FitzGerald and the Greens shadowbox Kasich at the City Club

photo by Donn Nottage

So it’s come to this. Ed FitzGerald -- spurned by the press, the polls, campaign donors and the governor -- took the City Club of Cleveland’s lonely stage last night with the only opponent willing to debate him.

Anita Rios, the Green Party candidate for governor, sat beside FitzGerald before an audience of more Greens than Democrats. John Kasich was a no-show, unwilling to let pesky challengers chink his armor and chip at his 22-point lead.

So “the only gubernatorial debate in the state of Ohio in 2014” (as City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop noted) became a shadow play of the debate Ohio could’ve had, if not for the car trouble that drove FitzGerald to the curb.

There wasn’t much debating in this debate. FitzGerald and Rios tag-teamed, slamming Kasich’s policies on jobs, taxes, local government cuts, gay marriage and Lake Erie.

“Yes, we woke up one morning and couldn’t drink the water,” said Rios. Like many Toledoans, she drove to Michigan for bottled water after the lake’s algae bloom made tap water undrinkable for 400,000 people this summer. She and FitzGerald said they’d regulate fertilizer use on farms to protect the lake.

“It’s not rocket science to fix the runoff issue,” Rios said. “There are many things farmers can do to correct that. It’s just that there have been no regulations put in place. Our leaders do not have the will.”

“Gov. Kasich and his friends are still having conversations about how they’re going to balance the concerns of the fertilizer industry and everybody’s need for safe drinking water,” FitzGerald said. “When it comes to safe drinking water, you don’t balance it. It’s a moral issue. It’s a human right. Anything poisoning it needs to be regulated immediately.”

It was a night for issues, not the character questions that have dominated press coverage of the governor’s race.

Moderator Robert Higgs of the Plain Dealer’s Columbus bureau asked FitzGerald, almost apologetically, about his ten years of driving without a license and his late-night appearance in a car with an Irish trade delegate. What role should character issues play? he asked.

FitzGerald said he should be judged by his record as Cuyahoga County executive, such as cleaning up after corruption. Kasich, he argued, revealed his character by not showing up for the debate and by working for the defunct Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers. Kasich once lobbied public pension funds to invest with the firm; pension funds in Ohio later lost about $500 million because of its collapse. “What’s a greater moral issue?” FitzGerald asked, to applause.

Rios backed him up. “Shame on the media for focusing on that,” she said of FitzGerald’s car trouble.

Higgs asked FitzGerald and Rios how they’d encourage higher-wage jobs. FitzGerald said he’d support small business over large corporations and raise the state’s minimum wage. He bashed Kasich for not opposing free-trade deals. Rios said she wants the state to support worker-owned cooperatives.

Both candidates ripped Kasich’s tax cuts. But when Higgs asked if they’d reverse any, FitzGerald demurred. “I’m not running on a tax increase philosophy,” he said. “I do think we need to fund social services, hunger relief and job creation. [But] is there a way for us to live within our means?” Rios said she’d restore the estate tax, because it mostly taxed the wealthy.

Questions from the Green Party tables swung the debate farther left. FitzGerald searched politely for common ground. Rios supported amnesty for illegal immigrants; FitzGerald endorsed immigration reform and voiced concern about exploitation of migrant workers. Asked about affirmative action, FitzGerald talked about including disadvantaged groups in contracting, while Rios endorsed civil disobedience to preserve racial preferences in college admissions.

One questioner asked a wide-ranging question about the war on terror, militarized police forces, and “subsidizing violence all over the globe, but mostly in Ohio.” Rios promised to assemble a group of anti-war governors, “rather than squandering [money] in some sad place, doing some evil deed.” FitzGerald, not used to debating pacifism, said he endorsed community policing and the need to fight poverty because “you can’t prosecute your way out of a problem.”

Finally, a Green pushed Rios and FitzGerald to disagree about something. “I think I’m a lot more strident on anti-fracking,” Rios said. “I consider the Lucasville 5 on Death Row to be heroes.” (The convicts were found guilty of leading a murderous 1993 prison riot.) FitzGerald agreed to disagree with her on that.

