even dull George Voinovich at times, we have a void, thus far, of candidates who reach out and touch and motivate their constituencies. Check the 16 percent primary turnout.
This possibly is a reflection not only of the candidates and the civic leadership but the community itself. Hit by bad economic times, severely declining population, and a bleak future, despair seems to be pervasive.
City leaders tried building stadiums and arenas, a rock hall to attract attention from the more hip community as a solution. However, none of it has lifted the city’s spirit for very long.
In the debate the other day, web cast by WKYC-TV, I thought Jackson did poorly. He hasn’t developed a speaking style and – with a 20-point lead in the WKYC poll that was so accurate in the primary – this will serve him and Cleveland poorly when/if he becomes mayor.
What I got from the debate was, expect Jackson to “set the bar high,” and from Campbell that she is for “progress” and Jackson impedes it.
Both Jackson and Campbell should take responsibility for some of the financial difficulties that led to financial problems and heavy layoffs. Jackson may bear more responsibility than Campbell since he had experience and she did not when the difficulties arose from missteps by the White administration.
In September 2003, I wrote, “Unfortunately, Mayor Jane Campbell and Council President Frank Jackson gambled on the Cleveland economy climbing out of the recession when preparing the 2003 city budget.
“They lost. Big time. The Cleveland economy not only didn’t improve much, it didn’t at all. It won’t in the near future.”
I assessed the blame thusly:
“Both should have anticipated the need for workforce cuts. Unfortunately, the ‘good relations’ (remember those times?) between Jackson and Campbell worked against a realistic budget. Jackson enjoys too much fidelity from a docile Council leading to one-man, narrow decision-making. Too much cooperation sometimes results in poor decisions.
“Campbell, the novice, didn’t resist Jackson, the veteran, and both took the easier way out of the city’s financial problems… By not facing the situation last year, they have an intractable problem that will cause a lot of pain and trouble,” I wrote.
Of course, that happened with layoffs of hundreds of safety and fire forces and other city workers.
I like Frank Jackson personally. I like his outlook on what’s important for the people of Cleveland even more.
However, I believe he has to show that he REALLY knows what it means to be mayor of all of Cleveland.
I remember back in 1977 just after Dennis Kucinich’s election as mayor he appeared before the Greater Cleveland Growth Association in what was a traditional after-election luncheon. His message to the business community, even more leery of him then than today’s corporate leaders are of Jackson, “I’ve got my head screwed on right.” Well, he didn’t and the détente didn’t last long. It helped ruin him and the economic outlook that would have been more beneficial to ordinary Cleveland residents than the corporate community.
I don’t want that to happen to Jackson. I believe he needs a lot of help to meet the needs of today’s Cleveland. He needs to make himself more appealing personally to attract support as mayor and he needs some strong, capable people around him.
Campbell didn’t do that four years ago. Again, I’ll go back to what I wrote in August 2002, eight months into her administration:
“Some call it the photo-op administration. It’s no trouble to get Mayor Jane Campbell to a social event. She apparently thrives on meeting people and attending festivities. Cleveland’s mayor certainly seems to enjoy the ceremonial functions of her job – too much.
“As a new administration, however, the Campbell team doesn’t exhibit the feel of a hard-charging unit with determined goals and important tasks. Instead, it has the air of a lethargic organization that functions on a ‘we’d like to get along’ basis rather than a ‘bold, aggressive’ approach to governing.
“This isn’t what Cleveland needs now as it slides further into trouble on many fronts. There’s concern that in the Campbell administration there is not enough there there.”
Jackson needs to inspire Clevelanders and communicate the passion that he says drives his desire to be mayor. That will be more important in the end than his winning the election. The city’s spirits need reviving.
All Cleveland and beyond should be saddened by the news of the death of Ann Chudner.
Ann exemplified a Citizen in the best of American tradition. She worked at it. She never let up. She’s a Citizen in the mold that Ralph Nader inspires as a necessity for a true democracy.
Small in stature but big in principle, she and her husband Irv fought just about every good fight there was to fight for decades here in Cleveland. She could irritate officials and she didn’t care what they thought. She wanted them to represent her and the other people of Cleveland.
She and Irv defied many West Siders when Carl Stokes ran for office in the late 1960s. That was a time when few whites, especially on the West Side, would support a black candidate.
You would see her at Council hearings, at school board meetings and everywhere there might be a fight for ordinary people. She wasn’t always pleasant. There was often no need for niceties and Ann knew when.
Some of her best fights were with George Forbes. Just to see this less than five-foot, slight woman boldly confronting the 6-foot plus former Council President was a vision of David and Goliath battles. She would sit on the other side of the Council hearing table and unbraid Forbes, who would act bemused. However, along with others the persistent attacks on Forbes made his continuation as Council President untenable and forced him to run unsuccessfully for mayor.
She had her soft spots too. I saw that in her smiling attention to me when I introduced her to the woman who would become my wife. It was if she had a message: take good care of him.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a mold that will produce another like her.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Roldo Bartimole roldoATadelphia.net (:divend:)