The Case Against Cafaro: Back to Basics

With all the endgame noise flying around, it’s easy to get distracted. Yesterday I got a robo-call from County Fiscal Officer John (not an accountant) Donofrio on behalf of Capri Cafaro. He supports her because he thinks her SAW plan would be good for Summit County. I don’t know who a Cafaro nomination would be good for, but I feel pretty confident Donofrio doesn’t really support her because of SAW.

But it made me want, one more time, to lay out the case against Capri. I’ve been pretty consistent in saying the Traficant mess doesn’t mean much to me. I’m grossed out by the Betty Sutton Weak on Pot ad, but Sutton and EM-List haven’t been completely forthright either.

Convention dictates that at this point I say something like “it’s nothing personal, but . . .” Well, it is kind of personal. When Cafaro decided to lie about me and this blog on air to make political points, it became personal. That being said, here are the big three reasons to vote against Capri Cafaro, whether or not you find her as personally distasteful as I.

1. We Can’t Trust Her to Represent Our Interests.

I’ve made much about Cafaro’s district shopping. When I look at the last two years of her life – running in the 14th, heading to New York to set up her PR shop, then coming back here to run, it doesn’t just feel like district shopping. It also evinces a certain disdain for living in Northeast Ohio. I understand – when I was 28 living on the East Coast, didn’t want to come back here either. Things changed and now I love living in Akron. But when I was 28, I did not have the feel for this place necessary to truly represent the people here.

What’s more, to the extent she has learned anything about the 13th District, she’s learned about Lorain Co. I have seen nothing in her campaign, in the Cafaromercials, in her MTB appearance that suggests to me she has made any attempt to understand where the Summit County is going and how to craft a legislative strategy to clear that road. Recently I drove through Barberton – the last truly rust-belt community in Summit. It’s also the only place I’ve seen a proliferation of Cafaro signs. Maybe it was just attacking Sutton at her base, but it also feels like Cafaro’s mentality is purely rustbelt, purely mid-80’s protectionism.

2. SAW is a Tool for Pandering.

One of the few positives I’ve heard about Capri that makes any sense is that her wealth makes her beholden to no one. Well, it certainly doesn’t look that way. It looks like she will say anything to get the love of Old Labor. The SAW plan is so fundamentally silly, her supporters don’t so much support it as make excuses for it – that’s why Donofrio’s call was so jarring. Why spend 55 billion dollars to maintain the status quo? Because spending $56 billion would be stupid.

I suspect that SAW exists primarily as a pretext for running on a platform of junking the entire trade regime – the ultimate sop to the unions. And of course, the fact that all this has exactly zero chance of actually becoming law makes this the very definition of a pander: An insincere proposal to appeal to the hopes and fears of the base. Cafaro’s stance on trade verges on demagoguery.

3. Cafaro is Vulnerable.

What I want in the 13th is not a nail biter, not an uphill battle, not a race where the party is reacting every day to a new presser from the Republican. I want the 13th to have a candidate who can phone it in and ride on the natural Dem advantage in the district. Cafaro guarantees the former, not the latter.

First off, I’m not the only Summit County resident who finds the Tour of Districts Not Held by Tim Ryan to be distasteful. I would probably vote for her – probably – in the general for the sake of working toward gaining power in Congress, but I certainly wouldn’t lift a finger to help and, trust me, she will need many lifted fingers. If she thinks EM-List’s mailings were harsh, wait till the RCCC’s machine starts rolling. All that stuff I say shouldn’t play in – immunity, drug rehab, bad dye jobs – will be flogged relentlessly in mailings, robocalls, megachurch “voter guides” and WNIR.

Meanwhile her extreme retrograde stance on trade will mobilize the SummitCo. business community to drop on the Republican candidate all the money they can. And they will tell all their employees what’s at stake. I’ve talked to friends more liberal than I who are appalled by her platform – because they work for tech firms like Goodyear or AES.

A smart, moderate, pro-business Republican will sweep the Republican voters, and take an overwhelming majority of Independents. From there, it doesn’t take a lot of moderate Dems crossing over to swing the election.

Capri doesn’t just have a bad idea, she is a bad idea.