Cuyahoga Politics Today • Historic new leadership team poised atop Cleveland City Council

Boy Scout word of honor, we are not trying to gin up an exciting Democratic primary for the County Executive race, but somebody is. Lee Weingart started his campaign for the Republican bid in February and is likely to be unopposed. He’s had nothing but pure fun most of this year beating up on incumbent Armond Budish like an overstuffed piñata.

Nobody was much paying attention though, given the fierce Congressional primary battle to replace Marcia Fudge, won by Shontel Brown, and an impossible to handicap Cleveland mayoral primary.

Only Armond was excited about his third term, which of course was a chimera of his own imagination. One astute and literate political observer, a Budish friend and former supporter, told us he couldn’t decide if Budish’s contemplation of a third run was due to a singular lack of self-awareness, overwhelming chutzpah, or a combination of the two.

Not even a frontal challenge from the politically reticent Chis Ronayne’s leaving a cushy and lucrative job as University Circle Inc. president was enough of a signal to Budish that the sun had set on his political career. It took a small battalion of Budish buddies, acting after regular articles began to gush from the Plain Dealer, reminding voters of his administration’s incompetence, to discourage an Armond encore and lead to a public acknowledgement of his lame duck status.

The possibility of a free pass for Ronayne that then emerged prompted those who have long profited from the decades-long weakness of the county’s Democratic Party to begin an immediate search for a new horse.

Mayor Katie Gallagher of Brooklyn was perhaps their first choice but she was quick to decline.

Maple Heights mayor Annette Blackwell played the seeming reluctant for a while before entering the race this past week. As we noted last Sunday, days before she finally declared her candidacy, Blackwell has the potential to capture the nomination. She's achieved remarkable success in restoring fiscal health and civic energy to her city, and Maple Heights is just large enough to give her a geographic base from which to stage a primary campaign.

By contrast, Ronayne will likely rely upon a patchwork of areas across the county to help him win the May 2022 primary, in a manner mildly imitative of how the Bibb team achieved its September success in Cleveland’s nonpartisan mayoral primary. Ronayne has the money to do so, but whether he can mount as savvy an effort as Bibb's is yet to be determined. He’s hired Burges and Burges as his political consultant, but right now he appears to be managing his own campaign, which is surely outside his wheelhouse.

A Blackwell-Ronayne matchup would be the most skilled pairing of competent managers the county exec race has seen. Competent management is what voters opted for when they overwhelmingly agreed to reorganize county government in 2009.

But competence is not the main quality backroom politicians seek when they recruit candidates. They want friendliness in appointments and legislative proclivities amenable to their patron saints, fiscal or otherwise. In that regard, the old pols who've long had their way in judicial appointments, county contracts, and miscellaneous patronage are not overly enamored of either Blackwell or Ronayne.

Which may be why rumors have been floating around for more than a week that Warrensville Heights mayor Brad Sellers is being pressured to run. Credence for such chatter comes from the fact that the remnants of the Parma Boys, who can't expect much from Cleveland's new executive and legislative leadership team [see more below], did have a working relationship with a certain former Congresswoman now high in the Biden administration. She's the very same former Warrensville mayor who recruited Sellers into public service when his professional basketball career was over.

We reached out to Sellers last week for confirmation and response about his possible interest in a countywide race. He didn't get back to us. Those close to him seem in the dark as well. So consider us skeptical of his CE candidacy until we hear otherwise.

We will note wryly that were Sellers to enter and win the nomination and go on to take the general, we'd have to begin seeing Warrensville as our county's Lima, Ohio. The small east side suburb would be home to both the area's Congressional representative, Shontel Brown and its county exec, just as the Ohio Statehouse is dominated by Speaker Bob Cupp and Senate President Matt Huffman, who both hail from Lima.

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Incoming Cleveland City Council president Blaine Griffin named his leadership team earlier this week. Ward 3's Kerry McCormack will be Majority Leader, and Ward 14 councilwoman Jasmin Santana will be Majority Whip.

For those who keep track of such things, this 21st Century Mod Squad is remarkable for its relative lack of councilmanic experience. Griffin was appointed to council in May 2017, only a few months after McCormack was tapped as Joe Cimperman's replacement in late 2016. Santana defeated an incumbent to win her Clark-Fulton seat in November 2017. Griffin of course was a integral part of the Jackson team for many years, and certainly has extensive knowledge of recent City Hall history.

Still, this is likely the freshest councilmanic leadership team in memory. It’s certainly the city's most diverse ever, and undoubtedly the first ever without a heterosexual white male, given McCormack's status as council's first openly gay member. And Santana is certainly the first Hispanic member of council leadership, and certainly reflective of what may the largest contingent — five — of women ever on Council at one time.

Combine that with the youthful experience of the incoming Bibb administration and you will have to concede that the old guard is no longer running the show at City Hall. Of course, we'll have to temper the scope of any inferences to be drawn from that, pending review of campaign finance reports. [Where in the World is Umberto?]

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