How to beat Mike Turner in OH3

I attended a small meeting of Democrats to hear Dr. MacNealy talk about his chances of a Congressional run tonight. I’ve also been looking at search results for Jane Mitakides last bid against Turner, and a bit of Charles Sanders material.

None of them have a clue at how to stand up to Mike Turner with his wonderfully smooth lines about all he’s done for the region. None of them know how to really talk about issues either.

Faulting Turner for voting Republican is like blaming the sun for daylight. He’s a Republican- that’s what they do. And talking about issues like health care, abortion, the death penalty, stem cell research are all pretty much moot points. What has to happen is the gloves have to come off and talk about the real Mike Turner vs. the puffed up one that does no wrong.

For all his claims about his saving of Dayton; Mike only has a few success stories that he can truly claim as his own, and tearing down two x-rated movie houses didn’t exactly turn our city around.

He can’t take credit for Baseball, that was started by Tony Capizzi and final negotiations were by Clay Dixon. He can’t take credit for Riverscape, which was spearheaded by Reynolds & Reynolds (and David Holmes, former CEO was Tony Capizzi’s biggest backer against Turner). He can’t take credit for lasting management, with his first pick, Bill Estabrook being run out of town in a year, and Valerie Lemmie botching her exit with a failed deal in the UK.

He failed at the basic Constitutional stuff as well. My arrest was an affront to the First Amendment (and remember, he’s a highly trained lawyer), and his dogged attempt to win cost the city many hundreds of thousands- all to possibly collect a guilty and a max of $1000 from me. He fought the civil rights legislation spearheaded by Mary Wiseman, which later passed. He was unable to work with Dean Lovelace to get anything done about predatory lending, and was asleep for 4 years in Congress while our County is one of the most foreclosed areas in the country.

He did manage to make sure that as they flatten the city, we don’t implode buildings into the basement and leave them as archaeological sites- which is great, but wouldn’t it be better to have seen investment flood back into the city and see those homes rehabbed and occupied?

His “Brownfield” legislation helped make some questionable sites become usable- however, the real question is who really benefited from this? The citizens or the former polluters? Some of those polluters are his leading supporters.

It’s quite amazing when one reads his bio of how many things he accomplished singlehandedly. I know others who would say that Rehabarama was their idea, but Turner likes taking credit for others work.

What may be the most significant statement of all as to his great accomplishments as our “Urban Mayor” is that he lost in an expensive election to a woman who can barely make a speech in public- and that he soon pulled up stakes and left his urban/historic/rehab manse for a “patio home” in a gated community in Centerville.

When he first ran for Mayor he was driving a little Dodge Shadow with a George H. Bush bumper sticker. Soon after getting elected, he was driving a Cadillac.

If anyone thinks Mike Turner is a man of the people, for the people, it’s time to take a second look. It will be interesting to see how much he nets from the sale of MTC, his former? employer, and recipient of many defense contracts since Mike ended up on the Armed Services Committee.

You don’t get millions to spend on campaigns if you don’t sell out to special interests, and that’s what Mike Turner has been most successful at. In terms of taking care of the average resident of OH-3, he’s not been that interested in your well being- not unless you are willing to send him thousands of dollars.

It’s time someone called him on the carpet for his largess at our expense. It’s time someone went to Washington and looked out for those of us struggling with how to put gas in our tank, instead of tanks of gas in Iraq.

Of all the candidates, there is no one else who has watched Mike Turner from the start, who can take his claims and cut away the window dressing. Mike Turner wasn’t Dayton’s savior, that’s just the picture he likes to paint.

Time to take the whitewash and add some Esrati style technicolor. And this is just the beginning.

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