Jason Williams

jwilliams@enquirer.com

Politics Extra is a weekly column looking inside Greater Cincinnati and Ohio politics (Scroll to the bottom to read "Micro-scoops & more")

Critics and supporters of Cincinnati mayoral candidate Yvette Simpson for weeks have been quietly questioning her campaign strategy.

The campaign appears to be bumbling, and it showed this week in how she handled "campaign volunteer" Jessica Byrd's racially charged social media post about Mayor John Cranley. Simpson has refused to disavow the African-American volunteer's "stale pale male" Facebook comment about the white mayor.

Heck, Simpson refused to answer any questions about the comment.

“The candidate really has the option of either running from it or owning it," said David Niven, political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. "It’s a public campaign, and people are weighing who you are and what you stand for. You can’t take a middle ground on something like this, but she took the (stance) that can’t possibly do her any good – let’s pretend this didn’t happen.”

Simpson campaign volunteer pulls 'stale pale male' Facebook post about Cranley

Smitherman: Using race card on Cranley 'appalling'

Simpson had a chance to make this a positive story for herself. Race had already been playing a role in the race – fueled by some of Simpson's backers – and the city councilwoman had an opportunity to quell some of the racial rhetoric by disavowing Byrd's comments. Instead, we're left to wonder if Simpson agrees with Byrd, a political strategist with Washington, D.C.-based Three Point Strategies and a leader of a group called Democracy in Color that seeks to boost the number of minorities in politics.

"There’s so much that you could say criticizing the mayor without the language of race," Niven said. "Yet here you are in 2017 – 54 years after Dr. Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech – and you’re saying, 'no, we’re not there yet.' "

Simpson actually doubled-down and tried to make money off The Enquirer's report about Byrd's comment. Just hours after our story posted on Wednesday, Simpson's campaign sent a fundraising email.

"Don’t the residents of Cincinnati deserve more from their paper than click bait?" the letter says. "Join us to denounce this incendiary reporting and build our campaign to talk to every Cincinnati voter."

A link to the campaign's donation page immediately follows that line. What was that about click bait?

The fundraising letter also says Byrd's comment "wasn't actually newsworthy." It most certainly was, and here's why: What if someone Cranley acknowledged to be a volunteer on his campaign had posted a racially insensitive comment on social media about the mayor's black opponent? There'd be no question we'd report it.

But Simpson suggested to an Enquirer editor earlier this week that we wouldn't cover it. She said Cranley's "supporters say plenty of racially charged ... things about me on their social media." She provided no examples.

There's a difference between a supporter and someone officially acknowledged by a campaign as an active volunteer. (But we're skeptical about Byrd's role. National political strategists typically do more than volunteer, but Simpson has refused to answer questions about Byrd's role beyond identifying her as a "campaign volunteer.")

Still, PX reached out to Simpson on Friday to ask if she could provide any examples of Cranley volunteers or staffers making racially inappropriate comments about her.

"Not even going there," Simpson said. "Lived through this once with John's folks. Not gonna do it again. Focusing on my election, and not gonna feed some race-laden narrative to get clicks."

Again, Simpson provided no examples. We presume the Democrat was referring to the 2013 campaign, when someone named Jim Kiefer posted racist comments and memes about Simpson on Facebook. Kiefer had been identified as a Cranley supporter in a WCPO.com story, but Cranley's campaign said they had no idea who he was and issued a statement disavowing Kiefer's comments. Cranley's team also made it clear Kiefer had no official connection to the Democratic candidate.

Let's make this clear: Any racially insensitive comment is unacceptable and hurts the cause of eliminating racial injustice. That's why PX calls it out. We've also called out Cranley for his temper and for his lack of transparency on former police chief Jeffrey Blackwell's settlement.

As PX has said before, accountability is color blind.