In his closing, FitzGerald fired off the tightest critique of Kasich that I’ve heard from him. He said Kasich is taking credit for a nationwide economic recovery, while Ohio’s job growth has been slower than most states. “That’s one of the reasons John Kasich is not here -- he would love to have a 30-second television commercial conversation about that.” He bashed Kasich’s tax cuts, saying the governor paid for them with higher property taxes and cuts to public schools, local governments and heroin treatment.

“We are one election away from going in a totally different direction if we actually focus on real issues,” FitzGerald said.

He was describing the election Democrats wanted. But because of FitzGerald’s slipups and despite his best efforts, it’s not the election Ohio is getting.

Reform and resumes, or activism and empathy? Schron & Budish clash in county exec debate

Finally, the Cuyahoga County executive race is heating up. Armond Budish and Jack Schron’s debate today didn’t upend or shift the contest to succeed Ed FitzGerald, but it did provide voters a good sense of the choice they face.

Is it a resume battle? Another reform election? Or just a liberal vs. a conservative? At the City Club of Cleveland debate today at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel, it was all three.

Budish, the former Ohio House speaker, started the race with an advantage because of the magic D next to his name. He presented himself as a passionate advocate for the poor, a resurgent town, and an active government. “The most important skill for a county executive [is] empathy for people,” Budish said.

Schron, the Republican county councilman, aimed his message at independents. He cast himself as the candidate with the best resume, the experienced CEO who’ll sustain the momentum of the county’s post-corruption reforms. “Cuyahoga County needs someone who’s been there,” Schron said, “someone who’s created jobs.”

Budish, running as a new-economy Democrat, tried to out-entrepreneur Schron, the CEO of Jergens, Inc. “It’s tough to get banks to invest in new startups,” the Democratic state representative said in his opening statement. He proposed creating a county venture capital authority and offering microloans, “maybe $25,000 that a small barbershop or corner store might need to expand.”

Schron asked voters to look beyond party labels and compare resumes to the job description. “[I’m] an executive in charge of a multinational corporation that makes things and sends them all over the world,” he said. He retold the story of Jergens, Inc.’s decision to build its headquarters in the old Collinwood rail yards. Its diverse workforce, he said, “looks like the city of Cleveland.”

Budish boxed Schron with a right jab and left hook on the county’s other main task besides job creation: caring for the poor. He stole an idea I first heard from Schron months ago: using iPads and smartphones to sign up more social-service clients. After Schron, too, talked up iPads, saying they could streamline services, Budish claimed Schron was too much the penny-pincher, focused “strictly” on bottom lines, “efficiencies and saving money.” Budish said he wants to lift more people out of poverty by connecting them to existing county programs.

Schron struck back. “I would say [Budish] doesn’t know what it takes to run an organization,” he said. Efficiencies in government would free up millions more dollars for social service efforts, Schron argued. Budish replied he hadn’t seen Schron propose legislation about efficiency.

Throughout the debate, Budish brought up partisan differences between him and Schron, while Schron argued that the county executive job should be nonpartisan. Budish went after Schron on labor rights, voting rights, and Medicaid expansion, issues more relevant to a statewide campaign than a local one. Schron reminded listeners that corruption had festered during the old county system’s one-party rule. He hit Budish for opposing the 2009 county charter that created the job he now wants. He also implied Budish will use it as a path to higher office. “We want somebody who actually wants to be here,” Schron said.

During the audience questions, Bruce Akers, a Republican and a framer of the charter, tried to get Budish to pledge to serve two terms. As usual, Budish implied he wants to be executive for a long time, but left himself wiggle room for 2018. “I’d like to stay as long as I can, but it’s going to be up to two things, my health and voters of this county,” Budish said. “To talk about a second term or third term [is] premature.” Schron pounced, and pledged to run for a second term if elected.

The debate did expose some previously unseen differences between the candidates. Schron is against creating a county department of sustainability (he says he values all jobs, not just green jobs). Budish said the county government could encourage local governments, businesses and homeowners to become more energy-efficient.

