Cranley touts city’s growth, Whaley defends decline

On Apr 25, 2022

John Cranley, former mayor of Cincinnati, and Nan Whaley, former mayor of Dayton, participate in the Ohio Gubernatorial Democratic Primary Debate at the Paul Robeson Cultural & Performing Arts Center at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio on Tuesday, March 29, 2022. Meg Vogel/Ohio Debate Commission

Former Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley can’t stop talking about his city’s comeback.

In ads, debates and speeches, Cranley touts Cincinnati’s recent population growth as a personal accomplishment that should qualify him for the next job: Ohio governor.

Meanwhile, his Democratic primary opponent Nan Whaley has fashioned herself as a candidate as gritty and steel-spined as the city she led: Dayton.

Over the past couple of decades, Dayton has faced the loss of key businesses, a foreclosure crisis and a massive opioid overdose problem – and that was before the tornadoes, Ku Klux Klan and a mass shooting struck.

“The only way I got through it all was to be as tough as the people of Dayton and the people who raised me,” Whaley said in an ad launching her gubernatorial bid.

As the former mayors seek to unseat GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, the cities of Cincinnati and Dayton are on the ballot.

That’s obvious from Cranley’s new ad, contrasting Cincinnati’s population growth with Dayton’s decline. It asks the pointed question: “Who’s the best Democrat to beat DeWine and lead Ohio’s comeback? The mayor whose city is getting worse?” Five fellow mayors swiftly called on Cranley to take the ad down for “belittling” Dayton and its residents.

The competitors boast similar résumés: Both cut their teeth in local politics before serving as mayors of Southwest Ohio cities. Each hopes to become Ohio’s first mayor-turned-governor since Republican George Voinovich won in 1990.

By objective measures from population to poverty rate, Cincinnati is faring better than Dayton. But how much credit can Cranley take for Cincinnati’s successes and how much blame should Whaley receive for Dayton’s longstanding problems?

“Nan has managed the decline (of Dayton) compassionately, but to beat a Republican in a state like Ohio, I think we need somebody who’s got results (that) are better than Ohio’s,” Cranley told the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau. “My record of getting growth and jobs and wage increases is better than the status quo.”

But Whaley contends that Cranley’s Cincinnati had advantages that most Ohio cities can only dream of: multiple Fortune 500 companies, prominent universities and professional sports teams, including the recent Super Bowl contending Bengals.

“As mayor, he was born on third and thinks he hit the triple and it’s really been there the whole time,” Whaley said in an April interview.

How bad was it?

Cincinnati has seen a resurgence. At the turn of the century, the Queen City’s image was tarnished. Its population had been on the decline since the 1950s. Anti-LGBTQ language in the city’s charter drove young residents away. Civil unrest ripped the city apart. Violent crimes and murders were up.

But in the decades since, Cincinnati’s leaders have worked to rehabilitate that image with police reform, protections for LGBTQ residents and a revitalized area around the Ohio River. That work culminated in a recent U.S. Census victory: Cincinnati was growing, albeit with a modest 4.2% increase over the decade.

Meanwhile, in Dayton, the hits kept coming. Between 2008 and 2009, General Motors, automotive supplier Delphi and ATM maker NCR, which was founded in Dayton, left town. The city’s population dropped nearly 15% between 2000 and 2010 even as Ohio’s inched up by 2.3%, according to U.S. Census data.

“Knowing and feeling what rock bottom is like is something that I felt before becoming mayor,” Whaley said.

In that context, the city’s 2.7% population decline between 2010 and 2020 doesn’t seem as dire. In comparison, Youngstown’s population dropped by 10% and Toledo lost 5.7% of its residents over the past decade.

“The advantage that we have in Dayton is that we have more resilient people,” said current Mayor Jeff Mims, who has endorsed Whaley for governor. “We had a deeper hole to climb out of.”

Cranley pushes back on that narrative – that it was somehow easier to transform Cincinnati after the loss of businesses like Chiquita, race riots and history of discrimination against LGBTQ residents. Facing the same headwinds as other Midwest cities, Cincinnati climbed out of a “very big hole,” he said.

