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Title: ASGP News Circulator 2/12/01 pt 2
- Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 14:00:16 -0500
- From: Greg Gerritt <gerritt@edgenet.net>
- Subject: ASGP-COO ASGP News Circulator 2/12/01 pt 2
Copyright 2001 The Columbus Dispatch
The Columbus Dispatch
February 8, 2001, Thursday
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. 1C
LENGTH: 774 words
HEADLINE: 9 VYING FOR 3 COUNCIL SEATS
BYLINE: Doug Caruso, Dispatch City Hall Reporter
BODY:
Green Party candidates likely will join Republicans and Democrats in a
May primary race for the
Columbus City Council.
Nine candidates turned in petitions by the 4 p.m. filing deadline
yesterday and there is room on the ballot
for just six candidates in the November race for three council seats.
If petitions filed by at least seven candidates stand up to Board of
Elections scrutiny, voters will decide
in a nonpartisan primary who will move forward on May 8.
The nine who filed yesterday are three incumbent Democrats: Kevin Boyce,
Maryellen O'Shaughnessy
and Richard W. Sensenbrenner, and fellow Democrat Mike Mitchell;
endorsed Republican challengers
Sallie Gibson, Annie Hall and Stu Harris; and endorsed Green Party
candidates Bob Fitrakis and Greg
Richey.
Richey said he's aiming to knock Republicans off the November ballot and
isn't worried about drawing
support away from Democrats.
Many charged that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader took away crucial
support from Democrat Al
Gore in last year's presidential election, costing Gore the election.
"Maybe I might be overly optimistic on this,'' Richey said, "but I think
maybe I can beat out the
Republicans.''
Richey, a mortgage-loan closer for National City Bank, ran for Congress
last year with the endorsement
of the Natural Law Party. He called that experience an "educational''
campaign that he did not expect to
win.
"I'm going to be running this campaign to get elected,'' he said.
Fitrakis, a columnist for Columbus Alive and a political-science
instructor at Columbus State
Community College, said it is likely that he will drop out of the race
because of his work duties.
But he said he thinks that if his candidacy is certified, the Green
Party will be able to replace him on the
ballot.
Like Richey, he said he thinks Republicans are the most vulnerable in
the primary.
"It's a real good year for the Greens because the two Republican
candidates besides Annie Hall are
really weak,'' Fitrakis said. If Green Party candidates can make it
through the primary, he said, the
campaign debate could shift to the left, focusing on Democratic and
Green principles.
The idea of a primary didn't seem to faze the major-party candidates
yesterday.
"I love a good food fight,'' Hall said. "Let's go.''
However, Hall, a former member of the Columbus Board of Education and a
lobbyist for Bank One,
said she does not plan "to spend a nickel'' on a primary campaign.
Instead, she'll save her cash for the
November general election.
Boyce, who was appointed to the council last year, said he'll take the
opposite tack.
"I think you go all out right now,'' he said. "You live for each moment
and the moment right now is the
primary.''
O'Shaughnessy, who won a council election running on a team with
Sensenbrenner in 1997, said she
and Sensenbrenner will work with Boyce to make sure he makes it through
the primary.
"We're going to do the best we can to be one, two, three in whatever
order, '' O'Shaughnessy said. "We
are raising money for TV, particularly for Kevin.''
Harris, an assistant Ohio attorney general, said he'll ante up for a
primary campaign, too.
"I'm looking forward to it,'' he said. "Obviously it would be better to
have more time to prepare for what
will be an uphill battle in November.''
Mitchell, a youth counselor for Comp Drug, said he hopes Franklin County
Democrats, scheduled to
issue their endorsements on Feb. 27, will wait until after the primary
to back candidates. But he
acknowledged that it's likely the party will endorse the three City
Council incumbents.
"My concern is gaining votes,'' he said, "not taking votes away from
anybody.''
Sensenbrenner and Gibson didn't return calls for comment yesterday.
Elections officials have not yet set a date by which petitions will be
certified. Candidates need 1,000
valid signatures from registered voters to make the ballot. Most turned
in at least twice that number.
The last City Council primary was in 1995, when nine candidates filed to
run for four open seats.
In 1991, when nine candidates also filed to run for four seats,
Republicans won the top four spots in the
primary, but won just two seats in the November general election.
No primary is held if just two candidates for each open seat are
certified for the ballot.
There will be no primary in races for city attorney and city auditor.
City Attorney Janet E. Jackson and
her Republican challenger Kim Browne each turned in petitions yesterday.
In the auditor race,
incumbent Hugh J. Dorrian and Republican challenger Jeffrey Snyder filed
petitions.
Copyright 2001 The National Journal Group, Inc.
The Hotline
February 6, 2001
SECTION: WHITE HOUSE 2004
LENGTH: 202 words
HEADLINE: NADER: MAYBE MICHAEL MOORE WILL DO A MOVIE, "RALPH AND ME?"
BODY:
In These Times' Ireland writes, "Where's Ralph?" That's
what many of Ralph Nader's supporters have been asking. Ask
Nader himself "and he maintains he's doing a lot." Nader: "It's
very hard to get press attention, much more so than in the
campaign." As to his "invisibility" during the confirmation
hearings, Nader says Dems "shut him out": "I sent letters to
[Sen. Pat] Leahy ... asking to testify against John Ashcroft,
and he didn't even have the courtesy to respond." Why didn't
Nader "hold a press conference denouncing" Senate Dems for "toke
opposition" to Ashcroft? Nader: "Well, ... I've don a lot of all
this on radio." Clearly, there's more to his recent absence.
But also, "it's obvious that Nader has not yet firmly fixed his
course." One Nader advisor: "Ralph really has only two choices:
shut up or build the Green Party." Nader, who has never
officially joined the Greens: "I've been trying to encourage the
Green Party to establish a national presence, ... and to help
recruit hundreds of candidates in 2002." No matter what Nader
does, "if he does not make up his mind soon" there a "danger he
will have missed his moment, if he hasn't already" (3/5 issue).
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