Budish said he “strongly supports” FitzGerald’s proposal to float a $50 million bond issue to demolish abandoned houses. He added that he wants it spent as part of a larger strategy that also includes rehabbing some vacant homes. Schron also asked smart questions about whether the $50 million would be spent strategically enough to have an impact, but he sounded like he’s not a sure vote on council for the plan.

Both candidates sounded smart, qualified, and relatively well-informed. No one won the debate – which, given the electorate’s partisan imbalance, works in Budish’s favor.

Really, Budish and Schron were debating a bigger question: what is this county executive position? Do you want a CEO-style leader, or an activist liberal? Will all future campaigns for the position focus on jobs and social services, much like all mayor’s races are about jobs, schools and safety? Is the county a second front for the partisan debates in Columbus, or will a less partisan executive be more effective? Do we still need to focus on a post-corruption spirit of reform and bipartisanship, or is it time to pivot to activist government?

FitzGerald delivers State of the County, with glances statewide

I counted only two rips into Gov. John Kasich in Ed FitzGerald's State of the County address today. Though statewide media came to cover his speech, and a new poll today says FitzGerald is only 5 points behind Kasich in the governor's race, never did the Cuyahoga County executive mention his November opponent by name. He merely criticized the state for cutting the local government fund and not spending more on early childhood education.

Instead, FitzGerald offered a progress report on his agenda, from his early reforms to a lightning-round list of initiatives at the speech's end. He portrayed himself as impatient to create change, not just change jobs.

"Our priority in year one was to restore public trust," said FitzGerald, recounting his role in dismantling the old county government's patronage regime. "The pursuit of excellence replaced politics," he claimed -- true on one level, but funny coming from a candidate for higher office.

Movement, progress, optimism -- FitzGerald aimed to project all three. As usual, he announced new initiatives during the annual address. He wants to wants to issue $50 million in bonds to tear down abandoned houses. "Our economic recovery is still hobbled by thousands of properties which, unfortunately, are beyond salvaging through renovation." It's an issue he hasn't taken on in a big way until now.  

"County government in the last few years has been a battleground between those who have given up on Cleveland and those who will never give up on Cleveland," FitzGerald asserted -- which left me wondering who represents the give-up caucus. 

But the rhetorical move helps him as a local leader and a candidate for governor. Locally, it's the pol's rhetorical version of slipping on a CLE Clothing Co. T-shirt, an embrace of town pride. Statewide, holding his address in the new convention center and declaring that "the list of downtown projects is unlike anything that any of us have seen happen here in a generation" heads off Republican attempts to use Cleveland's struggles against him downstate.

FitzGerald also announced the county will take over operations of the Cleveland and Euclid jails. That gave him a chance to praise Mayor Frank Jackson (whom Kasich has also courted). It also helped him talk about regionalism, an area where he's had to temper expectations.  

Three years ago, FitzGerald helped Orange, Pepper Pike, Moreland Hills and Woodmere launch merger talks.  That idea has faded.  Buzz about a Cleveland-East Cleveland merger arose late last year. FitzGerald implied he doesn't see that happening either. 

"Regionalism in the near term is only likely to be expressed through shared services," he said. He touted the services the county offers to towns, and again suggested they could build the trust necessary for a big metropolitan government someday. Working on shared services is "not as exciting as a merger in one fell swoop, but it has the distinct advantage of being real."

The City Club sponsored the event, and in its traditional Q and A, FitzGerald faced only one tough, conservative questioner: David Tryon, an attorney and local Federalist Society leader. Their exchange sounded more like the debate ahead in the governor's race than anything else today. 

"Cuyahoga County has the highest taxes and fees" in Ohio, Tryon said. "They hurt people who can’t afford tickets to events like this. Why not decrease the sales tax and reduce fees?"

FitzGerald portrayed the questioner as a laissez-faire libertarian and argued that his a has justified a government with a larger role. "I suppose we could have cut taxes," he said rhetorically, "and reduced the number of sheriff’s deputies, or not funded universal pre-kindergarten or early childhood education." 

