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Cordray has hopes for higher office
By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Jun 15, 2008
COLUMBUS: ''More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.''
The quote is from St. Teresa of Avila and would seem fitting for Marc Dann, who aspired to higher office and was elected Ohio's attorney general only to resign in shame and scandal.
And now the Democrats have selected Richard Cordray to run this November to serve the remaining two years of Dann's term.
Cordray already has a great job. He is Ohio's treasurer.
But Cordray is considered a mental wizard with ideas, sometimes desultory in nature, bubbling to the surface non-stop and the treasurer's office can be a dull little place devoid of media headlines and public attention.
In his first few months on the job, Cordray's efforts to increase his recognition by having Ohioans make out checks to the state treasury in his name was heartily criticized, even lampooned.
Dann, on the other hand, was busy taking on the enemies of the common voter — pharmaceutical companies, payday loan operators, subprime mortgage lenders and building a reputation that many believed placed him in the lead position on the path to the governor's mansion or the U.S. Senate.
Then the rumors of an extramarital affair were found to be true, and an internal investigation into the office revealed a workplace where sexual harassment was tolerated and possibly enabled, according to Dann, by the boss's own behavior.
Despite Dann's legacy, Republicans are going to have a hard time beating Cordray this fall.
For this reason, the leading candidates for the job are begging off rather than lining up to run.
Cordray has been seeking political office since 1990 with varying degrees of success.
He was a state representative before losing races for the U.S. House, Ohio attorney general and the U.S. Senate.
Cordray fared better beginning in the new millennium, winning races for Franklin County treasurer and then a statewide run in 2006.
If he loses in November, he will remain state treasurer through 2010.
His prayers are presumably aimed at winning, because Cordray's aspirations are lofty, extending to the governor's mansion, the U.S. Senate, the Ohio Supreme Court, perhaps on a clear day, even further and higher.
The hard truth is being elected attorney general might not be the best path for Cordray.
It has not proven to be fertile ground for its most previous occupants.
C. William O'Neill was the last person to make the transition from attorney general (1951-57) to being elected governor in 1956. He was defeated two years later after supporting a ''right-to-work'' amendment to the Ohio Constitution.
Still, there has been this idea for a long time in Columbus that the attorney general's office is a great launching pad.
Since 1982, there have been four open races for governor, and in each, an ex-attorney general has run and lost.
William ''Billy'' Brown transformed the modern attorney general's office by creating the Consumer Protection Section after being elected in 1970.
Oh, the headlines he generated.
In 1982, he seemed on his way to being governor, but Brown failed to secure his own
Democratic party and lost in a three-way primary to Richard Celeste. In third, possibly because he wrote a personal check for a prostitute in northern Kentucky, was Jerry Springer.
This defeat did not deter Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr., who, heading into the 1990 gubernatorial election, appeared to be the front-runner against George Voinovich, the former Cleveland mayor.
Voinovich was considered a political washout after launching a disastrous campaign two years earlier against U.S. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, in which he accused the statesman of being soft on child pornography.
Lee Fisher was elected attorney general the same year, but lost a re-election bid in 1994 to Betty Montgomery.
This didn't stop the Democrats from selecting Fisher as their gubernatorial nominee in 1998. He has the ignominious honor of helping voters choose Bob Taft as governor.
In 2006, Betty Montgomery and Jim Petro, two Republicans who had office-swapped in the '90s and had both been attorney general, were primed to be governor. They and their loyalists spent a considerable amount of time talking about which candidate had been the top voter collector in prior elections.
When the Republican primary was completed, J. Kenneth Blackwell, who had started as treasurer and then was secretary of state, was the party's nominee. He lost to Ted Strickland, a former U.S. House member who had never run for attorney general.
Cordray, if elected this fall, would be returning to the attorney general's office. In 1993, Fisher appointed him as the state's first solicitor, responsible for high-profile cases at the appellate and supreme court levels.
Fisher, once considered politically finished, has made a considerable comeback.
He surveyed the landscape in 2006 and landed the one, obscure job that has launched, rather than sunk, political careers in recent years.
Fisher joined Strickland as lieutenant governor and now also heads the Ohio Department of Development, where he roams the state creating jobs and meeting personally with the top business executives in 88 counties.
Hope still floats for Cordray, because there's going to be a vacancy on Strickland's ticket in 2010.
Fisher, whose prayers were answered much better the second time around, is going to be too busy running for higher office.
Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.
COLUMBUS: ''More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.''
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