That should count for something, Cranley said. “If leadership doesn’t matter, what’s the point of running for governor?”

Deconstructing Cincinnati’s comeback

In a 30-second ad, it’s easy for Cranley’s pitch about Cincinnati’s comeback to appear egotistical. Those in Cincinnati politics who see Cranley as more of a roadblock than a catalyst bristle at the term.

But Cranley is quick to point out that he didn’t do it alone.

“There’s no question that our city’s comeback has been a team effort,” Cranley said. “The civil rights leaders led the efforts on racial justice and I was smart enough to listen to them.”

Among those leaders was the Rev. Damon Lynch III, who along with Cincinnati Black United Front, launched a months-long economic boycott in 2001. That boycott cost Cincinnati an estimated $10 million as stars such as singer Smokey Robinson and actor Bill Cosby called off events there.

Black leaders protested racial profiling and police brutality that culminated in the death of 19-year-old Timothy Thomas. His death set off several nights of civil unrest that tore the city apart.

From that low point, the city crafted a plan to improve police-community relations called the Collaborative Agreement, settling a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Black Cincinnatians.

Lynch III now backs Cranley’s bid for Ohio governor, a fact Cranley touts on the campaign trail: “Twenty-some years ago, they were saying, ‘Don’t spend money in Cincinnati’ and now they’re saying, ‘Make the mayor of Cincinnati governor.'”

Lynch commends Cranley for sitting through contentious meetings between police and residents with fellow councilmembers. When it came to his endorsement, Lynch said he has nothing against DeWine and doesn’t know Whaley personally. “I would love to have that kind of connection to a person who sits in that seat. It’s pragmatic.”

The Collaborative Agreement is just one of Cranley’s campaign talking points. He touts landing a Major League Soccer team, building the largest municipal solar array in the country and passing policies to protect LGBTQ residents – a dramatic turnaround for a city that once banned such protections in its charter. As a councilman, Cranley pushed to expand the city’s hate crime ordinance to include sexual orientation.

These changes helped retain and attract residents to Cincinnati, its leaders say. And Cranley can claim his slice of the credit, said David Pepper, who served on Cincinnati City Council with Cranley before leading the Ohio Democratic Party.

“It’s more than fair for (Cranley) to say I was a key part of the turnaround of Cincinnati,” Pepper said.

But Cranley’s time as mayor was also contentious. He had a public, and ultimately costly, fight with his city manager Harry Black, served as nearly a third of the City Council was arrested for alleged corruption and feuded with everyone from a Hamilton County commissioner to the Cincinnati Park Board. He faced criticism for the outsized influence of developers on city policy.

“To any other point about Harry Black or any other noses out of joint, again, I get results. You can’t make an omelet without breaking any eggs,” Cranley said. “I’ve been a strong leader and sometimes that upsets people.”

Cranley’s successor, Mayor Aftab Pureval, has taken a different, more collaborative approach to the job. Pureval, also a Democrat, hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the governor’s race.

“We stepped into a City Hall that lacked trust amongst its constituents because of the drama, because of the corruption,” Pureval told the Cincinnati Enquirer editorial board this month. “The culture here was somewhat toxic.”

Rebuilding Dayton

Much like Dayton, Whaley isn’t pitching herself as the richest gubernatorial candidate or the flashiest one. In fact, Dayton is worse off than the state by several metrics: a lower median household income, a higher poverty rate and one of the highest housing vacancy rates in the state.

“The trajectory of Cincinnati is clearly higher than Dayton,” Pepper said. “That gives John an advantage in that argument.”

But Whaley says the only fair way to measure Dayton’s progress is to consider the hole its leaders had to climb out of. The Great Recession hit Dayton as hard as any Midwest city, says Whaley, who was a city commissioner when its last Fortune 500 company left town in 2009. Elected mayor in 2013, Whaley served through early 2022.