Dolan-FitzGerald, Lanci-Scipione feuds heat up at City Club debate

Matt Dolan and Ed FitzGerald fought the main bout while Ken Lanci and Don Scipione faced off on the undercard at the county executive candidates’ debate this week at the City Club.

FitzGerald, who's endured two weeks of brutal attack-ad beatings from Dolan, led with a classic political jujitsu move.

“Five out of the six candidates have run positive, issue-based, substantive campaigns,” he said. “Mr. Dolan is the quite clear exception to that. He ran an exceedingly negative primary campaign, and he’s run an exceedingly negative general election campaign. And you can’t change this county if you don’t ennoble this process by trying to be positive and tell people what it is you’re going to do differently.”

Dolan said voters need to know FitzGerald was among the “Democratic entrenched interests” who opposed Issue 6 and supported the “sham reform” Issue 5. Anticipating FitzGerald’s next move, Dolan disclosed that his relatives – including his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan -- are contributing more than $1 million to his campaign.

“Before I got into this race, I talked to Democrats and Republicans,” Dolan said. “I said, ‘What’s it going to take to win? What’s it going to take to beat the entrenched interests?’ They said, ‘It’s going to take about $2 million.’" He repeated his plans to recuse himself from Indians matters and create a bipartisan committee to advise him on appointments. {Update, 10/20: Here's my new post on how Dolan would handle this.}

FitzGerald said Dolan’s friends should have told him to run a positive campaign instead of “commercials that are showing me Photoshopped as a Russian monarch.” The ad's image -- accompanied by balalaikas, no less! -- refers to FitzGerald’s Oct. 2009 complaint that the county executive would be “a czar” who “will control just about everything in Cuyahoga County government.”

“I apologize for being out of uniform this afternoon,” FitzGerald joked.

“Issue 6 is a concentration of political power,” he continued, “but what aggravates that is if you have a concentration of economic power.” A wealthy family "spending money like it’s water" to "capture the most powerful local political office" is "the worst way possible to actually to reform this government. It can’t work.”

Ken Lanci, taking advantage of the latest Bill Mason controversies, tried to make the prosecutor a political bogeyman.

"Who's connected to what?" he asked. "You have Mr. Mason, who is a friend of Mr. Scipione’s, who worked on the charter with him. You have Mr. Mason, who is a friend of Mr. Fitzgerald. You have Mr. Mason, who is a friend of Martin Zanotti’s, who’s now a friend of Mr. Dolan’s. It’s anybody but Lanci! … Lanci is the only guy none of them can control!”

That roused Don Scipione, normally a quirky-scientist figure, the opposite of Lanci’s brawny CEO persona.

“This Mason stuff! Give me a break!” Scipione exclaimed. "The first time I met Bill Mason was a year and a half ago. … The only advice he gave me was not to run!

“Ken, give me a break! You did the pay-to-play with Zack Reed at Luke Easter Park to try to keep me from getting [petition] signatures! You filed a [complaint] at the Board Of Elections saying I was a Democrat, not an independent, and they voted 4-0 against you!

“We’re not going to split the Italian vote! I’m Italian in the vein of Marconi and Michelangelo and Galileo and Enrico Fermi! That’s my Italian heritage!

“What was I going to say before that? I forgot!” The audience cracked up.

A questioner tried to force decorum by asking the candidates which opponent they’d choose as a chief of staff. Dolan chose Scipione, David Ellison named Tim McCormack, and McCormack cited Dolan.

“I’d be tempted to choose some people just so I could fire them,” FitzGerald cracked before picking Scipione.

“I was going to say Mr. Scipione,” said Lanci, “but I can’t get past $200 million in savings without a plan.” (Scipione claims that he could reap vast savings by modernizing the county’s technology and systems. A county transition committee also claims the county could save huge sums that way. {Update, 10/21: See the Comments for more on this.)

Scipione deflected Lanci with more humor. “I would look at Ken, because at $1 a year—” The audience, who’d heard Lanci promise to work for a $1 salary, drowned him out with more laughter.

