Traci Kennedy, the Sequel

Before writing the previous post, I called Traci Kennedy. I wanted to get a sense of what her campaign was going to look like, what her policy positions in part to get a read on how serious her candidacy is. I didn’t get the former, but did come away with some data for the latter. It went like this:

Pho: “Hi, I’m a blogger in town and I’ve been following the Ohio 13th race and wanted to talk to you about your--.

TK: Before you talk any more, from 8 until 5 I am the supervisor in the Criminal division of the Clerks office and I do not talk about personal business and I do not talk about anything that’s not about the Municipal Clerk of Court’s office. You can speak to me after five.

P: OK, what’s your number?

TK: 330— tell you what. You give me your number and I’ll call you.

P: [gives number.]

TK: And your name is?

P: [gives that]

TK: [Terse goodbye]

(It will shock you all to learn that she never called tonight)

Impression #1: Props for not running a campaign out of the Clerk’s office.

Impression #2: Wha? I don’t know if you catch it from the words, but the tone is a truckload of attitude. Lady is running for the United States freaking Congress. People are going to want to talk to her about it at the only number readily available. And she’s pissy that someone has the cheek to call her?

So I don’t get the read that she’s feeling the whole political candidate thing. She didn’t know if I was D or R or I, but she bites my head off over the phone like I was polling about her sex life. It would be bizarre if she was any kind of real candidate.

Three lessons from this. First, Arshinkoff is still Arshinkoff. Despite the hopeful comments by anonymous Republicans on this blog, fact is he still has game and this is the game he has. This is better than running his niece as an Independent against Judge Mary Spicer for not toeing his line on Oriana House. It’s at least as fun to connect the dots here as it is to go from Katarina Cook’s run at Bryan Williams in the Mayoral primary to her appointment as Traffic Court Magistrate.

Vintage Alex. This is Exhibit 56873493 in the case of his intellectual and ethical bankruptcy. On top of everything else, he’s using sleazoid tactics to once again throw Ohio 13’s representation to Lorain Co. The only real question going forward is whether Kennedy will be his go-to splitter for as long as she works in the Clerk’s office or whether he’s finally tired enough of Edna Boyle losing judicial races to appoint a new black Republican woman.

Lesson two: The power of media. Republicans can do this sort of thing with a degree of impunity not available to the Democrats because the Dem’s don’t have a dedicated partisan media – no the BJ doesn’t even come close. If the local Dems tried anything remotely this craven and transparent, Bob Golic and Howie Chizek would talk about it every day for a month. WARF had an Aeros game on so we don’t know if Joe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Finan . . . . . . . . .will mention . . . . . . .it. If he does, at least the five people still awake at the end of the segment will be outraged.

Lesson three: how long will the local Dems put up with this crap before they change the way they do business? A: At least as long as the current leadership is in place. They can’t rely on the Beacon to expose this nonsense, and they certainly can’t leave it the BJ’s circulation to get the word out. I’m on the Summit Dems email list. Did I get flash email from HQ with a link to this story? No I did not.

More broadly, I am part of a network of center-left bloggers working the Akron beat. Have I gotten so much as an e-mail from anyone on Grant Street. Oops, I nearly dumped my laptop laughing at the very thought. After all, that would assume that someone runs the party for reasons other than getting jobs for relatives.