What happened to Charlie Winburn?

Mayoral candidate Charlie Winburn talks with voter Cathy Bolten at her polling place in Westwood on Election Day. (Photo by Tony Jones/The Cincinnati Enquirer)

Charlie Winburn's strategy -- drafted months before he even announced his campaign for Cincinnati mayor -- was a foolproof, can't-lose road map to 801 Plum St.

On paper, anyway.

In October 2004, Winburn commissioned a secret poll to test the waters for a mayoral campaign. When the pollster said he could win, Winburn shared a copy of the poll and its conclusions with the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Pollster Verne Kennedy of Florida-based Market Research Insight wrote:

Can Charlie Winburn place at least second in the mayoral primary? Can he win the primary? If he gets into the general election, can he win? The data indicate that the answer to all three questions is a qualified "yes."

With respect to the primary, if the field turns out to be more than one Democrat and only one Republican, it can be expected that the Democrats will divide up the Democrat vote and thus eliminate much of the Democratic voter advantage that exists, making a second or even first-place showing by Winburn possible....

As the data indicate, a targeted campaign aimed at Republicans, informing them of Winburn's support by Republican leaders and law enforcement organizations, and Pepper's and Mallory's liberal positions on issues such as gun control and abortion, would make Republicans much less likely to support Pepper and Mallory and much more likely to support Winburn.

Winburn must gain support of white Republican leaders in the area who have the ability to influence other Republicans. There is no chance that a white Republican will be mayor of the city; however, Winburn, an African-American Republican, does have the ability to become mayor. White leaders should use the time between now and the election to introduce Winburn as their candidate to Republicans in small groups and in direct mail. Winburn must work separately with African-American voters, especially churchgoing Christians, to ensure minority support.

Kennedy put together a magic formula of 80 percent Republicans, 50 percent of African-American Democrats, and 50 percent of independents.

How did Winburn do on that plan? According to a WCPO poll released on the eve of the election, Winburn had 35 percent of Republicans, 15 percent of blacks and 21 percent of independents.

"I've done 458 campaigns in 25 years, and this is the damnest one I've ever seen," said Bethel Nathan, a Texas-based political consultant that Winburn brought in to help with his campaign.

"When it gets right down to it, I don't think white Republicans voted for him," he said. "They walked in the booth, and they couldn't pull the lever for Charlie Winburn. I don't call it racism. I just call it not being able to change the status quo."

Bethel said the campaign had a textbook "flushing" operation, identifying likely Winburn voters who had not yet cast a ballot in key precincts and reminding them to vote -- even offering transportation to the polls.

Once they got there, they voted for business-oriented Democrat David Pepper, Nathan said.

Even the absentee ballot campaign backfired, he said. "There's no way we should have been running second on absentee ballots," Bethel said. With their superior organizations, Republicans always get the lion's share of absentees. Tuesday, Pepper had 12,012 to Winburn's 8,054.

But Winburn himself said he's not bitter at GOP voters, and insists that it wasn't Pepper who cost him the election. "If you look at my 9,000 votes, they're anti-Pepper people," he said. (Winburn is putting off his endorsement of one of the remaining candidates until he has a chance to meet with Pepper to talk about his crime platform, though Winburn and Mark L. Mallory seemed especially chummy toward the end of the campaign.)

Winburn blames a late start on his campaign (he didn't announce until June 16), and said he needed another three weeks to capitalize on the momentum from recent endorsements from the Fraternal Order of Police and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

"We tried to squeeze in six months into 90 days," he said. "We really did our best."