My live coverage of Dems' county executive debate

The leading Democratic candidates for county executive -- Ed FitzGerald and Terri Hamilton Brown -- are debating at 12:30 p.m. today at the City Club. (Minor candidates James F. Brown and Dianna Hill did not accept the club's invitation.) I'll be covering the debate live on Cleveland Magazine's Twitter feed and blogging about it this afternoon.

To read my tweets, click here.

Patmon challenges Jackson at City Club

Today was Bill Patmon’s one big chance. For an hour, his lack of money, ads, and campaign staff didn’t matter. At the City Club debate, he challenged Mayor Frank Jackson as an equal. Criticizing Jackson's record and quiet persona, Patmon argued that Cleveland can only succeed with a more forceful mayor.

"I ran because there is a decade of decline going on in this city," Patmon said, noting that Jackson has been mayor or city council president for most of that time. "During that decade, we've lost hundreds of jobs, 22,000 students have left the Cleveland Municipal School District, and our neighborhoods has become ground zero for foreclosure." Only one U.S. city has lost population faster than Cleveland, he said: "That's New Orleans. And I haven't seen a tsunami or hurricane or anything else blow through Cleveland."

Patmon charged Jackson hadn't fulfilled the vision he articulated when he first ran for mayor. "I remember 2005. There was someone who said, 'Expect great things.' I'm still waiting. There was somebody who said, 'Make the city a city of choice.' We're losing 6,000 [residents] a year."

"You should expect great things," Jackson replied. "And you know what? There's no promises I haven't made -- just check my 2005 campaign -- that I have not either fulfilled, or worked on and made substantial progress on.

"There is no distinction between campaigning and governing," Jackson added, then jabbed at Patmon's political ambition: "Some of us like the game, and I do the work."

The mayor, calm as ever, reiterated the themes that gave him a runaway lead in September's primary: a balanced budget with no layoffs and increased services in his four years as mayor, 3,600 vacant buildings demolished, overseas travels to bring business to town, support for the Medical Mart and the new port.

"If you look at Cleveland, and compare us to other urban centers, I don't think we're that bad off," the mayor said. "I really don’t."

Patmon dented Jackson's incumbent's armor on the issue of the Cleveland public schools, citing their low graduation rate and saying he would replace Cleveland schools CEO Eugene Sanders: "If the superintendent can't do the job, he should find another job."

The challenger used the Monday assaults against two Cleveland School of the Arts students against Sanders and Jackson: "Our most talented children can't walk down the streets of Glenville, can't walk down the street with an iPod, because of a poor decision on where to locate them." A CSA student in the audience seconded Patmon's complaint during the Q&A, telling the candidates he was afraid to go to school. Patmon said he hoped CSA will be moved from its temporary location near E. 107th and Superior.

Jackson told the student the police are now on top of the problem. Prompted by moderator Dan Moulthrop, Jackson said the school won't be moved. "Regardless of where children go to school, they have a right to be safe in school and out," he said.

The mayor said he still has confidence in Sanders. "Even though graduation is low, which is unacceptable, the same report card said there was value added" -- which means that Cleveland students outperformed the state's expectations. Between successes with magnet schools, conversations about bringing well-performing charter schools into the school system, and a pending report about how to "right-size" the district (close schools because of declining enrollment), Jackson said, "I think Dr. Sanders has done a very good job positioning us going forward, and 2010 will be the proof."

Patmon offered some new economic development ideas: creating a series of business incubators and a business center to make it easier for companies to interact with City Hall. He wants to use the city's public utilities, which spend almost a half-billion dollars a year, to stimulate a greener energy economy. Federal stimulus money could bring solar energy facilities to town, and the schools should teach eco-friendly LEED certification, he said to applause.

But the challenger's assertion that he would have tried to buy National City when it faltered and made it a city-owned bank (using federal bank bailout money, I think) drew no response from the crowd. When he said he would triple city spending on economic development to $4 million a year, Moulthrop cut him off.

"Where would you cut?" the moderator asked.

Patmon gave the eternal response of all political challengers. "There's enough waste, you don't have to cut anything," he said. "You also have to grow the pie."

