The 2021 Cleveland Mayoral Election and last night’s CCPC Forum
Since absolutely no one asked I thought I’d bless you all with some thoughts on this year’s Mayoral race in Cleveland. Since I live just a few blocks west of the Cleveland border in Lakewood, I’m not writing as a Cleveland voter or resident. However, as for everyone in Northeast Ohio and especially Cuyahoga County, the fortunes of Cleveland have a very big impact on my life. Having said that, even if I did live in Cleveland proper and had a vote it would be extremely difficult for me to find a candidate worth supporting and voting for. All of the candidates have some significant flaws and I couldn’t support any of them without reservations.
Last night there was an online forum put on by the Cuyahoga County Progressive Caucus in which all of the candidates participated. For a refresher they are, in no particular order:
Zack Reed (Former Cleveland City Councilman who made it to the general election against Mayor Frank Jackson and lost in 2017 with pro-police message)
Sandra Williams (Current State Senator known for close ties to First Energy)
Ross DiBello (Young lawyer running as progressive outsider. Has little chance of winning)
Basheer Jones (Youngish charismatic Cleveland Ward 7 Councilman)
Kevin Kelley (Cleveland City Council President. I would’ve thought he’d be a frontrunner but his campaign doesn’t seem to be taking off)
Justin Bibb (youngest person in the race running as a sort of Mayor Pete/Obama type technocrat, the number one choice of liberal non-profit types)
Dennis Kucinich (former longtime Congressman, former Mayor of Cleveland more than 40 years ago. Thought of as “progressive” due to his Presidential runs but is now running on a far right “law and order” Trump-like message)
As you can see there is no progressive/left/socialist/DSA/WFP type Democrat in this race. This isn’t Buffalo and there’s no India Walton. It’s more akin to New York City Mayoral race with plenty of awful choices and no single candidate for progressives to rally around. It’s also similar to the New York City Mayoral race in that the most successful strategy seems to be scaremongering about crime and railing against a non-existent “Defund the Police” position that literally no candidate and no one anywhere in city government is actually advocating.
True in Cleveland, unlike in New York, there actually has been a rise in some crime statistics to accompany the hysteria. Most notably, there were a record number of homicides per capita in 2020, though virtually all other categories of crime have gone down and are certainly below where they were the last time Dennis Kucinich was Mayor in the late 1970s. But of the ways that he could’ve attempted to become Mayor again 40 plus years after the first time as some weird sort of bookend, Kucinich decided early on that running an ultra-pro-police “tough on crime” campaign was the way to do that. He has remained laser focused on that issue for his entire campaign and last night’s forum was no change. While it’s not like the other candidates are exactly abolitionists, and Zack Reed ran a similar campaign in 2017, Kucinich’s singular grim focus on being the biggest cop bootlicker in the race is to me the most salient feature of this entire despicable election cycle.
This is the reason I was going into last night’s forum with the singular focus that, whatever happens, Kucinich must be stopped. If Kucinich wins running this campaign with this message the most reactionary elements of the local establishment, police and police unions, the most right wing Democrats, and old conservative white voters, will be empowered and in charge. What people keep saying to me is some variation of “the other candidates will hire more cops too.” Again, I get that none of them are abolitionists, but no one else is literally promising hiring numbers: 400 cops! helicopters! Yes everyone else are basically middle of the road Democrats who support police, but the deliberate choice to run such an extreme and despicable law and order campaign, to the exclusion of basically any other issue, has to have some kind of consequence in governance. No one else is emphasizing or centering these issues the way Kucinich is. I know negative voting is hard sell for some. But I really think that stopping Dennis Kucinich from winning is the most important thing this election cycle.
Case in point and last night’s forum when this issue came up he answered the question in an even more despicable and shameful manner than I thought he would. There is a very minor reform initiative that will be on the ballot allowing for more powers for a Civilian Review Board. While some candidates said they agreed with the initiative and others said they opposed certain aspects Kucinich had the nerve to say that “it was just defund the police by another name.” Even I was shocked that Kucinich would stoop this low. There is absolutely nothing about the police budget or number of police officers in the proposed initiative. It just allows for some very mild oversight by civilian board members. And I’m sure Kucinich knows this. He also knows that the slogan “defund the police” doesn’t poll well and that politicians like Eric Adams and others are doing well railing against it. So if there’s no “defund the police” to run against he’ll just say that something else is “defund the police”. If this is how he’s reacting to even the mildest suggestion of reform or civilian oversight of the police now it certainly doesn’t bode well for how these issues would be handled in a potential Kucinich administration.
I don’t endorse any candidate in the Cleveland Mayoral race but the most important thing is to vote against Dennis Kucinich.
