Susan’s Suggestions for the Elections – Primary Tuesday, March 15, 2016

The upcoming election is a Primary, which means you do not actually vote for who will take office in January of 2017, but who from each party will run against the other party in November for those seats.  This means you may only vote on a Democrat Ballot or a Republican (or Issues Only, Green or nonpartisan).  If you are voting by absentee ballot, you will have to choose which one to vote when you request your absentee ballot. When you choose, you will be registered as a member of that party until the next primary election when you can again change your mind.  Whichever party you vote for now does not mean you are in any way committed to voting for that party come November. At that time, you can support whichever candidate you wish.

Often, when choosing which party to vote under in a Primary, the consideration is which offices are contested.  In Cuyahoga County, no Republican has won a county-wide elected seat since the 1980’s, and that is usually a good reason to vote Democrat, in order to influence which candidate will ultimately be on the November ballot (and therefore a shoe-in to win), since influence is much stronger at the more local levels.  In this election, with a highly contested Presidential race and so few challenged Democrat seats at the county level, voting Republican makes more sense than usual.  As no party adequately represents Jewish Values, there can therefore be valid reasons to support either party. As always, I will offer recommendations under both tickets, and, unless there is reason otherwise, only comment on contested races. Please consider voting for the following:                                                                                                                               

Republican                                                                                         Democrat           

President:  (at large)        John R. Kasich	President:                                         Hillary Clinton
President:  (district)         John R. Kasich	US Senate:                                        Ted Strickland
U.S. Senate:                      Rob Portman	State Representative 9th District:  Janine Boyd
Justice Supreme Court:   Pat Fischer	Judge of Common Pleas General: Michael Astrab and
Pat DeWine	Michael P. Shaughnessy
Member State Central:   Susan Rodman	Judge Common Pleas Domestic: Francine Goldberg
	Tonya R. Jones
(yes, please do vote twice for Kasich above)
	Cuyahoga County Prosecutor:      Tim McGinty

 

Issue 23: Health and Human Services Tax Renewal: Vote Yes

If you don’t vote, we don’t count.

Please vote and be counted on Tuesday, March 15, 2016

 

Expanded Edition

All Primary Ballots:

Issue 23 Cuyahoga County Health and Human Services: Tax Renewal.  No new taxes here. This is a renewal and not an increase.  This is the right tax to support.  There are services to the community provided by HHS that we hope never to need, like addiction counseling and Homeless services, but there are those that our community benefits from greatly like Early Intervention, Healthy Start, Board of Developmental Disabilities, and Senior and Adult services etc. Health and Human Services offers help to those most vulnerable in our county and it is our duty to support proudly them. Vote YES

 

Democratic Primary Ballot:

President: Hillary Clinton – Generally seen as the less-leftist candidate. Her opponent is openly socialist and history has proven socialism to fail time and time again, sometimes giving way to oppression and violence. Anyone you know moving to Venezuela? Clinton has a more presidential temperament and her experience in the executive branch as Secretary of State.

State Representative 9^th District: Janine Boyd – Formerly on the Cleveland Heights City Council, knows our community and what we value and wants to represent us well. Ms. Boyd is well liked by those in our community who have worked with her.

Prosecuting Attorney: Timothy McGinty – This race is highly contested. However, at the core, the real question is only: Does Mr. McGinty deserve to be fired or would Mr. O’Malley be better?

This race mainly became contested because of McGinty’s handling of the Tamir Rice case, a tragic case in which White police officers shot a Black young man after being informed (erroneously) that he was armed. The question is not whether the officers were at fault, but rather whether Mr. McGinty did the right thing in bringing the evidence to the Grand Jury.  In the end, everyone was a little unhappy. The police were unhappy that McGinty presented to the Grand Jury when he could have used his discretion to determine that the evidence does not support criminal charges.  The Black community was unhappy because, although he did bring that evidence, he didn’t get the indictment that they wanted. He did his job, which was to present the evidence. True, Mr. McGinty generally has a reputation as a nasty individual, someone who doesn’t play well in the sandbox. However, this is the kind of job that if neither side is completely happy, then he’s probably doing it right, and in the final analysis, his personality works. 