That gave Jackson an opening. "Can I respond? First of all, I do not waste anything," the mayor asserted. He made the case for himself as a financial steward, saying he talked weekly with a group called Operation Efficiency, which has spent his first term looking for cost savings in City Hall. Now, with the budget still tightening, another consultant is digging deeper, he said. Jackson's answer partially blunted Patmon's prediction that big holes will appear in the city budget in 2010.

The debate ended with Jackson and Patmon pitching themselves as optimists who refused to accept Cleveland's decline. Moulthrop asked them about a recent think tank report that says Cleveland should accept its shrinking population as inevitable and focus its resources on certain vital neighborhoods.

"I absolutely disagree, categorically, with every fiber in my body," Patmon said. "If other cities can grow themselves, what's wrong with us?"

"We should not be dealing with a shrinking city," Jackson said. "I come from a neighborhood, if you we were to follow that pattern, it would never exist. We turned that neighborhood around. And there are good people there."

Patmon suggested Cleveland needs a stronger mayor. "The difference between good cities and great cities is leadership," he said, then added that leadership is also "the difference between good cities and failed cities."

Jackson's closing statement rose to a peculiar crescendo: a play on the phrase "It is what it is," which Patmon and others attack him for saying. "No layoffs, no reduction in service! It is what it is!" the mayor said. His supporters cheered. Councilwoman Sabra Pierce Scott shook with excitement, almost dancing in her seat, then high-fived the woman next to her -- a surprising amount of enthusiasm for a steady performance from a soft-spoken, workmanlike mayor.

If you'd like to watch the debate, the City Club is posting it on YouTube.

City Club announces debates for mayor, ballot issues

The City Club announced its election debates today.

-Tomorrow, Wed., Oct. 14, county commissioner Peter Lawson Jones and Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti debate Issues 5 and 6, the county reform plans.

-Mon., Oct. 19, Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams debate Issue 3, the casino proposal. (Gilbert plans to open a casino in Cleveland if 3 passes; Williams is against 3.)

-Wed., Oct. 21, radio host Tom Kelly and attorney Ron Johnson debate Issues 5 and 6. Both represent slates running for the county charter review commission that Issue 5 would create. Kelly is with the Citizens Reform Association slate, which supports Issue 6's idea of a county executive form of government. Johnson is part of the Real Reform Done Right slate, which opposes 6.

-Wed., Oct. 28, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson debates his opponent, former city councilman Bill Patmon.

The events kick off at noon with lunch. The debates start at 12:30 pm. They're all going to be broadcast live on WCPN, 90.3 FM. They should also be available online as live webcasts and as podcasts afterward.

I plan to blog about the Jones-Zanotti debate and the Jackson-Patmon debate.

A county executive, or not?: the City Club debate

“A single county executive will provide us with leadership and direction that we so sorely need,” Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti said at today’s City Club forum about the opposing paths to county reform.

Zanotti has a plan: he helped draft a proposed charter for Cuyahoga County, on the November ballot, that would replace the three commissioners with a county executive and council and make several elected officials appointed. “To suggest there are checks and balances in the current system — they’re just not there,” he said. “The county is the only form of government with no separation between the executive and legislature.”

Harriet Applegate, the local AFL-CIO head, is against Zanotti’s idea. “It gives too much power to one person,” she said. The county council would be weak compared to the executive, she argued: “They, at best, could serve as an adviser to this very powerful executive who hires, fires, and decides rates of pay.”

Applegate’s running for a proposed charter commission that would draft a second proposal and put it before voters next year. But she won’t take a position on how to change the government, leaving Zanotti shadowboxing an invisible idea.

“We don’t have a proposal — We have a process,” Applegate said. Her slate promises to write a charter that will create “real, substantive change” and “facilitate economic development,” then put it before the voters in 2010. It’ll base its work on public input, while the proposal Zanotti backs was written by a small group, she argues.

“The worst time to come up with a new form of government is in the heat of a crisis,” Applegate said. “If you feel betrayed by your office holders, you don’t just throw out the entire system and pick up the first alternative that comes along.”

Rob Frost, county Republican chair, argued for action, not process. Cuyahoga County has seen failed efforts to create a charter in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1969, 1970, and 1980, he said, and none resulted in change.

