Voinovich: White Knight to Goat

My disappointment with George Voinovich stems mostly from the way his bizarre performance this month contrasts with the white-knight start he got on the national scene.

In 1979, I was a high school kid in northeastern Ohio. I liked the place where I lived. I was a big fan of the Cleveland Browns (though they hadn't made the playoffs since 1972) and the Indians (though they hadn't won a pennant in my lifetime) and the music (rock-n-roll, courtesy of a radio station with an evil looking, hippie-haired buzzard for its logo).

Despite a sense of loyalty to the city of Cleveland, I can't say I was proud of it. After all, our town was the butt of jokes all over the country. And a big reason Cleveland suffered such indignities was because of Dennis Kucinich. Yeah, that Dennis Kucinich. You might say he was a local version of our then president, Jimmy Carter.

Dennis Kucinich, the "boy mayor" of Cleveland, had enmeshed the mayor's office in half a dozen embarrassing incidents that climaxed with the city's fiscal collapse and default on its loans. With the financial woes, the antics of the mayor, and a highly publicized issue regarding water pollution in the local Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie, Cleveland became the stuff of late night comedy.

After an unsuccessful recall election to oust Kucinich, George Voinovich was the candidate who finally replaced him in the next regular mayoral race. Voinovich went on to guide Cleveland into a renaissance wherein that city finally transformed itself from a rust-belt tragedy to a service-economy success story. It almost seemed magic. Even the Browns and Indians started winning again. People still made fun of Cleveland, Ohio, but folks there now had their sense of civic pride back and could look out-of-town friends in the eye while telling them where to stick their Cleveland jokes.

Regardless of whether his roll in Cleveland's comeback was real or symbolic, George Voinovich became symbol for that comeback. He also became a kind of hero. In the early 1980s. He was to Dennis Kucinich (Denny-Boy, as we called him) as Ronald Reagan was to Jimmy Carter. Later, Voinovich became governor of Ohio and then Senator.

Denny-Boy, meanwhile, was eventually rehabilitated by Cleveland Dems who didn't want a negative memory of his tenure hanging around their necks. Kucinich's career has been resurrected so that now he can look silly running for president instead of mayor.

And twenty-six years after being elected mayor of Cleveland, George Voinovich has transformed himself from white knight to goat.

Worse yet, he deserves to be a goat.

For anyone who hasn't followed the news, Senator Voinovich missed the first sessions of the Senate subcommittee meeting considering John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador. Upon his tardy arrival, Voinovich stalled the confirmation process by announcing significant reservations about Bolton based on highly implausible accusations by a lady with an admitted history of dishonesty.

Today, Senator Voinovich added to the weirdness by raking Bolton over the coals, calling him unfit for the position of U.N. Ambassador, and then voting to send his nomination to the Senate floor where he would vote against Bolton.

The truly strange part is that if Voinovich really wanted to kill the Bolton nomination, he could have done it right there in committee. With Bolton's nomination on the Senate floor, the only thing that can stop him now is a real skeleton stepping out of his closet.

Voinovich is trying to play both sides of the street. Now he can tell red-meat Republicans that without him, Bolton's case would have died in committee. Then, by voting against Bolton on the floor, he can tell Dem-leaning swing voters that he voted against Bolton.

"I voted for him before I voted against him."

I think Voinovich has been listening to too many experts telling him how to position himself as a "moderate Republican". He doesn't really care about Bolton one way or another. Instead, Voinovich's chief concern is to win reelection in a state still highly agitated over the close returns in the 2004 race. He may also be trying to position himself as a V.P. candidate in 2008.

As it is, the red-meat Republicans (that is, the base) are going to remember his wishy-washiness in 2005 and many of them won't bother getting off work to vote the next time he runs for Senate. Meanwhile, the left leaning swing voters will be very strongly reminded by Voinovich's next opponent just how two-faced he has been in this matter.

I don't believe he'll be reelected to the Senate. His seat will pass to the Dems.

It might even pass to Denny-Boy.