Springer rallies for Dems

Harry Meshel thinks Springer could make a good statewide candidate.
By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CANTON -- Jerry Springer is traveling across the Buckeye State to Democratic Party functions.
The TV talk show host is raising money for Democratic political candidates. He is bashing the Republican officeholders who dominate Ohio state government.
You'd think he was running for statewide office. Well, he just might.
The 60-year-old former mayor of Cincinnati says he's testing the waters for a potential statewide run, most likely for governor, in 2006.
"I might run," Springer said in an interview at a downtown hotel here. "I'm certainly thinking about that possibility."
TV image
Springer, host of "The Jerry Springer Show" for 13 years, decided last year to forgo seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich in November, saying he feared that political baggage connected to his raunchy television program might transcend his political message of fighting for the disaffected and disenfranchised.
"It's a plus. It's a negative," Springer said of the television show. "But that's totally irrelevant to what's going on in Ohio."
"I think it's stupid," he said of the show. "But, my show didn't close one factory."
Springer said Ohio is suffering under Republican domination of state government.
The GOP has commanding majorities in both the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate.
Also, Republicans hold every nonjudicial statewide office and hold a 5-2 majority on the Ohio Supreme Court.
Having been a city councilman as well as mayor in the 1970s, Springer is no political novice. He even ran statewide in 1982, losing a three-way Democratic gubernatorial primary to Richard F. Celeste, who defeated Republican U.S. Rep. Clarence J. Brown in the general election to become governor.
But even during his early political days in Cincinnati, Springer was no stranger to controversy; he reportedly wrote a check to a Kentucky prostitute.
Education is tops
If he decides to become a statewide candidate this time around, Springer said his priorities would be improving education and economic opportunities in this state.
Springer says improving public schools tops his potential to-do list.
"If you don't fix that, it doesn't matter what else you do," Springer said. "The other issues are jobs, jobs, jobs."
While declining to provide specifics, Springer said he'd explore concepts such as reducing class sizes, beefing up early childhood education, and possibly providing free college tuition for students who major in math and science and who agree to teach those subjects in public school systems for four years.
Again, while declining to provide specifics, Springer said one component of a potential plan to revitalize economic opportunities in Ohio would be unlinking employer-provided health care coverage for a pool concept the numbers of people looking to get health insurance would drive down the costs.
"If employers didn't have to worry about that, then that really lowers the cost of doing business," Springer said. "If you required everyone to have health insurance, all of a sudden that's so many more people in the pool. You would drive down the cost of health care. Those who can't afford it then you subsidize," Springer continued.
The competition
Other Democrats are also said to be testing the waters for potential gubernatorial run in 2006, including Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman and U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, a Democrat from Lisbon in Columbiana County.
Springer says the more candidates the merrier.
He added that if he runs he might have an advantage in both political fund raising and in the numbers of potential voters who would recognize his name.
Both were problems for former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Timothy F. Hagan, the 2002 gubernatorial candidate who lost to Taft.
Springer said a campaign for governor could cost millions and that he would likely self-finance a portion of it.
He has changed his legal residence from Florida to Ohio and also is making the Democratic rounds across the state. He said he raised about $300,000 for Democratic political candidates last year and has traveled to between 50 and 55 of the state's 88 counties so far to speak to Democratic dinners and other functions.
t least one political observer said Springer could potentially be a good statewide candidate.
Harry Meshel of Youngstown, a former Ohio Democratic Party chairman, said divorcing himself from the image of the show will be essential for Springer.
"If he does that well, I think his chances are good for elective office," said Meshel, a past president of the Ohio Senate.
"The people who hear him are all impressed by him. The question obviously is: How do you convey that warmth and expressiveness through advertising and television?" Meshel said.