Eric Brewer, who sounded like he didn’t want a charter at all, was the forum’s wild card. He debated in his usual style, throwing out a flurry of facts and figures faster than his opponents could respond. He, like Applegate, spent more time addressing the county corruption investigation than Zanotti or Frost did.

“As mayor of East Cleveland, a city that’s had 18 elected and appointed officials go to jail between 1995 and 2005, I think that we are well aware of what corruption does to a community,” Brewer says. Creating a county executive form of government is no guarantee against corruption, he argued, naming several counties nationwide with county executives and corruption scandals, including Summit County a decade ago.

Supporters of the county executive plan seemed to outnumber the charter commission supporters at the City Club — or, at least, they were louder. Applause broke out twice, once when Frost defended the county executive plan. “What we have here is a plan that calls for greater efficiency and a more accountable and transparent government,” he said. “I would say that the signatures of 80,000 people of this county to put this on the ballot speaks more loudly than the votes of two commissioners to put the alternative proposal on the ballot.”

The other big crowd reaction came when Joe Amschlinger, head of the Cuyahoga County Young Republicans, challenged Applegate’s assertion that the current government has checks and balances.

“The FBI is not listed in anywhere in the county charter,” Amschlinger said, “and far as I can see, they’re the only checks and balances we’ve seen in years!” The crowd laughed and clapped.

“One check and balance you have is three commissioners,” Applegate replied. “I don’t want to defend the status quo necessarily, but three people is a check and balance. I think it’s superior to one, under the two proposals, if you compare that. That’s a check and balance right there. Even some of the independence of the row officers — which, there’s lots of things to say for, and many more to say against — but they’re independent.”

By row officers, Applegate means the other elected officials: recorder, auditor, treasurer, sheriff, clerk of courts, et cetera. Her quote is somewhat confusing, but it gives us some sense of what we'll get if voters reject the charter proposed by Zanotti's group and elect Applegate's slate to a charter commission instead.

If you want a county executive and council, vote for the charter Zanotti’s group has put on the ballot.

If you like having the three commissioners in charge, but want some elected officials to become appointed, you might get that from the county commission process Applegate supports.

County reform debate today at City Club

Pistols at 50 paces: The dueling reformers are taking their battle over how to change county government to a showdown at the City Club today. I'll post a report this afternoon.

Fighting for a county executive and council: Parma Heights Mayor Martin Zanotti, part of the group that wrote the proposed charter on the November ballot, and county Republican chair Rob Frost.

Firing back against it: Harriet Applegate, local AFL-CIO head, and East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer. If we're lucky, Brewer will repeat his accusation that the county executive plan would leave us defenseless against "political thuggery."

I profiled Frost in 2007 ("Pork Roast") and Brewer in 2006 ("Ready To Rumble"). I got to question Applegate on WCPN last week -- and discovered that although she's running for charter commission, she is not taking a position on what county government should look like.

Dan Moulthrop of WCPN will referee the fight. No kidney punches, no rabbit punches...

Q&A with the mayor

Now Jackson's taking questions from the audience, as all City Club speakers do. This is usually a mixed bag of good questions and bad, good answers and bad.

Talking about how to help the newly unemployed, Jackson says he also needs to help people who have barriers to employment. It is a Jackson signature -- he says, yes, I'll do that, and I'll also go farther and include the people who are usually left out.

In the speech, he quoted his 2005 campaign line, that he should be judged by whether "the least of us" are better off because of what he does. Here he restates that, but in a way that is a less stirring: "The pace is not set by the quickest, but the slowest, because I can't leave anybody behind." Maybe it's me, but I felt like the room was suddenly a tad uncomfortable -- that line plays into the common criticism against Jackson: too slow, too quiet! (He sort of tried to recover, saying, well, things need to move at a bunch of different speeds.)

Also, someone asked if the mayor knows how much money we'll get from the federal stimulus package. It's not nailed down yet. "We will get our share. And when we get it, we are prepared to spend it." It sounded funnier the way he said it -- he often understates for comic effect -- and the crowd laughed. The city has set up an internal structure for a quick turnaround, he says, so it can start projects as soon as the money comes.

