Where is the Professor?

The Professor, my favorite local political blogger, has gone missing. His blog, Political Science 216, has been removed from Blogger.

The anonymous, hilarious commentator has gone on sabbatical before, taking a break for a few months after the 2008 elections. In his last post, earlier this month, he said he'd be traveling Europe with his wife for two months but would return in August. Now I'm not so sure. An e-mail to the anonymous hotmail account once listed on his site just bounced back.

One possible reason The Professor has disappeared without a trace: Dave Bentkowski, the mayor of Seven Hills, sued him for libel last year. The Plain Dealer reported last Sunday (2nd item) that Bentkowski couldn't figure out who The Professor is, even after subpoenaing Google. But a judge has given the mayor permission to refile his suit if he ever succeeds in discovering his secret identity. "I have a plan for him," Bentkowski's lawyer, Brent English, hinted ominously.

Last fall (for non-litigious reasons), I also tried figuring out who The Professor is. I didn't get very far. Here's my profile of the cyber-masked man.

Plusquellic, Sutton win "Sexiest Politician" contest

The votes are in at Political Science 216, and Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton have been elected "Sexiest Politicians in Greater Cleveland."

The Professor's readers think power is sexy at any age. Plusquellic, 59, was the oldest of the male contenders, while Sutton, 45, beat out several challengers in their 30s and early 40s (as well as Judge Joan Synenberg, who's 48). Sutton's victory is her second in such competitions -- she was named one of Capitol Hill's most beautiful people last year.


As voting trends became clear, The Professor speculated that Plusquellic's supporters were flocking to his site, using the contest as a proxy war in Akron's mayoral recall campaign. But an Akron reporter I talked to recently thinks the surge for Plusquellic was authentic. Female reporters in Akron often gush about the mayor's good looks, he says: "He's got movie-star presence."

I guess I can see that. The mayor has sort of a Sinatra thing going in this picture, don't you think?

Bedford school board member "sent to his room... crying uncontrollably," say police

I can't add a thing to Mike McIntyre's Tipoff item about Andrew Mizsak's spectacular self-inflicted career-ending injury. Or The Professor's reaction. You've just got to read them. And the police report.

The Professor's "Sexiest Politician" contest returns

The Professor, the anonymous blogger at Political Science 216, has opened up the voting for his Sexiest Politician in Greater Cleveland contest. He encourages readers to "vote every single day between now and May 31!" State auditor Mary Taylor will defend her 2007 title against several challengers, including Judge Joan Synenberg, who seems to be an early favorite.

What about the guys? Looks like the Professor (or maybe his readers) lost interest in 2007 and never declared a male winner. This year's field of seven includes U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan -- who was one of Cleveland Magazine's Sexy Singles this year -- and Jeff Johnson, who's running to return to city council.

Just in case you'd like to judge their political talents as well as their photos, we've written about some of the candidates in the past. Here's my 2007 profile of Sherrod Brown, Colleen Mytnick's Joan Synenberg profile from 2006, our "singles profile" of Tim Ryan from this February, my coverage of Mary Taylor's audit smackdown of how Pat O'Malley ran his office, and a recent blog post of mine about Jeff Johnson, which leads to our 1999 profile of him and a 2007 update.

Who is The Professor, anyway? Here's my attempt to find out, from the fall.

The Professor's Amazing Time Travel Machine (or, 1912 or 2011?)

The Professor is inviting me to travel back to 1912 and help him fix the Ohio Constitution!

But I've got another idea. I want to jump ahead to 2011 instead.

My favorite anonymous blogger's had a great time lately over at Political Science 216, trying to start a movement to recall Jimmy Dimora. He created a mesmerizing pop-art logo for it, like Shepard Fairey's Obama poster. He founded a "Recall Dimora" Facebook group that now has 109 members, including Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett.

He even called the Board of Elections to find out how to get a recall petition started. (I hope he was going to use his real name and address, not "Peter Boyd" and Progressive Field.)

That's when he learned a shocking truth (one I didn't know either) -- we can't recall county officials.

You can read the Professor's entertaining law lecture here. But basically, the Progressive-era reforms in Ohio's 1912 constitution were not quite Progressive enough. We can't recall state officials either.

The Professor blames Dimora: "Using technology from MMPI, and flush with cash from Dick Jacobs, Sam Miller and the Ratner Family, Jimmy Dimora traveled back in time in a large time machine and bribed the drafters of Ohio Constitution..."

To fix this, the Professor's hatched a plan worthy of a Hollywood sci-fi caper flick. It involves him, me, blogger Tim Ferris and Plain Dealer columnist Thomas Suddes (surely included in the mission for his vast knowledge of Ohio political arcana: which Ohio counties voted for FDR, which were founded by Connecticut settlers, etc.) traveling back in time like in Quantum Leap to foil Dimora's dastardly plot.

Well, I never knew blogging could be this fun. If anyone's got a time machine, I'll jump in.

But like I said, I've got another idea. It involves 2011, not 1912. I'll post about it tomorrow.

(photo by Adam Lautenbach, from Flickr)

The Professor: Back from sabbatical

Class is in session again at Political Science 216. The Professor, my favorite local politics blogger, has returned from sabbatical and started his new semester with a new cause: recalling Jimmy Dimora.

Here's my profile of the Professor from the fall.

What did Fannie Lewis want?

The Plain Dealer has finally reported that a lot of people who were close to the late Fannie Lewis don't believe the grand dame of Hough really chose Stephanie Howse to succeed her on Cleveland City Council. They think council president Martin Sweeney and other lawmakers were lying when they named Howse to the seat.

I can't believe it took the paper so long to cover this story. Mansfield Frazier wrote about the controversy over Lewis' succession in Cool Cleveland on Aug. 20 and Sept. 3. I mentioned the dispute in my Sept. 5 blog post about Lewis, and when I talked about Frazier's work on WCPN's Aug. 28 reporters' roundtable, Frazier called in to the show. (If you download it, listen starting at 33:20 and 37:57.)

This ward meeting agenda, from three days before Lewis' Aug. 11 death, seems to prove that Lewis told some people she wouldn't name a successor. (But it could be interpreted as referring to the 2009 election, not her death.)

The controversy probably won't knock Howse off council. She won 46 percent of the vote in a special primary last week, compared to 12 percent for top challenger T.J. Dow, so she's the heavy favorite to win the Nov. 18 runoff. Still, The Professor of Political Science 216 has an idea for figuring out what the mercurial Ms. Lewis really wanted: holding a seance.

Update: Turns out the PD briefly acknowledged the doubts in the ward in this Aug. 19 story about Howse. Phillip Morris wondered why Lewis didn't endorse Howse publicly in his column that day.

Who Is The Professor?

My profile of The Professor, the anonymous blogger on Political Science 216, is online now. So is my complete e-mail interview with him.

The Professor loves publicity, so he's wallpapered his web site with quotes from it, links to it, hype about it, and gi-normous compliments about my work. I'd like to think he would've enjoyed my Pat O'Malley story anyway. But we're starting to look like book authors who blurb each other on our back covers. I promise, that's not why I wrote about him! (Professor: I appreciate your compliment, but sadly, magazine writers can't win Pulitzers.)

My story went to press before Seven Hills Mayor David Bentkowski sued The Professor and Scene over... well, I'll just let you read the Plain Dealer story about that. Bentkowski sued The Professor as "John Doe," because he can't figure out who the blogger is. I wanted to know too -- for totally non-litigious reasons -- and I couldn't figure it out either. But I managed to extract a few clues.