Thursday, October 27, 2005

Mallory Shines, Pepper Whines

Today's Cincinnati Enquirer features duelling endorsements from two celebrated figures of local public life. Judge Nathaniel Jones, icon of the civil rights movement, endorses David Pepper, while Stanley Aronoff, former president of the Ohio Senate, endorses Mark Mallory.

So both candidates have heavyweights in their corner. But for different reasons. And the differences matter.

Jones notes that Pepper served as his law clerk. And he notes that Pepper authored rules for the Cincinnati City Council that require civility. And he notes that Pepper is white, and that Jones, who is black, believes that block-voting by racial groups is bad. He also offers that the scion of the corporate chairman and product of prep schools and the Ivy League is bright.

(SWNID asks gentle readers to explain the point of Jones's next-to-last paragraph, if there is one. We can find in it no hint of relevance to the endorsement of Pepper for mayor, but we see lots of celebrities' names in it. It might lead some to believe that one of Cincinnati's brightest lights has dimmed with age.)

Aronoff, by contrast, offers the litany of reasons to vote for Mallory that SWNID first published early in September. The man is a moderate, humane manager, a skillful politician, respected by the widest range of public figures imaginable in this age of extreme partisanship.

Well, you know where we stand on this. But the obviousness of the choice is becoming embarrassing. If this is the best that Pepper can do, this race won't even be as close as we predicted it won't be.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This "moderate, humane manager" accepted the endorsement of racist organization known as The Black Fist.

I am not sure Mallory is the type of person we need as mayor of our city.