Live-blogging State of the City

I'm going to live-blog from Mayor Frank Jackson's State of the City address today. It starts at 12:30. Please stop by during or afterwards.

Here's what I'll be listening for:

The mayor will talk about how he's balanced the city's budget without layoffs -- the question is, will that still be true a year from now?

When he talks about the convention center and Med Mart, will he embrace the Mall site? (If the county commissioners are smart, they'll have briefed him on the pivotal engineering study, to be revealed to the public this morning.)

Since last week's murder in Perk Park has unnerved so many people, will he talk some more about safety downtown?

Will he embrace the city's new domestic partnership registry, to try to stop the petition drive being organized to repeal it?

Will he say anything bold enough to make believers in the bully-pulpit theory of city leadership warm up to him?

Will he leave any opening for someone to run against him this fall?

Ralph Nader debates Bob Barr in Cleveland

Bob Barr, former congressman and now Libertarian candidate for president, walked up to me, with WCPN host Dan Moulthrop at his side. Moulthrop shook my hand. "Welcome to Fringe Fest '08," he said.

I turned to Barr, who kept a poker face. "Good seeing ya," he said, offering his hand. I guess he's gotten used to being called fringe this year.

Cleveland's City Club hosted a third party candidates' presidential debate about the economy this Thursday. Appearing were Ralph Nader, who's at about 2.3 percent in the polls; Barr, who's at about 1.5 percent; and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, a Baptist minister, talk show host and columnist whom the pollsters don't even ask about.

The City Club room wasn't as packed as it was for the Jones-Sutherland or Mason-Butler debates. This one was organized and announced on very short notice. But several dozen people attended, so the room was pretty close to full.

You count on third-party candidates to bring up issues the major parties aren't touching. Nader, Barr, and Baldwin did that -- and also taught a lesson in how the hard-left, libertarian right, hard-right can agree on challenges to both Democrats and Republicans.

All three are against the financial bailout and think the government should prosecute Wall Street firms and banks for fraud instead. ("Tarring and feathering," Baldwin suggested, "might even be appropriate.") They all want to pull the United States out of international trade agreements, from NAFTA to the WTO (though Barr, a free-trader, says he's all for open trade and lowering tariffs, but against international organizations that can overrule American laws). All are against the war in Iraq and want our troops out (probably much faster than Obama would take them out). Barr, who regrets his 2002 vote for the Patriot Act, warned the Bush Administration had implemented a "tremendous unbridled growth of government power, and as a result, erosion of our civil liberties." Nader agreed.

The agreement was so striking that one audience member suggested they "combine forces" and field one candidate. This led them to politely point out their differences. "I believe in strong regulatory agencies, and single-payer health care," said Nader, who said thousands of Americans die each year because they don't have health insurance. Baldwin explained he is strongly pro-life and pro-gun rights.

Illegal immigration also showed their differences. Baldwin wants to shut the borders and crack down on illegal immigrants. Barr wants to open the borders to anyone who wants to cross, including workers, but screen travelers carefully to make sure they aren't a terrorist threat. Nader emphasized how migrant workers are exploited; he said U.S. policies toward Latin America hurt economies there and displace workers, that a crackdown should focus on employers, not migrants; and that migrant workers have to have the same rights as Americans, or else U.S. labor standard will erode.

One young questioner asked if participating in Social Security and Medicare should be voluntary. Yes, Barr and Baldwin said. Social Security, Barr said, is an "immoral program, whereby government takes, by threat of force, money from individuals. No, answered Nader. "What would Americans who are elderly be doing now," with retirement accounts' values dropping with the stock market, "if not for Social Security?" He launched into a passionate defense of "a sense of community" in society and argued that we, like the social democrats of Western Europe, should use government to create universal health care, "decent wages," paid maternity leave, sick leave, and day care.

(WCPN has some audio clips from the debate. C-SPAN taped the debate and is replaying it, but their online link doesn't seem to work, so here's a fuzzy version on Google Videos. The New Yorker recently ran an interesting profile of Barr.)