Berding still Democrat. Francisco Franco still dead.

There was some fuss and bother at Tuesday night's meeting of the Cincinnati Democratic Committee, but, in the end, not much happened.

Jeff Berding, the west side Democratwho has been a thorn in the side of Mayor Mark Mallory and put together the tighten-the-pursestrings "Fiscal Five" on council, was endorsed by the Cincinnati precinct executives, along with four other incumbents and four challengers.

There has been grumbling in the party for months over Berding, who, they say, cut fellow council Democrats John Cranley, David Crowley and Cecil Thomas out of the action. Same could be said for Democrat Laketa Cole, who also joined the Fiscal Five, but most of the animus inside the party seemed to be directed towards Berding.

Many of the 120 Cincinnati precinct executives who showed up at Tuesday night's meeting in the Laborers union hall came planning to force the CDC to vote separately on each of the nine council members, because they believed they had a shot at denying Berding the party endorsement.

One of the party's veteran pugilists, former congressman Tom Luken, got up on his hind legs, railed about the process for awhile, and introduced a motion calling for "separation."

After 20 minutes of sez-who-sez-me "debate," Luken's motion failed by a vote of 64 to 59. Then, after a few more speakers had released some carbon dioxide into the room, a vote was taken on endorsing the whole nine-member slate. The final tally: 75 to 43 in favor.

Berding, for his part, had run this like a mini-political campaign. When they entered the hall Tuesday night, each precinct executive found a Berding lit piece on his or her chair, with endorsements from a host of Democratic elected officials - Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, Ohio Democratic Party chairman Chris Redfern, county commissioners Todd Portune and David Pepper, and former mayors Dwight Tillery and David Mann.

Berding also used a robo-call to all precincts executives with a personal testimonial from Portune. Many of them said they got the call three or four times; and that the call was four minutes long. That may sound like a long robo-call to you - most last a minute or two. But, then again, it was the loquacious Portune talking, and it takes him two minutes to clear his throat.

The main activity on the other side seemed to be a round of live phone calls made by Crowley - not exactly president of the Jeff Berding Fan Club - asking the precinct executives to force a vote on each council candidate individually.

In the end, though, the anti-Berding movement had the lifespan of a backyard bottle rocket on the Fourth of July.