Looking beyond this lone case, Mr. McGinty has pushed for budgetary accommodation to make sure all DNA collected in violent crimes gets tested in a timely fashion. Those delays nationwide were an embarrassment.  His exemplary program brings the promise of prosecution of over 1000 old cases  of serial violence, offering a chance to get the dangerous off our county’s streets.  He is also credited for pursuing widespread corruption, eliminating the patronage that preceded his tenure, hiring only the most qualified including increasing the number of minority and women working in his office.  He spent $1 million in criminal forfeiture on Dash Cameras with the hope of having one for every Cuyahoga County police officer.  He has torn down hundreds of abandoned homes serving as havens for crime. Of particular Jewish interest, he has moved the Aliza Sherman case forward by indicting her lawyer.

Judges: I have only made recommendations for contested races, with the exception of Francine Goldberg as she is not only a fine judge but also a respected member of our community.

 

Republican Primary Ballot:

President:

Yes, you have to vote twice on the Republican side. It has to do with the new rules of how the delegates are divided.  Some are by district and others are “at large”. In theory, you could choose two different candidates, but if you do that, you could be eliminating the chance that your candidate gets in because Ohio is a winner-take-all state. 

The Case for Kasich: The candidate that has the greatest preparedness for this land’s highest office is the one with experience as a governor. He has the ability to be tough, draw a line in the sand and hold it, but also know when and how to be a statesman.   Kasich has supported issues we support, such as School Vouchers, and has forged a relationship with our community for which we should be grateful. Kasich is also the one who has economic credibility having been the architect behind President Clinton’s balanced budget and surplus in the 90’s, as well as foreign policy chops sitting on the Armed Forces Committee for many years. Some like him because he is more centered as in accepting the Medicaid expansion other Republican governors eschewed. In so doing, he brought funding back into Ohio that would otherwise have bled out only to support that expansion in other states.  Others like him because of his ability to move conservative values across the aisle: When he made the Medicaid expansion, he also included a stipulation that even Rick Perry (TX) and Scott Walker(MN) couldn’t get done in their more conservative states – he worked with Democrats to put in a provision tying it to the attempt to work for the able-bodied applicant without dependents to insure the solvency of the program for Ohio and decrease fraud. Governors actually run states, whereas Senators, although leaders, do not have this executive skill set in their job description. His decidedly positive campaign and real feel give him a likeability as well. This is an Ohio election to decide who gets the Ohio delegates.  So if we are voting based only on qualifications, Kasich is your man.

Beyond experience, there’s the candidates position on issues. Using the available analysis tools, Kasich, Rubio and Cruz all came out most closely aligned with preferred positions. The differences between them were not significant and while you will read at length about their pros and cons, there is good reason to believe all three would be excellent presidents.  Cruz and Rubio do have solid government experience, but Kasich remains the best choice.

Politics:  If your goal is the “anyone but Trump” goal, you have to start considering strategy, rules and polls. There are two ways to get there: The first strategy: the main reason Trump is succeeding is because the remaining votes are split among 3 candidates. If 2 would drop out, the 3^rd would almost certainly get the nomination. But it seems unlikely that any more candidates will drop out before our primary. Without that, the chances are very slim that one can get enough support to overtake Trump.

The other strategy is to maximize the votes of the other candidates, with the likely outcome that there would be a brokered convention, where it is more likely a non-Trump candidate would prevail even if Trump came to the convention with the most votes. A brokered convention will occur if no single candidate is able to exceed 40% of the delegates overall nationally, and according to some to also top 50% in at least 8 states.

The difference between these two strategies comes to a fore in Ohio and Florida. These two states are winner-takes-all, rather than proportional delegates like most states. It is unlikely that the leading candidate – Cruz – can beat Trump in OH or FL, which risks Trump getting the OH and/or FL bonanza, and likely to secure the nomination. But Rubio (the FL Senator) has a very good chance of beating Trump in FL, and Kasich (who is very popular in OH) does in OH. Given this strategy, voting for Kasich in OH makes the most sense.  This is also the reason in the delay in getting this out. I was waiting to verify this strategy by looking to see if after Super Tuesday, Kasich rose in the Ohio polls. None were available, but Kasich is within reach of Trump in last one prior, and Kasich is now the top candidate in our neighboring Michigan which being the same region, is significant. So for both purposes, Vote Kasich.