Council candidates start choosing up sides

Council members David Crowley and Laketa Cole speak to the Camp Washington Community Council in 2003. The two incumbent Democrats are campaigning as a team in 2005. (Photo by Craig Ruttle/The Cincinnati Enquirer)

There used to be a time in Cincinnati politics when party slates ran as a team, on a single platform, and worked together to take -- or keep -- control of City Council. But the 1970s brought an area of free agency and unstable coalitions to Cincinnati politics, and it was every man -- and occassional woman -- for himself.

Nowhere was that more evident than the Democratic Party, whose candidates seemed to compete more with each other than with the Republicans and Charterites. But this year, Democrats are pairing up in an effort to boost their appeal across the city.

Council Democrats David Crowley and Laketa Cole are tag-teaming on radio ads running on African-American stations: (Ad in .mp3 format)

CROWLEY: What matters, isn’t where you came from, but what you do with your life.

COLE: Council member David Crowley has spent his life serving others — as director of the Ohio Commission on Aging, managing Peace Corps projects in Africa, even running a program to save AIDS babies in Romania.

CROWLEY: Council member Laketa Cole and I have learned that you get more done if you’re willing to share the credit for what you accomplish.

COLE: Over the past two-and-a-half years Council member David Crowley and I have worked together on a host of issues and I have found him to be one that stands and works with the people.

CROWLEY: When Cincinnatians work together, it’s amazing what we can accomplish.

COLE: That’s why Council member Crowley and I have worked behind the scenes on issues like preserving Sunday bus service, lead abatement and saving health centers in Evanston, Winton Hills and the West End.

CROWLEY: I’m Democratic Council member David Crowley.

COLE: And I’m Council member Laketa Cole.

CROWLEY: When you vote on Nov. 8, I ask that you give one of your nine votes to Laketa Cole.

COLE: And I ask that you give one of your nine votes to David Crowley.

CROWLEY: Paid for by Crowley for Council, Tom Kircher, treasurer.

Like the slate-within-a-slate of Democrats Eve Bolton and Wendell P. Young, the Cole-Crowley ticket has the advantage of being racially balanced, and the radio ad is designed to help boost Crowley's stature in the African-American community. And Cole benefits, too -- she doesn't have the deep campaign coffers Crowley has, and the radio spot essentially gives her free air time.