FORMER PROSECUTOR WEIGHS IN

Local attorney and 700 WLW talk show host Mike Allen put the story about Byrd's comments into perspective in his own Facebook post Wednesday. Here's what the former Hamilton County prosecutor and local Republican party boss wrote:

Stop and think ... what the media and public outcry would be if the roles here were reversed, and Mayor Cranley's campaign team used an ugly racial slur to refer to Councilmember Simpson. It would be national news. The "campaign volunteer" would be immediately fired and Mayor Cranley would be publicly shamed, vilified and pressured to resign. Ms. Simpson's campaign spokesperson claims that the author of this racist remark is a "campaign volunteer." WRONG. She is Jessica L. Byrd, who runs the Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Three Point Strategies. She was on Time Magazine's "12 New Faces of Black Leadership" list in 2015. She's a high powered political consultant and hardly a "campaign volunteer." I like Councilmember Simpson. ... However, many have commented, including Council member Christopher Smitherman, that her campaign is unabashedly and unapologetically injecting race into the mayoral campaign. I think it would be safe to say that calling Mayor Cranley a "stale pale male" falls into that category. Ms. Simpson needs to lose the smugness and apologize and fire this "campaign volunteer" immediately.

MICRO-SCOOPS & MORE

• Hamilton County GOP Chairman Alex Triantafilou was at the White House on Friday afternoon to be part of the president's annual celebration of Greek Independence Day. It's been a long-time tradition for both Republican and Democratic presidents to invite Greek-American leaders to the White House each year to celebrate the occasion. Triantafilou is a first-generation American whose parents were born in Greece, and he is very proud of that heritage. Triantafilou has been one of Donald Trump's strongest supporters in Southwest Ohio, if not the entire state.

• Simpson is mentioned in a piece in the April edition of Essence magazine. "The Year of the Black Woman Mayor" story touches on Simpson overcoming growing up poor in Lincoln Heights to become the first person in her family to graduate from college. The issue hit newsstands Friday.

• Gov. John Kasich's ability to ruffle feathers in his own party has made him one of the world's greatest leaders, according to Fortune. The Republican ranks No. 12 on the magazine's annual list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders. From Fortune: "As the leader of a politically consequential state, the Trump skeptic commands a key platform. Lately he has used it to rally GOP governors behind preserving the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion." Kasich is in high company on the list, which also includes Pope Francis, billionaire philanthropist Melinda Gates, NBA superstar LeBron James and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

• Councilman Chris Seelbach has received a national endorsement for his re-election bid. The Democrat is one of eight candidates from across the U.S. to receive the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund's endorsement. The organization focuses on recruiting and training LGBT candidates for local, state and federal offices.

• Cincinnati's Charter Committee now is considering endorsing ahead of the May 2 mayoral primary, the good-government advocacy group's leader Bob Dehner said. That's counter to a previous decision to wait until after the primary. Asked why the committee is considering moving up its endorsement, Dehner said: "It may be an opportunity to weigh in on the side of a candidate who Charter feels strongly about and carries out Charter principles." PX's translation: Charter wants to try to give Simpson's campaign a shot in the arm. She is a Charter-endorsed member of council, and has several allies on the committee.

• Some 300 people showed up for an Ohio Democratic Party fundraiser hosted by local politicos Aftab Pureval and P.G. Sittenfeld on Tuesday in Over-the-Rhine. Insiders say the large turnout exceeded expectations and was another example of Democrats being highly motivated to get involved during the Trump era.

• Marriage equality champion Jim Obergefell has endorsed Over-the-Rhine Democrat Derek Bauman in the City Council race. Bauman, a public transportation advocate and retired police officer, is running for public office for the first time.

• Cranley's campaign plans to launch its first television ad on Monday. The ad is positive, touting Cranley's work on public safety, minority inclusion and jobs. It'll kick off a five-week TV ad blitz leading up to the primary.

Follow Enquirer political reporter Jason Williams on Twitter @jwilliamscincy. Send tips, questions and comments to jwilliams@enquirer.com.